(screen capture) This definitely qualifies for a #ThrowbackThursday post 🙂 On Tuesday night, the theater world celebrated the 65th annual Obie Awards honoring the best of Off and Off-Off-Broadway in a most virtually virtuous night on the internet! Viewers were treated to a special moment as members of the 1994 York Theatre Company revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along joined members of the original Broadway and 2019 Fiasco Theater revival casts for a special performance of “Our Time” in celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the York production’s Obie Award wins. Based on the 1934 play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, the show chronicles the story of three friends from early adulthood to midlife – but in reverse. The musical is about optimism, idealism, holding friends accountable and the fallout when those ideas collide as we journey through life. As the show begins, we meet the three anti-heroes at difficult crossroads in their lives and their friendships. With each proceeding scene, the story is rewound ultimately arriving at their younger selves – lacking any cynicism and simply bursting with optimism about what lay ahead for them. But by then, we’ve seen the future. “How did you get to be here? What was the moment?”Cast members from the original, 1994 revival and 2019 revival of ‘Merrily We Roll Along’ The original production opened (and closed) in 1981. I was a freshman musical theatre major at Syracuse University that fall, and even though we were hours away from New York City, the new show was very much on the minds of my fellow theater students as a recent graduate has scored the lead role of Franklin Shepard. A very, very big deal. Unfortunately, in an almost ‘only in a musical’ twist, my fellow Syracuse alum was replaced before opening night. Garnering brutal reviews, the show quickly closed. It was the first (and rare) critical failure among successful collaborations between Sondheim and Broadway director/producer Hal Prince (21 Tony Awards). While the reverse storytelling reportedly confused the audience – even though each scene’s year was projected on a screen for the audience – the score has been almost universally lauded as “brilliant.” It’s been revisited in several high profile productions over the years in the hope that the show might be ‘fixed.’ The show finally hit its stride with the original London production in 2001 winning 3 Laurence Olivier Awards including Best Musical. In 2014, the show would repeat that success at the Olivier Awards winning Best Revival of a Musical. The song “Our Time” is what we would call the 11 o’clock number or emotional apex of the show. Set on the roof of an apartment house in New York City in 1957, young Frank and Charley are staring at the nighttime sky waiting for a glimpse of the first-ever earth-orbiting satellite, Sputnik. During the scene, Mary, their neighbor, arrives to view the satellite and meets the boys for the first time. Suddenly, Sputnik is there in the sky, and in that moment, for the young friends, anything seems possible. Check out the moving virtual reunion of three casts of Merrily We Roll Along singing “Our Time.”
While the show didn’t survive its original 1981 incarnation, many of the young actors in that cast were – like the show’s subjects – just beginning. Among them were future Broadway luminaries including future Tony Award winners Jason Alexander (Jerome Robbins’ Broadway) and Tonya Pinkins (Jelly’s Last Jam), as well as Tony Award nominee Liz Callaway (Baby, Miss Saigon, Cats), Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul) and Jim Walton (42nd Street, Sweeny Todd). In 2016, original cast member Lonny Price (Charley) directed the acclaimed documentary, Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened,  reuniting many of the 1981 cast members to reflect and remember the impact the show and its idealism had on the actors. I wrote about the film here.
Hal Prince, producer and/or director of many of the theater’s most important and provocative musicals, including Damn Yankees, West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, Company, Sweeney Todd and The Phantom of the Opera (the longest-running show in Broadway history), died on Wednesday in Reykjavik, Iceland. He was 91.
His legendary career began as a stage manager for shows like Call Me Madam and Wonderful Town, then produced his first musical at the age of 26, he went on to win a staggering 21 Tony Awards for his ground-breaking work.
His first Tony honor would come for co-producing the 1955 best musical, The Pajama Game. Number 20 recognized his gorgeous direction for the 1995 revival of Show Boat.
His final Tony Award was presented in 2006 for lifetime achievement.
No other theater artist comes close to his Tony haul.
The New York Times shares this never-before-seen mini-documentary on Prince’s illustrious career.
He was well-known for his workaholic habits sometimes producing three Broadway musicals at the same time.
And then there’s his long list of top-flight creative talents who often found themselves at the top of their game when working with him.
His list of illustrious collaborators included choreographers Bob Fosse, Jerome Robbins, Michael Bennett and Susan Stroman; designers Patricia Zipprodt, Eugene Lee, and Florence Klotz; and composers John Kander, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim (his most frequent collaborator), and Andrew Lloyd Webber.
It was with Webber that Prince found two of his greatest, and most profitable successes – Evita and The Phantom of the Opera.
His last Broadway production was, fittingly, a retrospective of his own profilic career titled, Prince of Broadway.
My husband Michael worked on The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway and in Germany, and knew Hal well.
L-R Hubby Michael Caprio, Hal Prince, me
The last time we saw Hal was when he did a wonderful Q&A evening here in Las Vegas.
I’m watching reports of the huge snow dump in upstate New York today making me wistful. In the fall of 1981, I began my college years as a freshman at Syracuse University. Aspiring to become a Broadway actor, the Syracuse University Musical Theatre program was one of the very best in the country at the time. I was lucky to be there. As I began classes that autumn, the professors informed us all exactly how lucky – a recent graduate Jim Weissenbach had snagged the leading role in the upcoming Stephen Sondheim/Hal Prince Broadway musical, Merrily We Roll Along. Sondheim and Prince were on a decade long roll of critical hits on Broadway including Company, A Little Night Music and Sweeney Todd.
Hal Prince (L) and Stephen Sondheim (R)
Well, of course, we all followed the news of what we expected to be the soon-to-be hit. Not only was it Sondheim (I mean, SONDHEIM!) but the show was about three idealistic young people whose story is told backward. Beginning with the audience meeting their older, cynical selves, the production journeys back to land at their beginning as dreamy, starry-eyed teens.
Yesterday is done / See the pretty countrysideMerrily we roll along, roll along – bursting with dreams.Travelings’ the fun / Flashing by the countrysideEverybody merrily, merrily – catching at dreamsRolling along, rolling along
How much more relatable could this have been? But just a few weeks into the fall semester came the crushing news at SU that Weissenbach had been replaced in previews. More negative rumors began making their way through the NYC (and Syracuse University) theater gossip as it was reported that audiences were walking out. Among various issues, the reverse chronology was difficult for theater-goers to grasp. Ultimately, the show ran for 52 previews and only 16 now-infamous performances before closing. But the SCORE! The score was incredible. Complex in its cynicism, boundless in its youthful optimism. You probably know the standout, achingly beautiful “Not A Day Goes By” from the show. If not, please run over to iTunes and check out the original Broadway cast recording here. Being the same age as the characters in the musical, and living vicariously through those young actors in NYC, I and my classmates were forever marked by the musical’s ineffable glory. Now, original cast member and acclaimed actor/director, Lonny Price has directed a documentary taking a long look at both the euphoria and disappointments of the one in a lifetime experience. The title takes a twist on one of the scores oft-repeated lyrics – BEST WORST THING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED. Official synopsis:
One of the truly legendary musicals in the history of Broadway, MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG opened to enormous fanfare in 1981 and closed after sixteen performances.
For the first time, BEST WORST THING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED draws back the curtain on the extraordinary drama of the show’s creation – and tells the stories of the hopeful young performers whose lives were transformed by it.
Directed by Lonny Price, a member of the original cast, the film is a bittersweet meditation on the choices we all make, and the often unexpected consequences of those choices — through success and failure. Featuring exclusive appearances by Stephen Sondheim, Hal Prince, Jason Alexander, Mandy Patinkin, Adam Guettel, Frank Rich and the original Broadway cast of MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG.
The documentary has garnered strong reviews at film festivals, and is playing now in NYC and opens in Los Angeles at the Laemmle’s Royal Theatre (1523 Santa Monica Blvd.) this Friday. I will definitely be making a point of seeing this.
Something is stirring, Shifting ground It’s just begun. Edges are blurring, All around And yesterday is done.
