MERRILY: IT’S A HIT … ON NETFLIX
If you missed seeing the 2023-2024 Tony Award-winning, record-breaking Broadway revival of Merrily We Roll Along during its sold-out run — or you couldn’t afford a ticket — you can get a sense of it via Sony Pictures Classics’ live stage recording (formally called a “ProShot”) now available for streaming on Netflix in the United States. While it doesn’t deliver quite the electrical jolt of the show’s live performance staged by Maria Friedman, it’s a chance to see Jonathan Groff as Franklin Shepard and Daniel Radcliffe as Charlie Kringas in their Tony-winning performances (Photo above by Matthew Murray). Partnering with Lindsay Mendez as Mary Flynn, they proved that the disdained show, long dismissed as a flop, could be a hit — in fact, “a palpable hit.” The New York production was captured live in June 2024 near the end of its run at Broadway’s Hudson Theatre.
LEARNING MORE ABOUT SONDHEIM
Stephen Sondheim: Art Isn’t Easy, the recently published revelatory study by Daniel Okrent (above), is providing many devotees with a fuller picture of the brilliant composer and lyricist, especially of his complicated emotional life. The award-winning journalist digs deeply into Sondheim’s self-admitted proclivity: “At least half my songs deal with ambivalence,” he once said. Okrent demonstrates how Sondheim’s life itself was afflicted by it for many years. Check out his enlightening 37-minute conversation with Terry Gross on a recent Fresh Air program on National Public Radio.
Further insights into Sondheim’s life and works are now available via the dozen-episode podcast Loving You: The Untold Sondheim. (It’s being released one episode weekly on numerous platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music.) Each highly-produced 60-minute installment is filled with interviews, recollections, music, reenactments and heartfelt anecdotes, hosted by singer, actor and writer Martin Milnes and Sondheim’s longtime friend and archivist Peter E. Jones. Guests include Christine Baranski, Jamie Bernstein, Len Cariou, Dame Judi Dench, Adam Guettel, John Kander, Patti LuPone and British performers Millicent Martin and Julia McKenzie. Family memories are recalled by Sondheim’s half-brother Walter E. Sondheim. Each hour-long episode has a theme (designated by a pertinent Sondheim song lyric). I especially appreciated Episode 5, “Anything You Do, Let It Come From You” (from Sunday in the Park with George), featuring members of the master class Sondheim conducted at Oxford University in 1990, as well as Episode 7, “Me and You Pal” (from Merrily We Roll Along), about Sondheim’s collaborators and interpreters. It includes an especially illuminating conversation between book writers James Lapine and John Weidman.
SUMMER RERUNS
Back in 2021 SiriusXM host Bill Rudman and I recorded four episodes of his On the Aisle show in which we marked the publication of The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia. Those will be re-aired this summer on the streaming platform’s “On Broadway” channel (77) at 3 p.m. on Saturdays, June 27, July 4, August 1 and 8. (Encores air the following Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on June 30, July 7, August 4 and 11.) If you’re not a SiriusXM subscriber, you might check to see if these are on your local public radio station as Footlight Parade at various dates and times. You can also listen online at your convenience by going to the Public Radio Exchange [www.prx.org] and searching for “Footlight Parade.” Admirers of Sondheim’s creative output continue to purchase the encyclopedia, available in hardcover and paperback formats. Here’s a link to purchase from Bloomsbury, my publisher.
EVERYBODY’S GOT THE RIGHT …
n an era of political divisiveness and frightening gunplay, it seems that Sondheim and Weidman’s Assassins is eerily relevant. In the Bay Area, Oakland Theater Project presented a one-man performance of the show (March 21-April 19, 2026). Starring Adam KuveNiemann (above, photo by Krantz Studio) playing each of the show’s off-kilter characters, the production earned encomiums from an array of local media. Joshua Kosman, writing for “On a Pacific Aisle” on Substack, called it a “galvanizing production,” and added, “The breathtakingly virtuosic Adam KuveNiemann, working with director Weston Scott, incarnates every figure, switching back and forth among them with a degree of manic energy that constantly threatens to boil over … offers deep insights not only into the work itself, but also into its subject matter.”… In Sarasota, critic Jay Handelman reviewed a local staging of Assassins (April 29-May 10, 2026) for the artsbeat.org website. He wrote: “Opening just days after a California man was charged with attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump, the Sarasota Players’ captivating production … could not be more topical, no matter how coincidental the timing.” He continued, “The proximity to another violent attack helps everything in this show about presidential assassins come alive a little more, though the impact would still be strong without the coincidence, because it is performed with such commitment and understanding of the material and the people depicted.”
GROBAN SINGS
Three years ago acclaimed vocalist Josh Groban played Sweeney Todd on Broadway, receiving a 2023 Tony Award nomination for his performance. His love of Sondheim’s songs led him to a pairing of “Children Will Listen” and “Nothing’s Gonna Harm You” that he included in a recent concert. In October 2025 he brought together 14 songs he loves, reimagining and performing them in a solo recital in London’s historic Union Chapel. Other numbers included songs popularized by Joni Mitchell, Phil Collins, Simon & Garfunkel, as well as Harold Arlen’s “Over the Rainbow.” The event was recorded and distributed by PBS in early May 2026 as Great Performances – Josh Groban: An Intimate Evening at The Union Chapel. Here’s a link to Groban’s moving four-minute performance of the linked Sondheim songs. There is no tinge of the irony to be heard in the onstage rendition of “Nothing’s Gonna Harm You” — when Toby’s proclamation of love for Mrs. Lovett is tainted by her realization that the boy knows too much.
TONY AWARD RECOGNITION
James Lapine, director, playwright and frequent Sondheim collaborator (Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods and Passion)will be one of three recipients of the 2026 Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre. Joining him for this year’s recognition this year are Andre Bishop, artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater from 1992 to 2025, and pioneering Broadway lighting designer Jules Fisher. Over the years, the award has honored George Abbott, Ethel Merman, Barbra Streisand, Paul Gemignani, Hal Prince, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Carol Channing, John Kander, Joel Grey, Angela Lansbury, Marin Mazzie, Terrence McNally and Sondheim himself in 2008. … Mary-Mitchell Campbell will receive the 2026 Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award for her “unwavering dedication to advocacy work through the arts.” Campbell is a founding member of Musicians United for Social Equity, is on the advisory board of Maestra, has music directed and/or supervised numerous events for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, the Serious Fun Children’s Network and Kristin Chenoweth’s Broadway Bootcamp. She made her Broadway debut in 2007 as the orchestrator and musical supervisor for John Doyle’s actor/musician revival of Company; she was recognized with that season’s Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Orchestrations.
RECORD-SETTING RECORD
On May 5, 1962, the original motion picture soundtrack for West Side Story achieved the Number One standing on the Billboard 200 chart. It remained there for 54 weeks, a record that still stands. Sondheim doubted that Leonard Bernstein’s score and his own lyrics translated well to film. Nevertheless, he expressed his gratitude that the film introduced the show to a much broader audience. Speaking to Billboard he once recalled that “When the show opened in New York City, they said it’s all very exciting, but you can’t hum anything. Then the movie came out four years later and suddenly everyone could hum everything.” (A personal memory: My very first LP — I was 13 — was this recording!)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, STEVE!
March 21, 2026, would have been Sondheim’s 96th birthday. To mark the event, Alex Marsden, creator of the excellent Sondheim Hub, invited 96 people to provide personal tributes — 96 Gifts for Sondheim’s 96th Birthday each one reflecting a gift Sondheim’s work brought to their lives. He had in mind Dot’s words from Sunday in the Park with George: “Look at all the things you’ve done for me.” Evocative statements were submitted by performers, musicians, authors and others, including items from singer Melissa Errico and Ted Chapin (author of Everything was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies). The Sondheim Hub is supported solely by readers,who contribute a few dollars each month. A premium subscription enables full access to an exclusive essay, crossword, extended interview and more each week, plus a paywall-free library of 250+ essays, features and interviews
SPEAKING OF GIFTS
The inaugural round of grants from the Stephen Sondheim Foundation have been announced. The foundation, using funds generated from the royalty income earned by his works posthumously, is dedicated to supporting playwrights, composers and lyricists, particularly those in early career stages. In honor of Sondheim’s psychoanalyst Dr. Milton Horowitz, the Horowitz-Sondheim Clinic has been established at the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. Thanks to this gift, the clinic can offer affordable mental health support programs to playwrights, composers and lyricists for the theater. Additional recipients include the Playwrights’ Center of Minneapolis for core writer fellowships; Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company to relaunch its new play development program; Millay Arts of Austerlitz, New York, for its new artist-in-residency program; and the Rhinebeck Writers Retreat for musical writing teams in its summer residency program in the Hudson Valley.
If you have Sondheim news to share or suggestions about this blog, please email me: pender.rick@gmail.com