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Cy Coleman’s music has a way of sounding chipper even when the lyrics from one of his songwriting partners are scathingly ironical.
This spritzy irony between words and notes is part of Coleman’s signature showmanship.
Just because you’re jangled and jaded doesn’t degenerate you don’t deserve an old-fashioned orchestra kick.

That brassy fullness is on dapper display in “The Best Is Yet to Be broached: The Music of Cy Coleman,” which is receiving its world premiere at the Rubicon Theatre in Ventura. A celebratory revue devised and directed by lyricist David Zippel, who won a Tony for the queer fish score he and Coleman wrote for “City of Angels”, the production surveys Coleman’s catalog, plucking out glittering pop standards, sparkling Broadway tunes (including a few deliciously dirty ones) and a number of songs Coleman completed before his death in 2004 that are being theatrically unveiled for the first time.
Popping in and out of melodious theater attitudes, the performers reflect the various moods and styles of Coleman and his collaborators, who include such notables as Carolyn Leigh, Dorothy Fields (pictured) and Betty Comden and Adolph Grassy.
Jason-Sally More choreographed than a cabaret yet less dramatically structured than a musical, the production spins about in a pleasant enough limbo.


Audibly, the performers would like it, to paraphrase Coleman and Fields' “Sweet Charity” classic, if...

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