Sondheim Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

Tributes have been paid to British actor David Kernan, who died at the age of 85 on Boxing Day.

Merrily We Roll Along,” “Sweeney Todd” and final show “Here We Are” are all playing at the same time. Over in London is a sublime revue of favorite Sondheim standards called “Old Friends” at the Gielgud Theatre that’s led by a deep-feeling Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga.Two hours and 30 minutes with one intermission. At the Gielgud Theatre in London.

The new musical Here We Are, which is the final show from legendary composer Stephen Sondheim, has officially debuted off-Broadway.

Stephen Sondheim’s 1981 show, which was a 16-performance flop when it began its life, has, against all odds, only improved as the years have rolled on. It’s better and more youthfully optimistic now than it ever was before.

Six of Broadway’s biggest stars came together to pay tribute to the late great Stephen Sondheim during a tribute concert at the Hollywood Bowl!

UPDATED, 11:20 AM: The producers of Here We Are have announced the cast for the first production of Stephen Sondheim’s final musical.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Jordan Fisher savors those 7 p.m. showtimes. It’s not that there’s a huge difference on the nights that Broadway’s revival of “Sweeney Todd” starts at 8 p.m. But the extra hour of freedom after curtain call at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre means he gets more time to spend with his family. “I’ll get to bed an hour early and get up with my son so we can hang and have a little bit more time to chill in the morning,” Fisher says over espresso at a swanky bar in Manhattan’s theater district. He got married during the pandemic, and the couple welcomed their first child in last June. “A lot of my mornings are dictated by how late I go to bed. With a schedule like this, we go to work hours after people clocked out of their offices. My body has to get used to it.”

The Italian embassy got dressed up Monday night, April 3, to celebrate Signature Theatre’s 2023 Sondheim Award honoree, theater legend, and homegrown D.C. icon, Chita Rivera.

In a Broadway season that might be remembered for a lovely, pared-down minimalism – the intriguing starkness of A Doll’s House with Jessica Chastain, the less-is-more near-concert-style presentations of Into the Woods and Parade – director Thomas Kail’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street will stand out for, among many other attributes, its full-on, unabashed ambition. A prodigious theatrical event that aims for greatness and achieves it, this revival of the Stephen Sondheim-Hugh Wheeler masterpiece is not to be missed.

Naveen Kumar The cannibalist startup in “Sweeney Todd” kills two birds: For Sweeney, the ruined barber who holds a grudge as steadily as he does a blade, it means turning enemies into actual mincemeat. For Mrs. Lovett, who laments that alley cats were too quick and meager to carve up anyway — well, it’s a living, innit love?  Slitting throats and baking bodies into pies is a wild and wicked business. But in the stately and star-filled revival of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s macabre 1979 musical that opened on Broadway Sunday night, the people-to-pastries pipeline quickly assumes a grim air of mundanity.  For its stars Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford, this lushly orchestrated and opera-scale production, from “Hamilton” director Thomas Kail, proves a magnificent showcase for their respective, jaw-dropping talents. Groban’s weighted-blanket baritone makes the prospect of reclining in his company and never waking up again seem like a great way to go. And Ashford’s fleet, agile instinct for comedy, which earned her a Tony Award for “You Can’t Take It With You,” is like a dippy bird for dopamine. But only one of them is a genuine thrill.

Jenelle Riley Deputy Awards and Features Editor Pictured: Casting directors Katja Zarolinski and Geoff Josselson of JZ Casting. This article first appeared as part of Jenelle Riley’s Acting Up newsletter – to subscribe for early content and weekly updates on all things acting, visit the Acting Up signup page. Casting director Geoff Josselson just checked off a major bucket list item. When he was asked what show he dreamed of casting, he would say “Into the Woods.” And just last year, working with Telsey Casting, Josselson was part of the team that assembled the heralded Broadway revival starring Sara Bareilles, Brian D’Arcy James and Joshua Henry. Josselson is on a bit of a Stephen Sondheim spree — with Telsey he also helped cast the new production of “Sweeney Todd,” starring Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford. And he and his partner at JZ Casting, Katja Zarolinski, just collaborated for the first time with the Pasadena Playhouse to cast “A Little Night Music,” playing at the theater April 25-May 1. 

Pacific Overtures (★★★★☆) sounds doubly refreshing to ears eager to venture somewhere less familiar in Sondheim-land.The score, with music and lyrics by Sondheim, also simply sounds lovely filling the openness of director Ethan Heard’s in-the-round staging, grazing the graceful, watercolor-hued screens set designer Chika Shimizu has wrapped around the Max Theatre. Alexander Tom conducts a nine-piece orchestra — complete with a booming taiko war drum — that breathes vitality into those plunking, repeated quarter notes that so sing of Sondheim.Heard’s talented cast sings with passion, too, caressing the stories inside the songs to find touching notes of humor, pathos, pride, and prejudice.

Stephen Sondheim’s final, long-awaited musical Here We Are will make its world premiere this September in a strictly limited Off Broadway engagement to be directed by two-time Tony winner Joe Mantello.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic As a critic, I’m always looking for a fresh challenge, which is one reason I took up writing about theater: It still has the capacity to scare me. I’ve reviewed nearly 1,700 movies in my time at Variety, but how to weigh in with authority on stage productions of William Shakespeare or Samuel Beckett when I haven’t seen most of their work performed, but know it only by reputation? Last year, I was nervous going in to a fresh revival of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” at Los Angeles’ Geffen Playhouse, as I had only the Mike Nichols movie as a reference point. How to judge Calista Flockhart’s performance, and what might I compare it to, not having seen Uta Hagen play Martha on Broadway? (I did manage to track down a vinyl recording of that show, but still…

Graham Phillips is back on stage, this time taking on an iconic role in a Stephen Sondheim musical!

The Off Broadway musical revival of the Stephen Sondheim and George Furth classic Merrily We Roll Along, starring Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff & Lindsay Mendez will move to Broadway in the fall, producers anounced today.

The official cast recording for the Broadway revival of Into the Woods has been released and you can listen to Sara Bareilles and the star-studded cast performing Stephen Sondheim‘s beloved music!

Maryrose Wood Like the sharp-witted, no-filter Mary Flynn, the role she created in Broadway’s “Merrily We Roll Along,” Ann Morrison doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable truths.“Good truth is uncomfortable,” says Morrison. “It allows itself to be vulnerable. If everyone likes my show, then I’m doing something wrong.”So far, everyone seems to not just like, but love Morrison’s new solo show, which brims with truth, vulnerability, and the kind of singing that raises musical theater goosebumps.  “Ann Morrison: Merrily From Center Stage,” a deeply personal unraveling of what Morrison did, saw, and importantly, felt, during the original “Merrily’s” ill-fated 1981 production, will be staged at Feinstein’s/54 Below on Aug. 19 and Aug. 20.  It had an acclaimed run at the Broadway supper club in May.

Tony Awards.On Sunday night, almost nobody at Radio City Music Hall bothered to stand up for the late Stephen Sondheim.After a far too modest tribute to the legendary composer/lyricist of “West Side Story” “Gypsy,” “Sweeney Todd,” “Into The Woods,” “A Little Night Music” and many others, who died in November at age 91, sung by Bernadette Peters, only a handful of show people begrudgingly got to their feet.For one of the greatest musical theater composers of all time. Who gave his entire life to Broadway.

Bernadette Peters is giving an very emotional performance at the 2022 Tony Awards.

A special tribute. Lin-Manuel Miranda led Broadway’s biggest stars in an emotional segment devoted to the legacy of Stephen Sondheim at the 2022 Tony Awards.

Editors Note: Company, the beloved 1970 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by George Furth, has long been thought by many theater aficionados as, if not a perfect work, at least unimprovable, a masterwork in an unparalleled catalogue.

Jenelle Riley Deputy Awards, Features EditorThe Pasadena Playhouse has announced its lineup for the 2022-23 season, including a six-month Sondheim Celebration that will kick off in January 2023. The celebration is dubbed to be the most ambitious in the theater’s history and will include not only productions of “Sunday in the Park with George,” “A Little Night Music” and “Into the Woods,” but a two-night concert from Sondheim’s muse Bernadette Peters.Says artistic director Danny Feldman, “In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, we began planning one of the most ambitious artistic ventures in our history: A Celebration of Stephen Sondheim.

Cameron Mackintosh ,the London theatre owner and impresario, nixed the idea of having a host introduce artists performing at Tuesday’s one-night only Old Friends tribute show ,honoring the legacy of musical theatre genius ,Stephen Sondheim who died ,aged 91 last November.

LONDON -- Judi Dench was given a standing ovation for “Send in The Clowns.” Bernadette Peters bent over with her back to the audience and with her head between her legs blasted her trumpet to “You Gotta Get A Gimmick.”Petula Clark, 89, belted out “I’m Still Here.” And Imelda Staunton set off a huge ovation with “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.”What the four had in common was devotion to Stephen Sondheim, the groundbreaking Broadway composer/lyricist who died in November at age 91. Dozens of stars of musical theater gathered Tuesday night for a celebration titled “Old Friends” to raise money for the Stephen Sondheim Foundation, which will benefit young composers.“He always considered London his second home,” producer Cameron Mackintosh, who organized the event, told the sellout crowd of about 1,100 at a theater renamed the Sondheim from the Queen’s in 2019.

All eyes were on Judi Dench .

The world dealt with the loss of some musical powerhouses over the past year, and the 2022 Grammy Awards remembered those we’ve lost with a touching In Memoriam segment.

The world dealt with the loss of some musical powerhouses over the past year, and the 2022 GRAMMY Awards remembered those we’ve lost with a touching In Memoriam segment.

passed way at 50 just last Friday.“This was the moment in the show when I was supposed to be introducing the Foo Fighters,” host Trevor Noah announced before launching an extended intro tribute to the beloved rock musician. “We would have been celebrating with them as they won three Grammy awards earlier today.

The late composer Stephen Sondheim was honored with an incredible tribute at the 2022 Grammy Awards.

2022 GRAMMY Awards remembered those we've lost with a touching In Memoriam segment.Host Trevor Noah introduced the segment with a special tribute to Taylor Hawkins, sharing, «This was the moment of the show when I was supposed to be introducing the Foo Fighters. We would have been celebrating with them as they won three GRAMMY Awards earlier today.»«But they, of course, are not here due to the tragic passing of their legendary drummer, Taylor Hawkins. Out thoughts go out to Taylor's family, his friends, the Foo Fighters family and all of their friends around the world,» he continued.

The 2022 Grammys will be paying tribute to the late Stephen Sondheim.

Stephen Sondheim is due to be remembered in song at the upcoming Grammy Awards by Cynthia Erivo, Leslie Odom Jr., Ben Platt and Rachel Zegler, sources tell Variety.The performances, which have not yet been officially announced, are said to be part of the show’s traditional In Memoriam segment, rather than a separate moment during the telecast.Sondheim died on Nov. 26 at age 91.

Marlee Matlin (“CODA”) and Bradley Whitford (“Tick, Tick … Boom!”) sat down for a virtual chat for Variety’s Actors on Actors, presented by Amazon Studios. For more, click here.They met 20 years ago in a fictional Oval Office and have stayed real friends. On Aaron Sorkin’s hit TV drama “The West Wing,” Bradley Whitford played deputy chief of staff Josh Lyman, who crushes on Marlee Matlin’s whiz pollster Joey Lucas.

THE GOLDEN PALACE ON HULUEvery queer person of a certain age has at least one friend obsessed with The Golden Girls, to the point they can recite dialogue from any number of episodes verbatim. Bet they can’t do the same when it comes to The Golden Palace.

died suddenly at his Roxbury, Conn. home in November, a day after celebrating Thanksgiving, his lawyer and friend F.