Beyond Sweeney Todd: Sondheim on Video - Page 3

Sondheim's 1984 Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Sunday in the Park with George is on DVD as recorded before a live audience with Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters for TV (Showtime and American Playhouse). Patinkin portrays French Pointillist painter George Seurat. The first act revolves around the painting of his famous Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grande Jatte. Peters plays his mistress, Dot. Act II takes place 100 years later with Patinkin as Seurat's great grandson and Peters as his grandmother. From this play comes the song "Putting It Together," which later served as the title of a Sondheim musical review, starring Carol Burnett and George Hearn in the Los Angeles 1998 production (DVD).

In 1987, Peters was part of the original Broadway cast for Sondheim's Into the Woods. With book by Lapine, this musical won several Tony awards including Best Score and Best Book. It basically looks at what happened after happily ever after in several fairy tales (Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Jack and the Beanstock). The original cast video is available on DVD, taped in 1989 and shown on public television in 1991.

Sondheim's musicals are alive and well on Broadway. If you can't afford pricey tickets, you can still see some great performances on video.

Article Author: Purple Tigress

Former theater critic for the LA Weekly and Los Angeles Times . For the last five years, an editing slave at a dot-com but recently laid off. Currently an under-employed freelance writer and artist.

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