To celebrate Stephen Sondheim’s 90th birthday, Raúl Esparza organized a concert extravaganza on the 50th anniversary of the opening of Sondheim’s Company, featuring some 45 songs and tributes which ran over two and a half hours last night and drew, at one point later in the show, close to 90,000 viewers.
Jonathan Mandell at NewYorkTheater.me has highlights and the playbill of performers.
Those fans ended up waiting nearly an hour for the show to start, due to technical difficulties. “Opening nights often start late,” someone quipped. Once underway, the tribute opened with what must be one of live streaming’s greatest technical challenges; a full Broadway orchestra playing from home opened the show with “Overture.” Before the show took its bows, a stream of 42 Broadway musical luminaries and Meryl Streep (who joined a trio of Christine Baranski, and Audra McDonald for “Ladies Who Lunch”) paid tribute followed by an ensemble sing of “I’m Still Here.”
One song never made it to a Sondheim opening night. “If Sondheim were asked to write a song for our times, he’d write something like this. Except that he wrote it 30 years ago,” Brian Stokes Mitchell said before singing “The Flag Song”, which was cut from Assassins.
“There’s this thing you can’t deny,
This idea:
That it’s fixable tomorrow,
We’ve a chance,
There’s a choice.
We can change ourselves tomorrow
We’re in charge,
We’ve a voice,
An idea about tomorrow
To remember
When the flag has gone by.”
The concert, produced by Broadway.com, is a fundraiser for ASTEP (Artists Striving to End Poverty)
The show, which you can watch below, ends with an ensemble sing of “I’m Still Here.” Watch closely to see DC familiars Iain Armitage, who began his career here as a theatre critic at the age of 7, Brad Oscar, Margo Seibert and Marc Kudisch.
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