Welcome to a new Musical Theatre Monday! This month, we’re honoring Dame Angela Lansbury, who celebrated her 94th birthday last week. In honor of this great leading lady of both stage and screen, I have — for subscribers who comment below to alert me of their interest — several audios from her second Tony-winning musical performance, in Dear World (1969), which opened 50 years ago this past February and marked Lansbury’s second collaboration with composer Jerry Herman (following 1966’s Mame).

I’m sure a good many of you treasure the cast album, but here’s the rare chance to hear the near-complete show, from a live audience recording taken sometime around the February 1969 opening. Here’s a sample — “I Don’t Want To Know.”

I also have something rarer — a mostly songs-only audio from the Broadway previews, presumably during January 1969. You’ll hear cut numbers and a totally different program order, including a pre-finale placement of “Kiss Her Now.”

And, last but not least, I’ve also got an audio from the show’s out-of-town Boston tryout in late 1968 with Lansbury’s standby, M’el Dowd, singing the title role. It’s got EVEN MORE cut songs, like “A Sensible Woman.” (Because this is Lansbury’s tribute post, I won’t post a sample of Dowd, so instead — from this Boston audio — here’s the rousing Overture.)

Come back next month for a new Musical Theatre Monday! And stay tuned tomorrow for more That ’70s Show!