Sondheim News for April-May 2025

HEY, OLD FRIENDS!

Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends began as a one-night gala in London on May 3, 2022. More than a year late in October 2023, producer Cameron Mackintosh brought it back in a very successful three-month West End run ending early January 2024. It featured numerous British musical theater stars, plus Broadway veterans Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga. Recently it was born again for audiences in the United States: Its pre-Broadway run in Los Angeles (February 13-March 9) featured 41 numbers and 17 top-notch performers, again including Peters and Salonga. That production has transferred to Broadway, , opening April 8 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre to glowing reviews. It’s been extended to June 15. In The New York Times (April 8, 2025), Jesse Green wrote, “These gems had been waiting in the 12 tones of the Western scale and the million words of the English language, unobserved, until [Sondheim] came along with his flashlight and pickax. Any opportunity to experience how the feelings he channeled and the connections he made have mined our psyches and reshaped our world is an opportunity even old friends should take.” … Mackintosh, who brought Side by Side by Sondheim from a London suburb to the West End in 1976 and a year later to Broadway, has had a legendary career, not only with Sondheim but with many of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s megahits including Cats (1981) and Phantom of the Opera (1988). Mackintosh navigated both sides of that musical theater fence. In a recent interview he said, “In a nutshell, Steve would have loved to have had the popularity of Andrew, and Andrew would have loved to have had the cachet of Steve.” In April 2025, theater journalist Michael Riedel wrote for Airmail, “Old Friends does a fine job of showing off Sondheim’s under-appreciated gift for melody in songs that, with lyrics, pierce the heart, are little one-act plays.” Riedel reported that Mackintosh said, “Steven wanted as many people as possible in the world to see his shows. He was not a snob. Every single tune in the show is a great tune.” The composer told Mackintosh, “This is my legacy. I probably won’t live to see it open, but I want this to be an introduction to someone who has never seen any of my shows.

CAST RECORDING FOR AUDRA MCDONALD’S GYPSY

George Wolfe’s current Broadway production of Gypsy starring Audra McDonald as Rose has earned stellar reviews. In his New York Times’ review, Jesse Green remarked that before the production opened, some doubted that audiences could believe that “a sane Black Rose could ever have dreamed of stardom for her children in the racist enclave of show business in the 1920s. A hundred years later … the dream has come true: McDonald is the star such a Rose hoped for. Doing a psychological striptease, showing more of the character’s rage than her predecessors, she is stupendously affecting.” The next piece of good news is that the production’s original cast recording is being released on April 25for streaming and digital purchase (CD and vinyl releases will follow). Here’s a delightful video from the recording session with McDonald, Joy Woods as Louise and Danny Burstein as Herbie, having a grand time singing “Together, Wherever We Go.” The joy demonstrated in this four-minute take is palpable and further evidence of why this production has been a major success.

MERRILY REVIVAL FILM OUT SOON

A release date hasn’t been set yet, but Sony Pictures Classics recently acquired the live stage filming of Maria Friedman’s Tony-winning Broadway revival of Sondheim and Furth’s Merrily We Roll Along. In June 2024, near the end of its run at the Hudson Theatre, the production was filmed with stars Jonathan Groff and Daniel Radcliffe, both Tony winners, plus Lindsay Mendez. This is the second time Merrily has been filmed and commercially released: its 2013 West End production, also staged by Friedman, was shot with the London cast — Mark Umbers, Damian Humbley and Jenna Russell. It was released a decade ago for brief presentations in movie theaters as well as on-demand streaming by Digital Theatre. In an April 1, 2025, Playbill feature, Friedman said, “Sony Pictures Classics is the perfect home for our film. From the very beginning, they felt what we felt — that Merrily We Roll Along is, at its core, a universal story about friendship: how it changes, how it lasts, and how it shapes who we become. This isn’t just a stage production captured on film — it’s something more intimate. The camera lets us see every flicker of feeling, every quiet shift, in a way that brings audiences closer than ever. Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s work has never felt so personal.”

IMAGES FOR SONDHEIM SHOWS

Into the Woods is Sondheim’s most frequently show, likely because of its fairytale content. Thanks to Into the Woods JR, a simplified version that Sondheim approved for younger audiences, it was the 10th most frequently produced show by schools and youth theaters. Playbill, the publisher of theater and event programs, via its “Playbillder” program-building service, works with educational institutions and regional theaters to design attractive support materials for audiences. In a recent post, Playbill shared 10 creative program covers that were featured for school and community productions. …

Speaking of iconic images, David Byrd passed away in February 2025 at age 83. In the 1960s and ’70s he created many psychedelic album covers for the likes of Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie and Prince. But he also designed a vivid image familiar to Sondheim fans, the iconic poster for Follies original production in 1971 — a chorus girl in a headdress with long flowing hair and a crack in her stone-like face, representing the end of an era that was the undercurrent of Sondheim’s show.

OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN’S HIGHLAND FARM

Back in the 1940s when Sondheim was a teenager, he spent his summers at Oscar Hammerstein’s Doylestown home at Highland Farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Hammerstein purchased the property in 1940 and lived there until his death in 1960. In 2023, after years as a bed-and-breakfast, it became the Oscar Hammerstein Museum and Theatre Education Center, open to the public and operated as a nonprofit museum honoring Hammerstein’s theater legacy. The first floor of the 1840 farmhouse now features a display of original cast recordings and sheet music from shows he created with Richard Rodgers. Visitors can also see family photos, portraits and memorabilia. Guests can visit the second-floor study where Hammerstein wrote lyrics for numerous memorable songs. The third floor features a “Sondheim Room,” used by young Stephen during his stays at the farm. It features a painting of the countryside by Sondheim’s mother as well as his 1942-1943 report cards from the George School. (He received high marks in all categories … except “Art of Expression.” Go figure.) Public tours through the fall need to be booked in advance: https://www.hammersteinmuseum.org/tourinfo.

LAST WORD

A personal note: I’m currently proofreading Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: Behind the Bloody Musical Masterpiece, my book-length study of the show often considered Sondheim’s greatest work. Above is a sneak peak of the cover! It will be released in October by Bloomsbury Publishing. My Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia was originally published by Rowman and Littlefield, which Bloomsbury acquired a year ago).

If you have news to share or suggestions about this blog, please email me: pender.rick@gmail.com