I suspect the love many of us feel for shows by Stephen came from listening — repeatedly — to original cast recordings. Recording producer Thomas Z. Shepard could surely be portrayed as the patron saint of Sondheim fandom. I all but wore out the grooves on my LP of the original cast recording of Company (2020), and I’m sure my CDs of the OCRs of Sweeney Todd (1979), Sunday in the Park with George (1984) and Follies in Concert (1986) have been played more than any others in my collection. Shepard was the recording genius who shaped each of these. (My other go-to listen is the three-disk set, A Collector’s Sondheim, which drew heavily from those OCRs.) For a look behind the curtain, check out Shepard’s recent book with Gayden Wren, Recording Broadway: A Life in Cast Albums (Rowman & Littlefield/Applause, 2024. He masterminded all of Sondheim’s six Grammy wins for cast recordings but one*: Company (1971), A Little Night Music (1974), Sweeney Todd (1980), Sunday in the Park with George (1985) and Passion (1995). With a foreword by another Broadway legend, composer John Kander, Shepard’s book features accounts of working with Sondheim and many other Broadway legends: Julie Andrews, Leonard Bernstein, Angela Lansbury, Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Chita Rivera, Barbra Streisand and more. According to Publishers Weekly, “Shepard throws open the door to the recording booth in his exuberant and fine-grained debut memoir. … Broadway aficionados will find plenty to enjoy.”
*Into the Woods, the one outlier, was produced by Jay David Saks, who assisted Shepard on several of the Sondheim recordings.
On Monday, April 14, Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, will honor singer and actor Mandy Patinkin (above) with its 2025 Sondheim Award Gala. Across his four-decade career, he has won fans with his powerful voice, his charismatic stage presence and an astonishing and profound emotional range. Sondheim fans remember him most for his iconic performance as artist Georges Seurat in the original Broadway production of Sunday in the Park with George in 1984. He was nominated for a 1984 Tony Award for Outstanding Actor in a Musical for his dual performance as the historic pointillist painter and his latter-day descendent. Patinkin is a versatile performer known for his work on stage, in movies and television. Earlier, Patinkin won a Tony Award in 1979 for his performance as Che in the first Broadway production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita. For his work in the TV series Chicago Hope he received a Leading Actor Primetime Emmy Award in 1995. Across his varied career he received nominations for several seasons of the Showtime espionage thriller Homeland in which he played CIA handler Saul Berenson. He was also nominated seven Drama Desk Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Patinkin showcased his broad vocal range on more than a dozen recordings (and concert tours), many of which featured songs by Sondheim, especially Oscar & Steve (1995, pairing Sondheim songs with numbers by his mentor, Oscar Hammerstein II) and Mandy Patinkin Sings Sondheim (2002).
Speaking of Sunday In the Park with George, Broadway performer John Riddle will fill the role Patinkin created in a nine-performance run (July 12-August 17) during the Glimmerglass Festival’s 50th anniversary season in Cooperstown, New York. On July 31, Bernadette Peters, who originated the dual roles of Dot and Marie in Sunday’s first Broadway production will perform a one-night-only concert at picturesque Glimmerglass on July 31.
Sondheim’s shows continue to be produced around the world. Earlier this month Australian fans flocked to see Stuart Maunder’s Victorian Opera production of Follies, presented at St. Kilda’s Palais Theatre (February 1-6) in suburban Melbourne, Australia. In the photo above are Adam Murphy (Ben), Marina Prior (Phyllis) , Alexander Lewis (Buddy) and Antoinette-Halloran (Sally). [Photo by Jeff Busby] For Australian Arts Review writer Paul Selar called it, “a glittering, fabulously realized production with a stunning conglomeration of long-proven Australian artistic talent – captivating in its concept start to finish.” It was supported by more than 30 musicians from Orchestra Victoria, conducted by Phoebe Briggs. … Meanwhile, the same company’s 2024 production of Sweeney Todd, also staged by Maunder, traveled all the way to the Middle East where it was presented by Dubai Opera in the United Arab Emirates for performances (February 1-8).
Looking to the future, Los Angeles Opera will open its 2025-2026 season with a production of Leonard and Stephen Sondheim’s West Side Story on September 20 (through October 8) at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. James Conlon will conduct these performances, part of his 20th and final season as the company’s music director. Francesca Zambello will be the stage director, which will feature Metropolitan Opera star Gabriella Reyes as Maria; Duke Kim will play Tony. Using Jerome Robbins’s original choreography, this is a co-production previously produced by Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera and Glimmerglass Festival. … An Observation: Despite Sondheim’s often stated disdain for opera, it’s worth noting that all of the productions I’ve cited in this month’s blog are presented by opera companies!
A final item: Stephen Sondheim’s estate, estimated at around $75million, has been placed in a trust. His will named as executors his longtime attorney F. Richard Pappas and a second unnamed individual. Beneficiaries included Sondheim’s husband, Jeff Romley (they were married in 2017); his frequent collaborator James Lapine; his archivist and longtime friend Peter Jones; former assistant Steven Clar; interior designer Peter Wooster and gardener Rob Girard; the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
If you have news to share or suggestions about this blog, please email me: pender.rick@gmail.com