"Soliciting Subscriptions" lyrics - RAY CHARLES

We bring drama to your great metropolis,
We are the little theatre group.
Each of us has built a small acropolis
To hold our little theatre troupe.
We'd be very glad to meet you, and greet you, and seat you and treat you just
Great.
For all commercial art is hollow;
So follow Apollo and swallow our bait
Help to serve the art of your Cosmopolis,
If you'll be one of us,
Each son of us will welcome you at the gate.
The neighborhood playhouse may shine below the Macy Gimbel line,
It was built to make a ride for people on Fifth Avenue.
To Yeats and Synge and Shaw and such we add an oriental touch,
We bring out the aesthetic soul you didn't know you have in you.
We like to serve a mild dish of folk lore quaintly childish
Or something Oscar Wildeish, in pantomime or dance.
Grand Street folk we never see'em, they think the place is a museum
And we know just what we do, because we always take a chance.
The Provincetown Playhouse still owns the art of Robert Edmond Jones,
]From the classic drama we're a notable secessionist.
We've even made the censors feel the verity of Gene O'Neill.
The meaning doesn't matter if the manner is expressionist!
Our one great contribution to art is revolution!
Our mood is very "Roosh-in" you can tell it at a glance.
Our bare stage may look funny but it saves us lots of money.
And we know just what we do, Because we always take a chance.
For your attention, many thanks we've brought along subscription blanks,
For actor's Theatre that the audience may glory in.
The dear old "Servant in the House" the "Pride of Mister Rankin Touse,"
And plays by Henrik Ibsen in a manner quite Victorian!
We spurn the bedroom dramas with heroes in pajamas,
For things that pleased our Mamas such as Candida's romance.
We wear the sock and buskin to the taste of old John Ruskin
And we know just what we do, because we never take a chance!