LTV's Hamptons Summer Songbook by the Sea Presents Steve Ross and Karen Murphy: Best of the Versed

LTV Studio’s Hamptons Summer Songbook Series will host “Best of the Versed: Celebrating the Opening Lyrics You May Not Know to Tunes You Thought You Did” on Saturday, June 29, at 7:30 p.m. The evening will star Steve Ross and Karen Murphy and will be produced and hosted by David Alpern.

Explore the vivid universe of verse in the Great American Songbook: tunes both familiar and obscure, but all with now rarely-performed introductory lyrics, poetic, pithy and artfully crafted to tie into so many Golden Age stage and screen musicals; or provide free-standing context — emotional, comical, always lyrical — as originally written by Ira Gershwin, Larry Hart, Cole Porter, Dorothy Fields, Johnny Mercer, Sammy Cahn, Herman Hupfeld and more.

Steve Ross has performed over decades at venerable venues throughout Manhattan, across the country and around the world. His nearly dozen CDs include musical explorations of Stephen Sondheim, Alan Jay Lerner, Cole Porter and Noel Coward.

Karen Murphy’s Broadway credits include: “A Little Night Music,” “9-to-5,” “42nd Street” and “Titanic.” Off Broadway most recently she was in “The Jerusalem Syndrome” and previously “My Vaudeville Man,” “Zombie Prom” and “Forbidden Broadway.” National tours include: “Finding Neverland,” “Mary Poppins,” “White Christmas” and “Les Mis.”

Producer and host David Alpern, son of a “girl singer” on the road and radio circa 1939, was a reporter, writer, editor and radio host for Newsweek Magazine for over 40 years, interviewing politicians, policy experts and entertainers including Katherine Hepburn, Tony Bennett and several stars of this LTV cabaret series: Steve Ross, Anna Bergman, Mark Nadler, K.T. Sullivan, Christine Andreas. Long a Sag Harbor resident, these days he reviews books for the East Hampton Star and hosts programs for local libraries.

Tickets are $50 in advance and $55 at the door at ltveh.org. VIP café seating is available for $80. LTV Studios is at 75 Industrial Road, Wainscott.