Stephen Joshua Sondheim (/ˈsɒndhaɪm/; March 22, 1930 – November 26, 2021) was an American composer and lyricist. Regarded as one of the most important figures in 20th-century musical theater, he is credited with reinventing the American musical.[1] With his frequent collaborations with Harold Prince and James Lapine, Sondheim's Broadway musicals tackled unexpected themes that ranged beyond the genre's traditional subjects, while addressing darker elements of the human experience.[2][3] His music and lyrics were tinged with complexity, sophistication, and ambivalence about various aspects of life.[4][5]
Sondheim's interest in musical theater began at a young age, and he was mentored by Oscar Hammerstein II. He began his career by writing the lyrics for West Side Story (1957) and Gypsy (1959). He transitioned to writing both music and lyrics for the theater, with his best-known works including A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), Company (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979), Merrily We Roll Along (1981), Sunday in the Park with George (1984), and Into the Woods (1987).
Sondheim's numerous awards and nominations include eight Tony Awards, an Academy Award, eight Grammy Awards, an Olivier Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. He also was awarded the Kennedy Center Honor in 1993 and a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015.[6] A theater is named after him both on Broadway and in the West End of London. Film adaptations of his works include West Side Story (1961), Gypsy (1962), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966), A Little Night Music (1977), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Into the Woods (2014), and West Side Story (2021).
Sunday in the Park with George is a 1983 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. It was inspired by the French pointillist painter Georges Seurat's painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (painted, 1884-1886). The plot revolves around George, a fictionalized version of Seurat, who immerses himself deeply in painting his masterpiece, and his great-grandson (also named George), a conflicted and cynical contemporary artist. The Broadway production opened in 1984.
The musical won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, two Tony Awards for design (and a nomination for Best Musical), numerous Drama Desk Awards, the 1991 Olivier Award for Best Musical, and the 2007 Olivier Award for Outstanding Musical Production. It has enjoyed several major revivals, including the 2005–06 UK production first presented at the Menier Chocolate Factory, its subsequent 2008 Broadway transfer, and a 2017 Broadway revival.
Synopsis
Act I
In 1884, Georges Seurat, known as George in the musical, is sketching studies for his painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. He announces to the audience, "White, a blank page or canvas. The challenge: bring order to the whole, through design, composition, tension, balance, light and harmony." He conjures up the painting's setting, a small suburban park on an island, and retains some control of his surroundings as he draws them. His longtime mistress, Dot, models for him, despite her frustration at having to get up early on a Sunday ("Sunday in the Park with George").
More park regulars begin to arrive: a quarrelsome Old Lady and her Nurse discuss how Paris is changing to accommodate a tower for the International Exposition, but the Nurse is more interested in a German coachman, Franz. The quiet of the park is interrupted by a group of rude bathers. George freezes them with a gesture, making them the subjects of his first painting, Bathers at Asnières.
The setting abruptly changes to a gallery where the painting is on display. Jules (a more successful artist friend of George's) and his wife Yvonne think George's work has "No Life". Back on the island, Jules and Yvonne have a short discussion with George and depart. They take their coachman Franz with them, interrupting his rendezvous with the Nurse. Dot, who has grown tired of standing still in the early morning sunlight, leaves the park mollified after George promises to take her to the Follies. George approaches the Old Lady, revealed to be his mother, and asks to draw her, but she bluntly refuses.
In his studio, George works on his painting obsessively while Dot prepares for their date and fantasizes about being a Follies girl ("Color and Light"). When George briefly stops painting to clean his brushes, he and Dot reflect on how fascinated they are by each other. Dot is ready to leave, but George chooses to continue painting instead, greatly upsetting her.
In the park on a Sunday some time later, George sketches a disgruntled Boatman to the disapproval of an observing Jules. Dot enters on the arm of Louis, a baker. Two chatting shopgirls, both named Celeste, notice Dot with a new man ("Gossip"). When Jules and Yvonne's daughter Louise attempts to pet the Boatman's dog, he shouts at her, then lashes out at George and storms off. George and Dot have a strained conversation as she works on the grammar book she is using to teach herself how to read and write.
As Jules and Yvonne mock the unconventional nature of George's art, they discuss an initiative to have his work included in the next group show, which they both protest. George sketches two dogs while whimsically trying to imagine the world from their perspective, describing their relief to be free of their routines on Sunday ("The Dog Song").
As the day goes on, George quietly sketches denizens of the park ("The Day Off"): The two Celestes try to attract the attention of a pair of Soldiers, fighting over which will get the more handsome of the two; the Nurse hides from the Old Lady and attempts to attract Franz's attention; Franz and his wife Frieda argue with Louise and each other; a pair of wealthy American tourists pass by, hating everything about Paris but the pastries, and plan to return home with a baker in tow; Jules returns to further lecture George on his shortcomings as an artist, receiving in response an invitation to see his new painting; the Boatman reappears to rebuke artists' condescending attitude.
Dot sees George, but he slips away before she can speak to him, and in retaliation, she describes her satisfying new life with Louis. She clearly misses and loves George, but Louis loves, respects and needs her in a way George cannot, and she has made her choice ("Everybody Loves Louis").
As the park empties for the evening, George returns. He misses Dot and laments that his art has alienated him from those important to him, but resigns himself to the likelihood that creative fulfillment may always take precedence for him over personal happiness ("Finishing the Hat").
Time has passed, and a heavily pregnant Dot visits George's studio. She asks for a painting George made of her, but he refuses. Jules and Yvonne come to the studio to see George's nearly finished painting. While Jules goes with George to see the painting, Yvonne and Dot hold a wary conversation. They realize they have both felt neglected by an artist, their mutual dislike fades, and they discuss the difficulties of trying to maintain a romantic relationship with an artist.
Meanwhile, Jules is puzzled by George's new technique and concerned that his obsession with his work is alienating him from his fellow artists and collectors alike. He refuses to support the work. Jules and Yvonne leave, and George, having forgotten Dot was there, goes back to work. Dot reveals the real reason for her visit: Despite the obvious fact that George fathered her unborn child, she and Louis are getting married and leaving for America. George angrily retreats behind his canvas, and she begs him to react in some way to her news. They argue bitterly about their failed relationship, and Dot concludes sadly that while George may be capable of self-fulfillment, she is not, and they must part ("We Do Not Belong Together").
In the park, the Old Lady finally agrees to sit for George, losing herself in fond memories of his childhood that George repeatedly disputes. She bemoans Paris's changing skyline, and he encourages her to see the beauty in the world as it is, rather than how it had been ("Beautiful"). The American Tourists arrive with Louis and Dot, who holds her newborn daughter, Marie. George refuses to acknowledge her as his child, and says that Louis will be able to care for her in a way that he cannot before offering a feeble apology as Dot sadly departs.
The park grows noisy: the Celestes and the Soldier argue over their respective breakups while Jules and Frieda sneak away to have a tryst. Louise informs Yvonne of her father's infidelity and a fight breaks out among Jules, Yvonne, Franz, and Frieda. The Celestes and the Soldier squabble noisily, and soon all the park-goers are fighting until the Old Lady shouts, "Remember, George!", and he stops them all with a gesture. George takes control of the subjects of his painting, who sing in harmony, transforming them into the final tableau of his finished painting ("Sunday").
Act II
As the curtain opens the characters, still in the tableau, complain about being stuck in the painting ("It's Hot Up Here"). The characters deliver short eulogies for George, who died suddenly at 31. The stage transforms back to a blank, white canvas.
The action fast-forwards a century to 1984. George and Dot's great-grandson, also an artist named George, is at a museum unveiling his latest work, a reflection on Seurat's painting in the form of a light machine called "Chromolume #7." George presents the work, grounding its connection to the painting by inviting his 98-year-old grandmother, Marie, to help him present the work. Marie shares her family history, describing how her mother, Dot, informed her on her deathbed that she was Seurat's daughter. George is skeptical of that bit of family lore, but Marie insists that the notes in Dot's grammar book, which mention George, are proof. After a brief technical failure, the Chromolume is unveiled.
At the reception, various patrons and curators congratulate George on his work while George flits among them, commenting on the difficulties of producing modern art ("Putting It Together"). Like his great-grandfather, he conjures his surroundings, allowing himself to hold multiple conversations at once. The only voice he finds he cannot ignore is that of an art critic who advises him that he is repeating himself and wasting his gifts. After the museum's patrons have left for dinner, Marie speaks to her mother's image in the painting, worrying about George. When he arrives to take her home, she tells him about her mother, attempting to pass on a message about the legacy we leave behind ("Children and Art"). She dozes off and George, alone with the painting, realizes he is lacking connection.
Weeks later, Marie has died and George has been invited by the French government to do a presentation of the Chromolume on the island the painting depicts. There George reveals to his friend Dennis that he has turned down his next commission. Feeling adrift and unsure, George reads from a book he inherited from his grandmother—the same one Dot used to learn to read—and ponders the similarities between himself and his great-grandfather ("Lesson #8").
A vision of Dot appears and greets George, whom she addresses as if he were the George she knew. He confides his doubts to her and she tells him to stop worrying about whether his choices are right and simply make them ("Move On"). George finds some words written in the back of the book—the words George often muttered while he worked. As George reads them aloud the characters from the painting fill the stage and recreate their tableau ("Sunday"). As they leave and the stage resembles a blank canvas, George reads: "White: a blank page or canvas. His favorite—so many possibilities."
History
After the failure and scathing critical reception of Merrily We Roll Along in 1981 (it closed after 16 performances), Sondheim announced his intention to quit musical theatre.[1] Lapine persuaded him to return to the theatrical world after the two were inspired by A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. They spent several days at the Art Institute of Chicago studying the painting.[2] Lapine noted that one major figure was missing from the canvas: the artist himself. This observation provided the springboard for Sunday and the production evolved into a meditation on art, emotional connection and community.[3][4]
The musical fictionalizes Seurat's life. In fact, neither of his
children survived beyond infancy, so he had no heirs. Seurat's
common-law wife was Madeleine Knobloch, who gave birth to his two sons,
one after his death. Unlike Dot, Knobloch was living with Seurat when he
died, and did not emigrate to America. She died of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 35.[5][6]
Mandel Bruce Patinkin (/pəˈtɪŋkɪn/; born November 30, 1952) is an American actor and singer, known for his work in musical theatre, television, and film.[1][2] As a critically acclaimed Broadway performer he has collaborated with Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Patinkin's leading roles on stage and screen have received numerous accolades including a Tony Award, a Primetime Emmy Award as well as nominations for seven Drama Desk Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Patinkin made his theatre debut in 1975 starring opposite Meryl Streep in the revival of the comic play Trelawny of the 'Wells' at The Public Theatre's Shakespeare Festival. He originated the role of Che in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita (1979) earning a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical as well as the roles of Georges Seurat/George in Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George (1984) for which he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. He portrayed Lord Archibald Craven in the original Broadway cast of Lucy Simon's The Secret Garden (1991).[3]
Patinkin had leading roles in television shows, playing Dr. Jeffrey Geiger in Chicago Hope (1994–2000), SSA Jason Gideon in the crime-drama television series Criminal Minds (2005–2007), and Saul Berenson in the Showtime drama series Homeland (2011–2020). For his work in television he has earned seven Primetime Emmy Award nominations, winning Outstanding Leading Actor in a Drama Series for Chicago Hope in 1995. Patinkin has had recurring roles in Dead Like Me (2003–2004) and The Good Fight (2021).
He also had film roles portraying Inigo Montoya in Rob Reiner's family adventure film The Princess Bride (1987) and Avigdor in Barbra Streisand's musical epic Yentl (1983) for which he earned a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy nomination. Other film credits include Ragtime (1981), Maxie (1985), Dick Tracy (1990), True Colors (1991), Impromptu (1991), Wonder (2017), and Life Itself (2018).[4] Patinkin also voiced roles in Hayao Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky (2003), and The Wind Rises (2013).
Bernadette Peters (née Lazzara; born February 28, 1948) is an American actress, singer, and children's book author. Over a career spanning more than six decades, she has starred in musical theatre, television and film, performed in solo concerts and released recordings. She is a critically acclaimed Broadway performer, having received seven nominations for Tony Awards, winning two (plus an honorary award), and nine Drama Desk Award nominations, winning three. Four of the Broadway cast albums on which she has starred have won Grammy Awards.
Regarded by many as the foremost interpreter of the works of Stephen Sondheim,[1] Peters is particularly noted for her roles on the Broadway stage, including in the musicals Mack and Mabel (1974), Sunday in the Park with George (1984), Song and Dance (1985), Into the Woods (1987), The Goodbye Girl (1993), Annie Get Your Gun (1999), Gypsy (2003), A Little Night Music (2010), Follies (2011), and Hello, Dolly! (2018).[2] She has recorded six solo albums as well as many cast albums, and performs regularly in her own solo concert act.
Peters first performed on the stage as a child actress and then a teenager in the 1960s, and in film and television from the 1970s. She was praised for this early work and for appearances on, among other programs, The Muppet Show and The Carol Burnett Show, and for her roles in films including Silent Movie (1976), The Jerk (1979), Pennies from Heaven (1981, for which she won a Golden Globe Award), and Annie (1982). She has also acted in television shows such as Ally McBeal, Smash (2012–2013), Mozart in the Jungle (2014–2018), The Good Fight (2017–2018), Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist (2020–2021) and High Desert (2023).
Early life and family
Peters was born into an Italian-American family in Ozone Park in the New York City borough of Queens, the youngest of three children.[3] Her mother, Marguerite (née Maltese),[4] started her in show business by putting her on the television show Juvenile Jury at the age of three and a half. Her father, Peter Lazzara, drove a bread delivery truck.[5] Her siblings are casting director Donna DeSeta[6] and Joseph Lazzara.[5] She appeared on the television shows Name That Tune and several times on The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour at age five.[citation needed]
Career
1958–1974: Child actor
In January 1958, at age nine, she obtained her Actors Equity Card in the name Bernadette Peters to avoid ethnic typecasting, with the stage name taken from her father's first name.[citation needed] She made her professional stage debut the same month in This Is Goggle, a comedy directed by Otto Preminger that closed during out-of-town tryouts before reaching New York.[7] She then appeared on NBC television as Anna Stieman in A Boy Called Ciske, a Kraft Mystery Theatre production, in May 1958, and in a vignette entitled "Miracle in the Orphanage", part of "The Christmas Tree", a Hallmark Hall of Fame production, in December 1958,[8] with fellow child actor Richard Thomas and veteran actors Jessica Tandy and Margaret Hamilton.[9] She first appeared on the New York stage at age 10 as Tessie in the New York City Center revival of The Most Happy Fella (1959).[10] In her teen years, she attended Quintano's School for Young Professionals, a now-defunct private school.[7]
At age 13, Peters appeared as one of the "Hollywood Blondes" and was an understudy for "Dainty June" in the second national tour of Gypsy.[11] During this tour, Peters first met her long-time accompanist, conductor and arranger Marvin Laird, who was the assistant conductor for the tour. Laird recalled, "I heard her sing an odd phrase or two and thought, 'God that's a big voice out of that little girl'".[12] The next summer, she played Dainty June in summer stock, and in 1962 she recorded her first single. In 1964, she played Liesl in The Sound of Music and Jenny in Riverwind in summer stock at the Mt. Gretna Playhouse (Pennsylvania), and Riverwind again at the Bucks County Playhouse in 1966.[13][14][15] Upon graduation from high school, she started working steadily, appearing Off-Broadway in the musicals The Penny Friend (1966) and Curley McDimple (1967)[10] and as a standby on Broadway in The Girl in the Freudian Slip (1967). She made her Broadway debut in Johnny No-Trump in 1967, and next appeared as George M. Cohan's sister Josie opposite Joel Grey in George M! (1968), winning the Theatre World Award.[16]
Peters's performance as "Ruby" in the 1968 Off-Broadway production of Dames at Sea, a parody of 1930s musicals, brought her critical acclaim and her first Drama Desk Award.[10] She had appeared in an earlier 1966 version of Dames at Sea at the Off-Off-Broadway performance club Caffe Cino.[17][18][19] Peters had starring roles in her next Broadway vehicles—Gelsomina in the 1969 musical version of the Italian film of the same name, La Strada (for which she won good reviews but the show closed after one performance) and Hildy in a revival of On the Town (1971), for which she received her first Tony Award nomination. She played Mabel Normand in Mack and Mabel (1974), receiving another Tony nomination. Clive Barnes wrote: "With the splashy Mack & Mabel ... diminutive and contralto Bernadette Peters found herself as a major Broadway star."[20] The Mack and Mabel cast album became popular among musical theatre fans.[10] She moved to Los Angeles in the early 1970s to concentrate on television and film work.[citation needed]
1975–1989: Rise to prominence
Peters has appeared in more than 40 feature films or television films beginning in 1973, including the 1976 Mel Brooks film Silent Movie for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture. She co-starred in her own television series, All's Fair, with Richard Crenna in 1976–77. She played a young, liberal photographer, who becomes romantically involved with an older, conservative columnist. Although Peters was praised for her charismatic performance, the show ran for only one season.[21] Peters was nominated for a Golden Globe award as Best TV Actress – Musical/Comedy.[22] Peters starred opposite Steve Martin in The Jerk (1979) in a role that he wrote for her, and again in Pennies from Heaven (1981), for which she won the Golden Globe Award as Best Motion Picture Actress in a Comedy or Musical.[2][10] In Pennies from Heaven, she played Eileen Everson, a schoolteacher turned prostitute. Of her performance in Pennies from Heaven, John DiLeo wrote that she "is not only poignant as you'd expect but has a surprising inner strength."[23] Pauline Kael wrote in The New Yorker: "Peters is mysteriously right in every nuance."[24]
Peters was nominated for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series on The Muppet Show (1977). On The Muppet Show, Peters sang the song "Just One Person" to Robin the Frog.[25] She was one of the Muppets' guests when they hosted The Tonight Show in 1979, again singing "Just One Person" to Robin, and she appeared in other episodes with the Muppets.[25][26] She performed and presented at the Academy Awards broadcasts in 1976, 1981, 1983, 1987 and 1994. Peters has been a presenter at the annual Tony Awards ceremony and also co-hosted the ceremony with Gregory Hines in 2002.[27] She also hosted Saturday Night Live in November 1981.[28][29] Peters has appeared on many TV variety shows, with stars such as Sonny and Cher and George Burns. She made 11 guest appearances on The Carol Burnett Show[30] as well as appearing with Burnett in the 1972 made-for-television version of Once Upon a Mattress and the 1982 film Annie.[citation needed]
In 1982, Peters returned to the New York stage after an eight-year absence, in one of her few non-musical stage appearances, the Off-Broadway Manhattan Theatre Club production of the comedy-drama Sally and Marsha, for which she was nominated for a Drama Desk Award. She then returned to Broadway as Dot/Marie in the Stephen Sondheim–James Lapine musical Sunday in the Park with George in 1984, for which she received her third Tony Award nomination. The New York Times theatre critic Frank Rich called her performance "radiant".[31] She recorded the role for PBS in 1986, winning a 1987 ACE Award.[32] Her next role was Emma in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Song and Dance on Broadway in 1985, winning her first Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. Frank Rich wrote in an otherwise negative review of the show that Peters "has no peer in the musical theater right now."[33]
She then created the role of the Witch in Sondheim-Lapine's Into the Woods (1987). Peters is "considered by many to be the premier interpreter of [Sondheim's] work," according to writer Alex Witchel.[1] Raymond Knapp wrote that Peters "achieved her definitive stardom" in Sunday in the Park With George and Into the Woods.[34] Sondheim has said of Peters, "Like very few others, she sings and acts at the same time," he says. "Most performers act and then sing, act and then sing ... Bernadette is flawless as far as I'm concerned. I can't think of anything negative."[35] She won the 1987 "CableACE Award" for her role as Dot in the television version of Sunday in the Park with George.[36] In 1989 she starred in the James Ivory film Slaves of New York and in the Buddy Van Horn action comedy film Pink Cadillac (1989) alongside Clint Eastwood.[citation needed]
1990s
In 1990 she appeared in Woody Allen's Alice (1990). The following year she acted as Marie D'Agoult in the James Lapine directed period drama film Impromptu (1991). Peters starred alongside Hugh Grant, Judy Davis, Emma Thompson, Mandy Patinkin, and Julian Sands. In 1997 she voiced Sophie in the animated musical film Anastasia (1997). Peters has also appeared in such television films as The Last Best Year (1990), Cinderella (1997; receiving a nomination for the "Golden Satellite Award" for her role), and as Circe in the 1997 miniseries The Odyssey (2001).[37] Peters voiced Rita the stray cat in the "Rita and Runt" segments of the animated series Animaniacs in the 1990s. Peters, as Rita, sang both original songs written for the show and parodies of Broadway musical numbers.[38]