How Chicago-area theaters gave Stephen Sondheim musicals a boost

Chicago arts institutions played an important part in the development of two musicals by Stephen Sondheim. And the American theater legend who died Friday at age 91 also has been celebrated by suburban venues over decades. The world premiere of Bounce at Chicagos Goodman Theatre in 2003 marked the final collaboration between Sondheim and director Harold Prince, who had worked on a number of musicals written in part or in whole by Sondheim like West Side Story, Sweeney Todd, Company and Pacific Overtures. But the 2003 Goodman version of Bounce was not a critical success, and Sondheim later reworked the show as Road Show for a 2008 off-Broadway production with director John Doyle, who in 2005 won a Tony for directing a Broadway production of Sondheims Sweeney Todd. Before the Bounce effort, the Pegasus Players in Chicago helped revive Sondheims unproduced 1950s musical Saturday Night with a 1999 American-premiere production that later became available for regional licensing in the 2000s. Also in the 2000s, the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park produced a string of summer concert stagings of Sondheim musicals such as Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music and Sunday in the Park with George, often starring Tony Award-winning stars Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald and Michael Cerveris. That culminated in Ravinias 2010 salute to the composer in honor of his 80th birthday, with Sondheim songs conducted by frequent collaborator Paul Gemignani and performed again by Tony winners.                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Sondheim work has appeared in suburban theaters, too. The Paramount Theatre in Aurora staged a production of Sweeney Todd-The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in 2017; the Drury Lane Theatre in Oak Brook did one in 2011. The Metropolis Performing Arts Centre in Arlington Heights put on Sondheims Into the Woods in 2017. A revival of West Side Story, for which Sondheim wrote the lyrics at the beginning of his career, opens at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire in February 2022. The Paramount staged its own production in 2016. Daily Herald staff writer Barbara Vitello contributed to this article.                                                                                                                                                                                                                         The post How Chicago-area theaters gave Stephen Sondheim musicals a boost appeared first on Patabook News .

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