MERLE LOUISE, 1934-2025
Hundreds of performers have appeared in original Broadway productions of Sondheim’s Broadway shows. But Merle Louise was the only person who performed in four of them. She passed away on January 11, 2025, in New York City at the age of 90. Born in 1934 as Merle Louise Letowt, she began performing in the 1950s. Before the decade was over she shortened her professional name to Merle Louise.
She debuted on Broadway in Gypsy in 1959 as Thelma, a “Hollywood Blonde” and one of the “Toreadorables.” She eventually moved into the featured role of Dainty June on Broadway and on the show’s first national tour. She subsequently originated the roles of Susan, soon to be divorced Susan from Peter, in Company (1970); the crazed, ravaged Beggar Woman in Sweeney Todd (1979) (image above); and Cinderella’s Mother, Granny and the Giantess in Into the Woods (1987). According to Sondheim in Finishing the Hat, when she auditioned to play the Beggar Woman who was once Sweeney’s wife, she was hired virtually on the spot. For that role, she earned the 1979 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical. Here is a link to a 1984 interview about her career and that performance.
Her other Broadway performances included La Cage aux Folles (1983) as Mme. Dindon, Kiss of the Spider Woman as Molina’s Mother (1993) and Billy Elliott the Musical (2008) as an ensemble member. Off-Broadway, she created the role of Cecily MacIntosh in Charlotte Sweet (1982) and was widely lauded for her performances in works by Shakespeare, Chekhov, Molière and Shaw.
Her family remembered Louise as “a dynamic force of nature – energetic, funny, adventurous, and full of life.” Beyond her acting career, she was an avid traveler and scuba diver whose accomplishments included climbing to the base camp of Mount Everest.
LEA SOLANGA GETS AROUND
Broadway star Lea Salonga is co-starring with Bernadette Peters in Sondheim’s Old Friends, at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles in February and then transferring to New York City’s Manhattan Theatre Club for performances in April. [TICKETS at this link). The show originated in London in 2022 as a one-night tribute revue honoring Sondheim; it was devised and produced by Sir Cameron Mackintosh and staged by Matthew Bourne and Maria Friedman. By popular demand it undertook a limited West End run in 2023 at the Gielgud Theatre that starred Salonga and Peters with an array of renowned British musical theater performers including Judi Dench, Michael Ball, Julia McKenzie, and Imelda Staunton. For U.S. productions the company will include Jacob Dickey, Kevin Earley, Paige Faure, Jasmine Forsberg, Kate Jennings Grant, David Harris, Bonnie Langford, Beth Leavel, Gavin Lee, Peter Neureuther, Alexa Lopez, Jason Pennycooke, Joanne Riding, Jeremy Secomb, Kyle Selig, Maria Wirries and Daniel Yearwood.
While in New York for Old Friends, Salonga will be among the luminaries celebrated at the 91st Annual Drama League Awards, taking place on May 16 at the Ziegfeld Ballroom. She will receive the Distinguished Achievement in Musical Theater Award. A Tony and Olivier Award award winner for her performances in Miss Saigon and Les Misérables, Salonga is next set to head home to Manila in the Philippines in August where she will play the Witch in a production of Into the Woods. She played the same role in the show’s Manila debut in 1994. More recently she performed as Mrs. Lovett in a 2019 production of Sweeney Todd in Manila. She told an interviewer, “If all I do for the rest of my life is perform in Sondheim shows, I’ll be very happy.”
WEST SIDE STORY IN HOUSTON
Houston Grand Opera is set to bring back its popular rendition of West Side Story (January 31-February 15) featuring lyrics by Sondheim and a magnificent score by Leonard Bernstein. It’s staged by Francesca Zambello, artistic director of Washington National Opera. Soprano Shereen Pimentel makes her HGO debut as Maria opposite tenor Brenton Ryan as Tony. Yesenia Ayala and Kyle Coffman, Broadway performers who also appeared in Steven Spielberg’s 2021 film adaptation of the show, will play Anita and Riff. For more information, use this link.
POKING FUN AT SONDHEIM
Forbidden Broadway has been lovingly spoofing Broadway shows with parodies written and directed by the legendary Gerard Alessandrini, who Sondheim admired and often provided sheet music of scores to facilitate send-ups of his songs. Following a successful Off-Broadway fall run of Forbidden Broadway’s most recent iteration, Merrily We Stole a Song, it’s taking its four-person cast on a limited tour to a series of American cities. Following a December stop in West Palm Beach, Florida, the 90-minute intermissionless show will move on to Boston’s Emerson Colonial Theatre (February 8-9); Dayton, Ohio’s, Victoria Theatre (March 7-8); Houston’s Hobby Center (April 24-27); Dallas’s Wyly Theatre (May 6-10); and the Segerstrom Center in Costa Mesa, California (May 15-17). Performers include Jenny Lee Stern (who does a knock-out impression of Patti LuPone), Chris Collins-Pisano (who channels Daniel Radcliffe in a spoof of Merrily We Roll Along), Nicole Vanessa Ortiz (taking on her own rendition of Audra McDonald as Gypsy’s Mama Rose) and John Wascavage (who renders a string of Cabaret emcees from Joel Grey to Eddie Redmayne).
GET BETTER ACQUAINTED WITH SONDHEIM
Sondheim scholar Gail Leondar is offering another four-week Zoom series in February about Sondheim and his shows. She’ll offer a quick-paced overview of his major works and investigate some of the techniques by which he elevated the Broadway musical. Then she’ll lead a look at how rhymes and wordplay serve the narrative in unexpected ways, how prosody (the way music and lyrics fit together) works to develop character, and how songs are vessels for psychological and sociological insight. She plans to spend time digging more deeply into Follies and Road Show, examining Sondheim’s elevated use of musical pastiche as a storytelling device. The Zoom sessions will be on February 4, 11, 18 and 25, 7-8:15 p.m. ET. Tuition is $54. Here’s a link for registration.
Best wishes for another year of great musical theater — especially more Sondheim productions! If you have news or suggestions to share about this blog, please email me: pender.rick@gmail.com