Stephen Sondheim

It feels like a...

I describe it this way in my review, that the music feels like it's for a community theater production that, like, couldn't get the rights to company, so they make up a, a riff on Sondheim a bit, and that's what it feels like.

And it's just, I think, so much fun.

The crowd was really, I think, just electric for this screening, and that's part of the reason why we go to film festivals.

I did at drama school assassins.

and then Jamie Lloyd I'd done a play for and he asked me to play John Wilkes Booth in Assassins and I had just moved to Los Angeles and I couldn't quite make it work with the family and with life that one really hurt because I'm as everyone on every anyone with any brain is a Sondheim addict um and so I still haven't done a Sondheim professionally it's things like that I'm like oh um and once i'm in them you can't get the smile off my face you

know

yeah i love it i love it there's things there's things that sit in my wheelhouse properly like i'm waiting for someone to say come on let's do mac and mabel or um what other ones are definitely all right for me you know crooning i'd be better as a crooner i've got quite a high voice but i can't belt up high you know what's funny i'll tell you a true thing this phantom it was never going to happen but they actually called me in we'd love to see you for the phantom and i laughed down the down the phone said there's no way on earth i can sing that i'm not going to waste your time um and they said well come in and prove you can't sing it Because I know Simon Lee, the main musical director, and they were so sweet.

Favorite composer?

Maybe Sondheim.

I know that's musical theater, not opera.

It's your truth.

It creates the world.

And just to throw one other thought here, I once had a fascinating conversation with the druid, the oracle himself, Stephen Sondheim, when I was working on a show.

And I went to Sondheim and I said, because in those days you went to Sondheim the way, you know, Tibetan adepts go to the Dalai Lama, you know, sort of on your knees.

And Sondheim sat up high on a mountain in Turtle Bay.

And even back then it wasn't in the rock world either.

It just had slightly heavier influences and I thought, "Wow, a rock band." [chuckles] And so the difference between, you know, playing classical piano and doing like a lot of Stephen Sondheim musicals and this project was...

It was really, really fun switching between those worlds.

Yeah.

It's just opposite the Dakota buildings.

And I wrote down some song lyrics I just learned from my singing teacher called Not a Day Goes By by Stephen Sondheim, which is the most heartbreaking song, but heartbreaking lyrics as well.

So I wrote that down, sent it to him, and he replied rather beautifully.

And he did come over to visit me in New York.

Work on this production continues.

Casting discussions are actively underway and the creative team is reshaping the production around a new company whilst preserving the ambitious and artistic integrity of Stephen Sondheim.

Like... reshaping the production it's just very interesting wording to me because it reads very much like we had one vision for the show with Ariana and Jonathan in it but now that we can't have them in it we're taking the show in a different direction which though perhaps that is literally just like how I'm reading it but I'm definitely surprised and intrigued as to what's going on here because I didn't necessarily think that Ariana and Jonathan would be as much of a package deal when it comes to this show as it appears they are

This person writes, sounds like something was going on behind the scenes, especially considering how many times they pushed the sales back.

There were two episodes of Topper on.

Now, many years later, I don't know if I'm, but, you know, Stephen Sondheim was a writer on Topper.

I

didn't