How did Mr. Sondheim come up with this new musical idea?


Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along opened (and immediately closed after a short 16-show run) in 1981. He was so bummed about its failure that he announced he was going to quit musical theater! 

Thankfully, his good pal and colleague, James Lapine, persuaded him to return to the theatrical world after the two were inspired by Georges Seurat's masterpiece painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.” They discussed at great length an idea of turning the painting into a musical. But they couldn't figure out how to approach this musical they wanted to write. They spent several days at the Art Institute of Chicago studying the real painting. Lapine wondered why no one in the painting is looking at anyone else. He also noticed that one major figure was missing from the canvas: the artist himself. Those two observations were enough to get the creative juices flowing! The events leading up to the creation of the painting intrigued Sondheim and Lapine.

And why is this woman placed so prominently in front? Sondheim and Lapine's answer was that she was “Dot,” Seurat's lover. From that point on, the story became more about George's struggle to reconcile his obsessive passion for his art with his personal life (that he often ignored). By the time it was fully written, the production had evolved into a musing on emotional connection, art, and community.

Stephen Joshua Sondheim (March 22, 1930 – November 26, 2021) was an American composer and lyricist. Regarded as one of the most important figures in 20th-century musical theater, he is credited with reinventing the American musical.




Look at the size of this thing! We don't have a snapshot of Sondheim and Lapine studying Seurat's painting, but you can imagine them admiring this very large scale painting as they began developing their musical!

Why is this musical so different than others?


So glad you asked! Here are just a few differences to note:

The score was groundbreaking (as much of Sondheim's work was). It was the first minimalist Broadway score, a score based on a very limited amount of thematic musical material, developed and mixed in endless variations. So think of the musical material as a sentence. Sondheim took that one sentence and made a musical out of it by varying the sentence all over the place. Using parts of the sentence, or repeating the last three words of the sentence sixteen times, or writing the sentence backward... you know, variation!

The orchestration was minimal. Not a full orchestra here! Just as Georges Seurat only used eleven colors to paint his masterpiece, orchestrator Jonathan Tunick only used eleven instruments in the pit. 

The songs don't really stand alone. Very few of the numbers are easily discernable. In early drafts of the show, Sondheim wrote that the musical should be performed as one long, continuous rhapsody!  

The choreography... welp, there is none! That doesn't sound like most musicals! What? No dancing?!

There's a story within a story! Both young George and old George aren't interested in making work that is popular or familiar or that follows rules. This is exactly where Sondheim was coming from as an artist himself when he wrote this musical. He wasn't interested in doing the same ol' thing, he wasn't gonna follow the "Broadway musical formula." In the story, and likely in real life, this spooks everyone, both the people that would fund the work and potential ticket buyers... Talk about high stress!

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