Stephen Sondheim was riding high on a wave of his own creation. After the artistic success of Company, Follies, and A Little Night Music, he chose as a follow-up to reunite with Burt Shevelove, with whom he had visited Ancient Rome, this time Ancient …
Netflix’s Diana: The Musical is the year’s most hysterically awful hate-watch | Stuart Heritage
The filmed Broadway show has crash-landed early on the streamer with hilariously awful songs, a musical mess to rival CatsLogically, it makes perfect sense that Diana: The Musical should exist. After all, Diana, Princess of Wales lends herself extraord…
‘They changed my ending, I felt aghast’ – how we made Wicked
‘I once performed Defying Gravity at the White House within spitting distance of the Obamas,’ says Idina Menzel. ‘In fact, I might actually have spat on them’I’d played with the story of The Wizard of Oz since my childhood in the US when I would arrang…
Into The Woods
Stephen Sondheim wanted to something funny. After the intensity of Sunday In The Park With George, he decided to turn, again with James Lapine, to classic art. In this case, fairy tales. The resulting show, Into The Woods, is one of those truly magical…
“The woman is absolutely riveting. I can’t. She’s so brilliant.” -humbug
Elaine Stritch At Liberty [2h25m, Wikipedia]
Assassins
Stephen Sondheim was being stymied by historical events. After the truly massive success of Into The Woods, he delved into darker subjects for his next show, 1990’s Assassins. An exploration of the American Dream and the broken people it fails, the sho…
A Little Night Music
Stephen Sondheim was riding pretty high in 1973. His previous two shows, Company and Follies, were both gigantic artistic successes, and everyone was waiting with baited breath for his new show, A Little Night Music. A period country house drama set m…
Passion
Stephen Sondheim had not been on Broadway for nearly five years. Assassins had been an off-Broadway production, and so when Passion opened in 1994, after a very labored preview process (and still not widely lauded in reviews), it received a lot of atte…
Follies
Stephen Sondheim was riding pretty high in 1971. His show Company was a year into its strong Broadway run when he opened a second show on Broadway, the ambitious Follies. Directed by Hal Prince and Michael Bennett, the show ran for over 500 performance…
Merrily We Roll Along
Stephen Sondheim was a hot property in 1981. Riding the momentum of Sweeney Todd, his next musical would be Merrily We Roll Along [Wikipedia], and that would be a gigantic flop, closing after over 50 previews, dozens of rewrites, and only 16 performanc…