The York Theatre Company celebrates its 50th anniversary with a series devoted to Cole Porter—specifically, two rarely performed central works: 1929’s Fifty Million Frenchmen (September 28 to October 6) and 1940’s Panama Hattie (October 26 to November 3). These are concert readings in everyday clothes, presented script-in-hand, with minimal staging. Also in this “Mufti” series is a revue comprised of Porter songs, The Decline and Fall of the Entire World as Seen Through the Eyes of Cole Porter (October 18 to 20). As the critic Don Daniels recently said, “It’s one of the shames of our theater that no institution regularly revives the musical comedy classics of Berlin, Kern, Porter, Rodgers and Hart, and Gershwin. How are the young to learn about that accomplishment—which is major—if no one revives the shows?” The York goes a long way toward filling the gap. —L.J.