Each month, Jason Fortner spotlights one or more musical theatre composers and/or lyricists, offering his own unique perspective on the songwriting legends of musical theatre. Send your comments/questions on this column to happgood@aol.com.

While listening to the recently released Off Broadway cast recording of the 2006 musical I LOVE YOU BECAUSE I paid particular interest to "The Actuary Song", in which one of the female characters likened her friend’s past and future dating history to the probabilities in an insurance actuary chart. This clever number, music by Joshua Salzman and lyrics by Ryan Cunningham, got me to thinking of other songs from musical theater history that use a similar instructional "how to" format. These numbers, from a wide range of musicals, offer up great advice to the observer/listener.

First off, we have a number of songs offering up dating tips. In WALKING HAPPY (Music: James Van Heusen, Lyrics: Sammy Cahn) the lead character of Will asks his pal the question "How D’ye Talk To A Girl?" to which the reply is to just "listen and listen and listen". In the upcoming stage version of Alan Menken & Howard Ashman’s THE LITTLE MERMAID there’s seduction advice from Sebastian the Crab in the number "Kiss The Girl" while Ruth Sherwood tells the girls in the audience the "100 Easy Ways To Lose A Man" in the Leonard Bernstein/Comden & Green score to WONDERFUL TOWN. In another era, the characters of Helen and Jane offer up advice on love to leading man Donald Marshall in the "The Great Lover Tango", featured in the 1973 revival version of IRENE (Music by Harry Tierney, Charles Gaynor & Wally Harper, Lyrics by Joseph McCarthy, Charles Gaynor, Otis Clements & Jack Lloyd).

Speaking of dancing, Dolly Gallagher Levi offers up her how to dance lessons in "Dancing" from Jerry Herman’s score to HELLO, DOLLY! Many musicals offer up the various ways to do specific dances, from the "Walla Walla Boola" in Noel Coward’s THE GIRL WHO CAME TO SUPPER to "The Kangaroo" in BRAVO, GIOVANNI (Music: Milton Shafer, Lyrics: Ronny Graham) to the quintessential how-to dance "The Varsity Drag" in Desylva, Brown & Henderson’s GOOD NEWS. In a more revealing number, the three burlesque strippers of GYPSY offer instruction in dancing of another kind to Louise in "You Gotta Have A Gimmick", music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. This features the now immortal lines:

"If ya wanna make it, twinkle while you shake it...
If ya wanna grind it, wait till you’ve refined it…
If ya wanna bump it, bump it with a trumpet!
So get yourself a gimmick and you too can be a star!"

Sondheim, no stranger to lists and clever lyrics, offered up an amazing example in his classic A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC. In the song "Now", Fredrik lays out the various ways he might or might not seduce his still virgin wife Anne. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the oversexed and unmarried Miss Adelaide in Frank Loesser’s classic GUYS & DOLLS uses a medical book to create her own self diagnosis of her sniffly ways. In the flop musical GOLDILOCKS (music by Leroy Anderson, Lyrics by Joan Ford, Jean & Walter Kerr) leading man Max Brady rattles of the ABC’s of why "I Can’t Be In Love", all done in a very academic fashion. For a much coarser look at lust, one need look no further than the song "Be Italian" from Maury Yeston’s NINE.

Of course, sometimes love’s got nothing to do with the instructing, as is the case with "The Caper" from 70, GIRLS, 70, a Kander & Ebb number where Harry is telling the cast (and the audience) the intricacies of shoplifting items from Sadie’s Store. In Charles Strouse’s score to MAYOR, we are taught the various ways that "You Can Be A New Yorker, Too" (including a liberal spicing of profanity). Several musicals give instruction on how to speak a foreign language, most notably the opening "Valse Milieu" in Monnot & Heneker’s IRMA LA DOUCE and "No Understand" from the Rodgers/Sondheim score to DO I HEAR A WALTZ? You can even learn the finer points of Cockney rhyming slang in the number "Down The Apples ‘N’ Pears" from Leslie Bricusse’s score to SHERLOCK HOLMES.

The leading man in the short-lived SO LONG 174^th STREET (score by Stan Daniels) is offered instruction on how to be an actor in the number "Say The Words", melodiously voiced by the seedy director character played by George S. Irving. And who can forget J. Pierrepont Finch reading to us from his book in the title song from Frank Loesser’s HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING? You can learn how to be a suave con man on the French Riviera with the opening number to David Yazbek’s DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS, a song appropriately titled "Give Them What They Want". Another con man in another era taught us that "It’s A Simple Little System" in Styne/Comden/Green’s BELLS ARE RINGING while Uncle Sid, as played by Jackie Gleason, instructed the crowd on the best way to pull a practical joke in the "Sid, Ol’ Kid" number from Bob Merrill’s TAKE ME LONG. Richard Kiley and company asked those with the cash to "Be My Host" in Richard Rodgers’ NO STRINGS while Sam Harris instructed the audience in the finer points of THE LIFE in a score by Cy Coleman and Ira Gasman.

Mary Martin taught a whole generation how to fly in the Styne/Charlap/Leigh/Comden/Green version of PETER PAN with the number "I’m Flying" but I think the most famous how to song ever written is also the simplest, as Mary Martin as Maria instructs the Von Trapp children on the simple points of singing in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s final score together, THE SOUND OF MUSIC.

So put on your lederhosen and sing along with me:

Let's start at the very beginning
A very good place to start
When you read you begin with A-B-C
When you sing you begin with do-re-mi

Do-re-mi, do-re-mi
The first three notes just happen to be
Do-re-mi, do-re-mi
Do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti

Doe, a deer, a female deer
Ray, a drop of golden sun
Me, a name I call myself
Far, a long, long way to run
Sew, a needle pulling thread
La, a note to follow Sew
Tea, a drink with jam and bread
That will bring us back to Do (oh-oh-oh)