Stephen Sondheim and Company director Marianne Elliott discuss the new production. Since the original 1970 Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Company won six Tony Awards, the musical comedy about life, love and marriage has been staged as written time after time through the years. Director Marianne Elliott’s revival is a game changer. […]
Read MoreGrand Finale: The End of Pretend – Elaine Stritch (Chapter Five)
It was six weeks later in 2014 before I was able to make my final visit with Elaine. I had called every couple of weeks to check in and each time she urged me to visit. Her excitement pleased me because it made me feel she was still engaged and seeking interaction and stimulation. After […]
Read MoreChurch had a real good time in GYPSY
See a full gallery of Gypsy photographs here. At age 22, Sandra Church originated the role of Louise in Jule Styne, Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim’s Gypsy staged by Jerome Robbins. She retired from the theater in the 1960s to pursue a career in the visual arts. She now lives in California. She sat down […]
Read MoreMore Stritch: End of Pretend (Chapter Four)
In 2014 when I arrived at The Dakota in Detroit for my second-to-last visit with Elaine Stritch, she was sitting up in her bed. Her arms and legs were noticeably thin. Those endless gams of hers had begun to look twig-like. For the first time, she looked frail and vulnerable. As I entered, her hair […]
Read MoreThe Aussie Assassin
“He was a superstar. He was a pin-up,” David Campbell says enthusiastically when asked about John Wilkes Booth. “As a Confederate, he hated the Civil War and was very much a dissenter of Lincoln’s presidency. He wasn’t a crazy man, and the funny thing is, the rhetoric he styles himself in is scarily very much […]
Read MoreThe End of Pretend, Chapter 2
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is the second in a series of visits and conversations chronicling the late Elaine Stritch’s final acts. The first appeared in the April/May 2017 print edition of Everything Sondheim. After Elaine’s visit to DeSales University’s campus in January 2009, I sent flowers to her at The Carlyle. She called to thank me. […]
Read MoreFiasco’s re-imagined INTO THE WOODS
Thick taut ropes stretch across the back of the stage at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles like a forest of piano wires. Stacks of piano harps scale each side of the stage, framed by a proscenium of keyboards. Sitting center stage, glowing beneath a canopy of shimmering mismatched chandeliers, is an upright piano on […]
Read MoreHave Your Pie and Eat It, Too
In New York City, the Barrow Street Theatre production of Sweeney Todd (running until at least Dec. 31, 2017) truly extends beyond the normalcy of the fourth wall. More than an immersive experience — cozying theatergoers in Mrs. Lovett’s pie shop next to the Demon Barber himself — the audience gets fed, too. Luckily […]
Read MoreBrilliant Stuff: Interview with Len Cariou, the original Sweeney Todd
Len Cariou’s brilliant career has had at least three acts. His first act was onstage in his native Canada and at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, primarily in classical roles. In his third act, he’s a television star as NYPD family patriarch Henry Reagan on the CBS series Blue Bloods (2010-present). But many of […]
Read MoreGreat Expectations: Designer Derek McLane
Everything Sondheim: In 2002 you designed six Sondheim shows in one summer for the Kennedy Center Sondheim Celebration. Derek McLane: That’s true! EvSo: How exactly did it work? Were all the productions in the same theater? McLane: Yes, they were all in the same theater. There were two repertories — an “A” rep and […]
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