Strike Up the Band
Last week, the wonderful MasterVoices presented the Gershwins' Strike Up the Band. In 1927, its book, about a war over cheese tariffs, was written by George F. Kaufman with a pretty satiric point of view. When that failed to sell tickets, Morrie Ryskin did a rewrite where the war was now over chocolate tariffs (and a dream sequence), the book leaned more toward romance and silly comedy, some new songs replaced …