I have a show to put together. Or maybe it’s really an anthology.

No, I’m not talking about writing. You see, stories are everywhere. All forms of entertainment face this opportunity.

In my case, well, I have to put together a half-hour performance for our Barbershop Quartet (I sing tenor) at an old-folks institution for a celebration of St. Patrick’s Day.

In other words, I have to create a “story” (program) using other people’s stories (songs) — rather like assembling an anthology out of a pile of submissions according to a theme and aimed at a particular audience. That ought to sound familiar to a lot of you.

I do enjoy the challenge of the exercise. What songs can we get in practice well enough in time for the event? How many are Irish-themed? What about a broader concept of Irish that includes Railroad Workers and other immigrant-working-class themes? I’m taking “an old fashioned program for an old-fashioned holiday” as an excuse to include turn of the (last) century vaudevillian classic B’shop songs as well, for variation and appropriate sentiment.

Considering the age of the audience (alas, not all that different from our quartet members, if somewhat sleepier after a banquet), we know we should eschew the showy modern tunes that make up part of some of our other shows.

When I’m done, I find I’ve shaped something like a travelogue of the Irish experience in America and the culture it found and interacted with there, out of miscellaneous old favorite songs and arrangements, all set in a common somewhat antiquated musical/performance style with varied flourishes and effects. The effort I spent doing this (as for all unnecessarily indulgent constructions) is overkill for the purpose, but it sure was fun. And we’ll get a kick out of it, as we perform, making our audience smile.

I see “story” popping up everywhere these days. What about you?