Pigeons, Popes and Pollution: The Songs of Tom Lehrer

WHO IS TOM LEHRER? Those who grew up in the 1950s with an irreverent, iconoclastic streak will need no introduction to Tom Lehrer, the Harvard math student whose wildly satiric songs such as “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park,” “I Wanna Go Back to Dixie,” “The Masochism Tango,” “The Vatican Rag,” “National Brotherhood Week” and “Pollution” made him a surprise cult favorite. After three albums and a decade of touring, Lehrer returned to Harvard in 1960 and retired from the stage. He has taught at the University of California in Santa Cruz since 1971, but his albums continue to sell, as generation after generation of skeptical young minds learn to appreciate the off-center wit of the man whom The New York Times famously wrote of in 1959: “Mr. Lehrer’s muse is not fettered by such inhibiting factors as taste.”

Conceived and directed by Phil Gellis, ,i>Pigeons, Popes & Pollution features 27 classic Lehrer songs, performed by a cast of four that includes Lisa Ann Green, Barry Mastellone, Andrew Schwartz and Gellis himself. Music director Stephen O’Leary accompanies at the piano.

The theater box office opens 1 hour prior to curtain.

Appropriate For All Ages