In an extraordinary six-year period, Stephen Sondheim and Harold Prince brought four landmark musicals to Broadway: Company (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973) and Pacific Overtures (1976). All four iconic productions of these remarkably disparate shows featured scenic designs by the same man: Boris Aronson. A son of the Grand Rabbi of Kiev, […]
Read MoreBarbara Cook Pens a Blunt, Compelling Memoir
In Barbara Cook’s preface to her memoir Then & Now, she expresses the hope that “this book might help some people through bad times.” This piercingly candid, remarkably clear-eyed, hard-headedly optimistic narrative of a life well lived certainly accomplishes that goal. It also provides a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at this supreme Stephen Sondheim interpreter’s […]
Read MoreJohn McMartin, Follies’ Original Benjamin Stone, Dead at 86
John McMartin, an actor with a flair for patrician roles, died on July 6, 2016. According to the New York Times, the cause was cancer. He was 86. McMartin, whose stage career began in 1959 with an appearance in Little Miss Sunshine off-Broadway, scored one of his biggest career successes a dozen years later […]
Read MoreConcert Recording: WHEN EVERYTHING WAS POSSIBLE, performed by Victoria Mallory and Kurt Peterson
When Kurt Peterson and Victoria Mallory walked onstage at New York City Center on Sunday, April 29, 2012, it was a joyous reconnection to present a concert they called When Everything Was Possible. After more than four decades they were together again, singing and reminiscing about the early years of their careers when they […]
Read More