A year ago...yeah, that's what everybody's talking about. A year ago, we all closed down and hibernated and cancelled and postponed, for what we thought would be...oh, around 2 weeks? Yeah, see you in like 2 weeks, pick all this stuff back up in 2 weeks...don't know how we'll ever SURVIVE 2 weeks in our HOMES??? Like what did WE know? And a year ago, I said to my station manager, "ROB, I GOTTA do a live show, cuz Sondheim's birthday is actually ON a Sunday AND he's going to be 90! Come on, I have to do this show!" And yeah, I eventually got to do that show, maybe a month late (with a mask, a windscreen, bleach, wipes, and no one within a 1/2 mile of the station), but like what did WE know a year ago?
Flash forward: Guess what? It's Sondheim's birthday, AGAIN. I wasn't even going to salute him! Depression, like a fruited jello mold, had set in. Blah. As you can tell, I haven't been blessed (aka vaccinated) yet, even tho I'm old as dirt and definitely have eligibility. That poke comes for me in 10 days. Meanwhile, the world has changed and I've changed and Broadway is still dark and I hate streaming shows. And Sondheim's only 91.
91!!! Look, he MADE IT, Kim...ya gotta do a show for him!
Soooo, I will. I'll do a birthday show. He deserves it. He remained vertical thru this frickin' pandemic, and he's a musical theatre god. So from the overplayed files of 2 On The Aisle, we'll toast him with his signature songs, genuflect with a couple of near-misses, and brag that we once saw him at Orso and know somebody who knows somebody who knows him. (I actually did music score copying for Merrily We Roll Along, back when it was all by hand. We're talkin' 1980. And could I tell that thing was going to flop? No, I could not.)
Once again, we'll rev up with a Broadway attitude, that acerbic/ambivalent/neurotic Sondheim kind (which is easier than Jerry Herman's positive PEP!), and do the right thing. Happy 91st, SS. Someday soon, we'll crawl back onto a Broadway stage (or up to that balcony aisle seat) in a wonderful theatre and enjoy your music once more. LIVE.
Comedy Tonight (Nathan Lane, Company, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum)
Company (Dean Jones, Barbara Barrie, Elaine Stritch, Charles Kimbrough, George Coe, Merle Louise, Company)
Another Hundred People (Pamela Myers, Company)
The Little Things You Do Together (Elaine Stritch, Elaine Stritch At Liberty)
The Story Of Lucy And Jessie (Lee Remick, Follies)
Don't Laugh (Victoria Clark, The Sondheim Birthday Concert)
I'm Still Here (Yvonne DeCarlo, Follies)
Bounce (Richard Kind, Howard McGillin, Bounce)
Losing My Mind (Barbara Cook, Follies)
Everyday A Little Death (Victoria Mallory, Patricia Elliot, A Little Night Music)
I Remember (Charmian Carr, Evening Primrose)
Uptown, Downtown (Craig Lucas, Marry Me A Little)
Welcome To Kanagawa (Ernest Harada, Pacific Overtures)
Prelude/The Ballad Of Sweeney Todd (Len Cariou, Angela Lansbury, Company, Sweeney Todd
Ben Franklin Sondheim & Lin-Manuel (Dan Rosales, Juwan Crawley, Spamilton)
Move On (Bernadette Peters, Mandy Patinkin, Sunday In The Park With George)
Johanna (Victor Garber, Sweeney Todd)
Opening Doors (Jim Walton, Lonny Price, Ann Morrison, Jason Alexander, Sally Klein, Merrily We Roll Along)
Old Friends (Jim Walton, Lonny Price, Ann Morrison, Merrily We Roll Along)
Anyone Can Whistle (Lee Remick, Anyone Can Whistle)
Not While I'm Around (Ken Jennings, Angela Lansbury, Sweeney Todd)
Not A Day Goes By (Bernadette Peters, Sondheim, Etc.)
Being Alive (Dean Jones, Company)
Send In The Clowns (Glynis Johns, A Little Night Music)
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