Speaking of Sondheim, here is an excerpt from today’s New York Times.
Stephen Sondheim, the great musical theater composer and lyricist, was widely acclaimed as a genius, but during his lifetime he had a bumpy track record at the box office, with many of his shows losing money.
In death, however, his shows have flourished.
A revival of “Merrily We Roll Along” — which was so unpopular when it debuted in 1981 that it closed 12 days after opening — is now the hottest ticket on Broadway. A lavish revival of “Sweeney Todd” that opened in March is already profitable, and at a time when almost everything new on Broadway is failing.
Meanwhile, Sondheim’s unfinished and existentialist final work, “Here We Are,” is now the longest-running show in the brief history of the Shed, a performing arts center in Hudson Yards on Manhattan’s West Side, where luminaries like Steven Spielberg and Lin-Manuel Miranda signed up as producers to make sure no expense was spared on the Sondheim send-off.
“There just seems to be an unbounded appetite for him,” said Alex Poots, the artistic director of the Shed.
