Stephen Sondheim: Finishing the Hat, the composer's first-ever collection of his lyrics, is out now in the UK and is due out in the US next week. The collection includes the lyrics for all of his musicals from 1954 to 1981 along with personal anecdotes and behind-the-scenes photos. Variety declares London "smitten with Sondheim." Financial Times says "Sondheim has brought unprecedented depth to musicals"; one sees a Sondheim show "for the exhilaration of seeing a popular art form stretched to its limits." Sondheim's Evening Primrose will receive a one-night-only reading next week, the night before the original TV production is out on DVD. Bernadette Peters will receive the the Signature Theatre's 2011 Sondheim Award.
Stephen Sondheim: Finishing the Hat, the composer's first-ever collection of his lyrics, is out now in the UK and is due out in the United States on Knopf next Tuesday, October 26. The collection includes the lyrics for all of his musicals from 1954 to 1981—including West Side Story, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, and Sweeney Todd—as well as never-before-published songs from each show. What's more, Finishing the Hat gives readers a rare personal look into Sondheim's life through anecdotes, behind-the-scenes photographs from each production, and handwritten music and lyrics from the songwriter’s personal collection. For more information, visit randomhouse.com.
(Finishing the Hat takes its title from what may be Sondheim's most autobiographical song, from Sunday in the Park with George. Mandy Patinkin, who sang the song in the original 1984 production, offers another take on the tune in the 2002 Nonesuch release Mandy Patinkin Sings Sondheim.)
With the book's release in the UK last week and a number of Sondheim productions due to open in London, Variety declares the city "smitten with Sondheim." First up is a production of Sondheim's latest work, Road Show, at the Menier Chocolate Factory next summer. It will be helmed by director John Doyle, who led the original cast production captured on the 2009 Nonesuch / PS Classics recording. For more of what's ahead from Sondheim on the London stage, visit variety.com.
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Financial Times music critic Ludovic Hunter-Tilney experiences Londoners' love of Sondheim first-hand when he meets the composer for lunch, and "a frisson runs through" the restaurant.
"Sondheim has brought unprecedented depth to musicals, transforming them from romantic comedies into psychological character studies (Company), meditations about art (Sunday in the Park with George, 1984) and investigations into the history of US imperialism (Pacific Overtures, 1987)," writes Hunter-Tilney. "You don’t go to Sondheim musicals for happy endings, show-stopping tunes and the sort of demented applause that Variety magazine labels 'hefty mitts.' You go for the exhilaration of seeing a popular art form stretched to its limits."
Read the extensive feature profile at ft.com.
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The Observer, in its review of Finishing the Hat, says that "character has been the driving force in the career of one of the key figures in 20th-century theatre." Reviewer David Benedict looks back to a young Sondheim's relationship with his mentor, Oscar Hammerstein II, and explains that "during that time, Sondheim lapped up everything Hammerstein could teach him. Having learned the rules, he became one of theatre's great iconoclasts. He writes musicals but, alongside Albee and Mamet, Sondheim is a game-changing dramatist."
Benedict goes on to describe the book as "an eye-widening treasure chest of manuscript sketches of first ideas and second thoughts, rehearsal shots, backstage arguments, lessons and, intriguingly, glimpses of the man beneath the material."
Read more at guardian.co.uk.
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Furthering this Anglo-American connection, New York's St. George's Society, which helps people of British or Commonwealth origin, will present a one-night-only reading of Sondheim's Evening Primrose, starring Candice Bergen, as part of its gala fundraising celebration next Monday, October 25. For tickets, visit stgeorgessociety.org.
Based on a short story by John Collier, Evening Primrose, with music and lyrics by Sondheim and teleplay by James Goldman, was originally produced in 1966 for the television series ABC Stage 67, starring Anthony Perkins and Charmian Carr. On Tuesday, October 26, the same day as the US release of Finishing the Hat, this original television production will be released on DVD by E1 Entertainment.
The Nonesuch studio recording of Evening Primrose, from 2000, featuring Neil Patrick Harris and Theresa McCarthy (Floyd Collins), was the first recording of the show under Sondheim’s supervision; the New York Times praised the album as “dazzling.”
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In still more Sondheim news, Bernadette Peters, currently starring as Desirée Armfeldt in the Broadway revival of Sondheim's A Little Night Music, will receive the 2011 Sondheim Award from the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia. The award gala will take place at the Embassy of Italy in Washington, DC, on April 11, 2011. Angela Lansbury, who originated the role of Desirée's mother in the A Little Night Music revival, captured on the Nonesuch / PS Classics recording, received the inaugural Sondheim Award this past April. For more information on next year's gala, visit sig-online.org.
A Little Night Music will play its final performance at the Walter Kerr Theater in New York City on January 9, 2011. For tickets, visit nightmusiconbroadway.com.
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To pick up a copy of any of the albums in the Nonesuch Sondheim catalog, including Road Show, Evening Primrose, and A Little Night Music, head to the Nonesuch Store.
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