by Daniel Hathaway
This article was originally published on Cleveland.com
CUYAHOGA FALLS, OHIO — Composer and lyricist Cole Porter left New Haven in 1913, taking with him his newly-earned Yale diploma and a portfolio of some 300 songs that already cemented his reputation for witty lyrics and memorable tunes.
Many of those — and many more — would end up between the covers of the Great American Songbook. And also in such endearing revues as Tony DeSare’s “Cole Porter: Let’s Misbehave,’ that played to a large and enthusiastic audience at Blossom on Sunday evening, August 23.
Far from creating a nostalgic excursion down memory lane, the evening’s program presented Porter’s music as a living, breathing organism that might have been written that very morning.