When you grow up an obsessive musical theater fan, sometimes it can be a rude awakening when your artistic tastes mature. Appreciation for the best shows’ haunting melodies, clever wordplay, or epic spectacle remains; unconditional love for the shows heavy on the schmaltz factor can fade (suddenly Phantom of the Opera doesn’t seem like the world’s most enduring love story anymore).

But for recovering musical theater lovers, enduring lifelong fans, or even skeptics of the genre, there is still Jason Robert Brown, one of today’s most exciting Broadway composers. Brown’s shows combine an effortless blending of musical genres, genuine, resonating tales of the human experience and aching, intriguingly specific and personal lyrics. Not the least of his successes is the revue Songs For A New World, a Signature Theatre production staged last night and tonight at the Strathmore Music Center, with Brown himself at the piano keys.

A stream of tangentially connected musical numbers, Songs For A New World itself tells no real story, but each of the tunes within it does. There is the woman who gave up adventure and affection for money and stability. The fed-up, jilted lover of none other than Santa Claus. And your familiar cast of women and men afraid to open up to each other, or by contrast, finally ready to do just that.