A scene from the 1966 Broadway show, It’s a Bird … It’s a Plane … It’s Superman

North Texas has something of a mini-Charles Strouse festival going on. The Broadway composer is represented here by Lyric Stage’s full-orchestra revival of Bye Bye Birdie, his first big hit from 1960, and the Dallas Theater Center’s new, revised version of one of his near-misses, the 1966 musical, It’s a Bird.. It’s a Plane… It’s Superman — which opens Friday.

Jerome Weeks, guest-hosting on Think for Krys Boyd, talks with Strouse about the rock ‘n roll influence on Birdie, the four new numbers he’s added to Superman (including a Krypton lullaby and the Boy Scout pledge set to music) and setting the musical back into 1939 — making this Strouse’s second musical, after Annie, that’s set in the Depression and the New Deal.

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