Old Friends: Bernadette Peters – Photo: Matthew Murphy
Do we never tire of Stephen Sondheim’s music? Not if it is performed with flawless finesse by a troupe of performers who breathe fresh interpretations into the songs that musical theater lovers have heard umpteen times.
Lucky for us, this is the case with the new Broadway revue, Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends, a two-and-a-half-hour soiree that showcases the late composer.
Director Matthew Bourne was tasked with a near-quixotic challenge to whittle down Sondheim’s body of work into one show. Some will leave the theater not having heard their favorites.
Still, there is more than enough to satisfy even the most ardent acolyte. Even the three shows for which Sondheim contributed only the lyrics: West Side Story, Gypsy, and The Mad Show are represented.
After successful runs on the West End and the West Coast, Tony winners Lea Salonga, Bernadette Peters, and Beth Leavel headline a large cast that knows exactly how to deliver the goods.
Dressed in gowns and tuxedos by Jill Parker, the ensemble brings class and chic to an already elegant affair, accompanied by Annbritt duChateau’s magnificent orchestra, which is prominently on display throughout the production.
Youth is a common and much-desired commodity in entertainment, but there’s something special about seeing a cast of older performers who have a wealth of life experience and numerous credits to their name. It brings an added level of poignancy when Peters sings, “Send in the Clowns.” We actually believe that she’s had her heart broken.
Old Friends: Beth Leavel – Photo: Matthew Murphy
We get the same level of realism with Bonnie Langford’s show-stopping “I’m Still Here.” Leavel, who always has just the right comic timing, puts it to use in both the solo “The Ladies Who Lunch” and in the duet “The Little Things You Do Together,” with Gavin Lee.
Salonga also brings steely grit to “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” proving that she would be a marvelous Mama Rose in Gypsy. (Producers take note!)
It may have been useful to include some background information on the shows and their scores, but honestly, this is a show by and primarily for theater geeks and Sondheim lovers. For newcomers, it introduces an incomparable, once-in-a-generation maestro.
Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends (★★★★☆) is playing on Broadway through June 15 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 West 47th St. in New York City. Tickets are $94 to $422. Visit www.manhattantheatreclub.com.
When Sugar arrived in 2024, Apple TV marketed it as a callback to the noir movies of yesteryear. Colin Farrell played John Sugar, a private detective working on a missing person case in Los Angeles. So far, so typical.
What helped set the series apart, though, was Sugar's love for old Hollywood, adding another layer to this homage through clips of classic movies that popped up to show we'd seen all this before. Except, we hadn't.
Because as season one progressed, clues that something different might be going on finally came together with a twist that blew us away. The end of episode six revealed that John was actually a sapphire-skinned alien in disguise, which explained his peculiar little quirks and the odd company he often found himself in.
Siblings Q and Z might share parents and a few inside jokes, but they were almost completely different people from the very start in Shayan Lotfi's dynamic two-hander drama What Became of Us.
Q (Jo Yang), the dutiful older sister, was born to their immigrant parents while still in the Old Country, according to the play's parlance. Younger brother Z (Stan Kang) was born here in the New Country -- wherever here is. The nations remain unnamed, but here would seem to be the U.S., while there might be any number of places depending on what's implied by the casting.
The play's world-premiere production at New York's Atlantic Theater Company in 2024 alternated two casts between performances, one featuring actors of Asian descent, the other, actors of Arab descent. The audience could thus infer from who's cast something about the Old Country, as well as Q and Z's family history, culture, and relative progress in the family's adopted home.
Before it all falls fabulously apart in The Play That Goes Wrong, and every sort of onstage disaster befalls the hapless cast of the play within the play, we have to believe that these members of a local drama society truly believe in their little production that could.
Because they fight hard for it. Even as cues are missed, lines are forgotten, fixtures fall off the walls, and actors are rendered unconscious, this fictional company bands together and wills their show to go on.
That indefatigable determination and showmanship was baked into the comic soufflé by the show's creators Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields of London's Mischief Theatre Company, and it courses through the gung-ho cast of Keegan Theatre's new production of The Play That Goes Wrong, directed by Michael Innocenti.
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