Bruce Linser (front) and the cast of FAU's Company perform Side by Side by Side.By Hap ErsteinWhose plays would you say are more difficult to produce well, Shakespeare’s or Sondheim's?This summer’s Festival Rep at Florida Atlantic University features works by both stage giants, and Stephen Sondheim’s 1970 urban musical on relationships and marriage, Company, fares far better … [Read more...]
ArtsBuzz: The Broadway season, considered
George Akram and Karen Olivo in West Side Story. By Hap ErsteinDespite the bad economy, which meant that several anticipated shows never got capitalized and were grounded, Broadway had a pretty solid season.Total box office was up, helped by spiraling ticket prices ($136.50 for the orchestra at Billy Elliot.) Stars headed to the stage, including Jane Fonda, Angela Lansbury, … [Read more...]
Sondheim song revue, ‘Merrily’ revival in works, the Master says
By Hap ErsteinIn 1962, President John F. Kennedy is said to have addressed a gathering of 49 Nobel Prize winners at the White House, calling them “probably the greatest concentration of talent and genius in this house, except for the times when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”That is essentially how I felt about Wednesday evening’s A Conversation with Stephen Sondheim at the … [Read more...]
ArtsBuzz: Sondheim appearance Wednesday is a seasonal high point
Stephen Sondheim.By Hap ErsteinMusical theater is a highly collaborative art. Still, if you had to single out the one person who has been its dominant innovator during the past 50 years, it would surely be composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim.Director Harold Prince did some of his best, though not most lucrative, work with Sondheim, and such book writers as George Furth, James … [Read more...]