"This week, we reach a quiet milestone: every Stephen Sondheim musical has now opened and closed in both New York and London."

The Sondheim Hub (Substack):   To Be... Continued.

NYT:  The West End's Hottest Seats: The Piles of Trash Outside Evita
              Crowds are converging outside the London Palladium to watch Rachel Zegler sing "Don't Cry for
              Me, Argentina" from a balcony — while paying theatergoers inside see it on a screen.

(Free link).

Also worth noting: the song appears to be the only time we see Zegler's Eva in period costume and wig/makeup (the iconic white Dior gown and blonde chignon, etc.); for the bulk of the show, she (and everyone else) is costumed in director Jamie Lloyd's monochrome, pointedly ahistorical house style.

[Ed.:  Zegler gives the Casa Rosada outfit another spin at the curtain call, possibly having been re-dressed in it, as a corpse, during the final sequence].

I'm reminded of John Doyle's 2007 Company, where his own signature "gimmick" (shoestring stagings driven by relatively small companies of actor-musicians) made up in thematic aptness whatever it lost in novelty after his 2005 Sweeney Todd — but nevertheless suffered by comparison, in the eyes of some theatergoers and critics.  I eventually wearied of Doyle's work a bit myself, but for the time being I'm inclined to grant Lloyd his fascination with live video; his conceptually brilliant use of it for Evita's dramatic, musical (and, not incidentally, commercial) centerpiece; and his willingness to mess intelligently with material that badly needs such messing-with (along with Sunset Blvd., he's now remixed Lloyd Webber twice ...and counting).

Perhaps not too surprising (one always assumed there'd be a huge trove of papers that would go to some quasi-public research collection or other, or get split up among several), but very exciting nevertheless:

NYT:   5,000 Sondheim Sketches and More Head to Library of Congress
               The musical theater titan left behind material from beloved shows like Sweeney Todd and Sunday in the Park With George.

(Link is free for non-NYT-subscribers).

Quote from: Joshua Barone, New York Times, 25 June 2025"There's no question he was brilliant, a genius," said Mark Horowitz, a senior music specialist in the library's music division. "But here, you're really seeing the perspiration behind it all. The amount he put behind each song is staggering."...

"I've never seen a composer who has so many music sketches, trying out different melodic lines, different harmonies, rhythms, chord progressions," Horowitz said. "Even with classical collections, I've never seen this."

Horowitz, of course, is the author of Sondheim on Music, the authoritative deep-dive into SJS's composing process, built around many hours of interviews he recorded for the LoC.

Quote from: DiveMilw on Jun 13, 2025, 04:35 PMOh my!  The was a brief, concise article! 

Not informationally packed, let's say.  (Granted, that makes "concise" a debatable word choice on my part.  And granted, as I said, articles like these aren't aimed at people like me.  Collins-Hughes is more than a capable wordsmith, and her writing here is concise as far as it goes — I just wish it went a bit further, and I'm not altogether sure it couldn't have done so within the allotted word count, though the article does seem to end rather abruptly).

I feel sorta the same way about this one (free link below) — the illustrations are yummy, and the text provides a decent general overview of the conventional wisdoms around the use of video in theatre.  But to anyone who's thought much about the subject before now, Paulson's potted summary only scratches the surface:

NYT:  Broadway's Season of Screens
              Videos and projections depicting an A.I.-generated actor, the digital memories
              of robots, a redwood forest and more: High-tech storytelling is having a moment.

Yesterday I saw Follies in Concert at the Vintage Theatre in Aurora, CO. This is one of the shows that I figured was going to be on my bucket list for the longest (along with Pacific Overtures).

I thought the entire thing was wonderful, exceeding my high expectations. The surprising highlight, for me, was "One More Kiss," which was sung by two singers with beautiful voices who sounded so good together. "Could I Leave You" was another strong song, as was "Ah, Paris!" But it's hard to pick favorites.  The one drawback of the show was my obstructed view.   I was in the front row, dead center, and there was a music stand in front of me, which partially blocked my view of some of the performers. It blocked my view of Sally's face during "Losing My Mind." 

I'm wondering what version of the book was used, as it seemed much shorter than the original (which, admittedly, is a long libretto). I'm guessing it was an abridged version of the original. 

The intermission was right after "I'm Still Here." 

The woman next to me (Roxanne) was quite talkative, mentioning how she had "Leap of Faith" season tickets (a promotion where Vintage Theatre offers season tickets before the season is announced, at a discount), among other things. She was unfamiliar with Follies, so I told her that the plot centered around a group of performers coming to a reunion as the theatre they performed at was about to be demolished. I said there was also a lot of wistful reflection. (Hoping my description did the show justice.) She mentioned how she liked singing and dancing, and we talked about the upcoming season, which has quite a bit of singing, but I'm not sure about dancing. We also discussed Guys and Dolls and one of the actors in the show.

Great show. "I'm so glad I came."

It's pleasantly warm today. It hit 100° a couple of hours ago, and now it's cooled to 96°. I am not complaining about the heat, only mentioning it.    The humidity is 10%, and the dew point is 28°. I'm planning to wait until it's less than 90° before taking the dog for a walk. I don't think that will happen until after sunset, and I'm not sure how long she can wait.

Tomorrow I am seeing a matinee of Follies in Concert. That's likely as close as I'm going to get to seeing the actual show. I will give a full report on the FOLLIES thread after the show. The theatre company that I am seeing tomorrow is doing Merrily in September. (They're also doing The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Angels in America and A Strange Loop as part of their season.)

Some catchup:

The full libretto of Here We Are was published last month by the British theatrical imprint Nick Hern Books, and includes a 35-page essay by Ives about his writing history and process with SJS.  The book is being sold at NT's book shop and on Amazon's UK site, and can also be ordered directly from the publisher:

https://www.nickhernbooks.co.uk/here-we-are



Also, NT posted this two-minute video of highlights from the show's sitzprobe in April:

 

Dept. of Roads Not Taken:  Jean Smart auditioned for Sondheim and was offered a role in Follies (I'm guessing the 2011 B'way revival?) — but turned it down.
She discusses it in this recent half-hour interview, starting at about 22:24...


I would assume she was probably up for Phyllis — and while, as a low-key Smart devotee of several decades, I have to respect her choice, it's hard not to wonder more than a little wistfully about the performance she might have given.  (Barring that, and as long as I'm fantasizing anyway: if the 2021 B'way Company had had the much longer run it deserved, I would have paid good money to see Ms. Smart as a star replacement for Patti LuPone's Joanne).

From WhatsOnStage:

Merrily We Roll Along producer says Broadway recording "is not a capture... it's its own genre" of film
Sonia Friedman expressed her excitement as the film edges closer to public release


No substantive discussion of the upcoming release; just Friedman gushing with pride in her sister's work translating their production for the screen, for sixty seconds at the tail end of this podcast.  (Which is fine, but the modern tic of hyping these captures as a brand-new art form being born before our eyes — cf., the "Hamilfilm," which may have started this unfortunate trend — still rubs me the wrong way).

Meanwhile, from BroadwayWorld...

Rialto Chatter:  Is Merrily We Roll Along Coming to Movie Theaters This December?

...December 5, to be specific?  Maybe, maybe not;  three days after BWW published that, the AMC Theaters link in their article takes me to a page listing Merrily's release date as January 1, 1900 [sic].  Perhaps the Dec. 5 date had been listed there prematurely — which doesn't necessarily mean inaccurately — and was subsequently removed, pending an announcement more official than "Rialto chatter".

Oh my!  The was a brief, concise article!