Humans are communal creatures. We gather, we flock; to do so means that we array ourselves for the event: there’s a location and a time. Perhaps, certain circumstances might also be of influence—the lure of live music on a summer evening has been a pleasure of gathering humans for centuries. Some summertime concert series now have decades of fame.

There are now musical works of modern composers that have decades of fame and there’s merit in the investigation of how a work of art becomes resonant out of its creational context. Evidence of a work’s enduring merit exists in how that work becomes internalized in subsequent generations—how it is copied, included or imitated—how the work exists within the lineage of art, within or beyond its genre. Because modern times are what they are, one form of evidence to a work’s enduring qualities involves a form of theater generally called impersonation. Perhaps the impersonation exists in the manner of a small town, a historic theater, and a master of ceremonies who impersonates Ed Sullivan. There are some people who will have to research the significance of Ed Sullivan now: there are some people for whom memory is history. In the realm of impersonation, not as much research might be needed for a theatrical tribute to the musical works of The Beatles. […]