Winner of Pulitzer Prize & 2 Tony Awards
Sunday In The Park With George
by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine
directed by Oanh Nguyen
musically directed by Bill Strongin
- 08/02/07 ARTICLE: Press-Enterprise
- 08/06/07 REVIEW: What the Butler Saw
- 08/08/07 REVIEW: Back Stage West
- 08/10/07 REVIEW: Orange County Register
- 08/10/07 Shirle Gottlieb, LADCC & BSW
- 08/13/07 REVIEW: LAStageScene.com
- 08/14/07 REVIEW: Fullerton Observer
- 08/16/07 REVIEW: OC Weekly
- 08/30/07 ARTICLE: OC Metro
- 08/31/07 REVIEW: LA Times Blog
THEATER ARTICLE
Anaheim Hills theater hosts Sondheim musical
by Pat O'Brien, Press-Enterprise
August 2, 2007
Oanh Nguyen, who earned a Critic's Pick from Back Stage West for "Into the Woods" at Chance Theater in Anaheim Hills, is directing "Sunday in the Park With George," another quirky Stephen Sondheim musical.
The musical, inspired by Georges Seurat's pointillist painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte," won a Pulitzer Prize for composer Sondheim and librettist James Lapine.
"The painting coming to life is part of this play," said Nguyen, who is artistic director of the 49-seat Chance Theater. "I think people will be very surprised how we have been able to keep the magic of the show intact in our tiny space -- if not more effective in our space."
Set designers have used photo projections in place of Broadway-style sets in the intimate theater.
"It takes place in Georges Seurat's studio and a series of Sundays on the island of Grande Jatte and in the mind of Seurat," Nguyen said.
One of the challenges is depicting a man who has trouble connecting to the world outside his creations.
"There's a love story between him and a character named Dot, who is in the painting, the one with parasol and large bustle, so this painting becomes a gift to the love that got away," Nguyen said. "In Act Two, we meet his great-grandson who is also an artist and having trouble connecting to people in his life. It's a very interesting journey."
And then there is the music.
"Sondheim does this thing with the music like Seurat does with paint. It's very staccato. All these notes seem to not fit until you sit back and embrace it," Nguyen said. "I wake up every morning with tunes in my head."
The Chance Theater, which focuses on thought-provoking and engaging works, received the 2007 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle's Polly Warfield Award for Excellence.
"Sunday in the Park With George" runs today through Sept. 16. It alternates showtimes with "Shakespeare's R & J," which opens Aug. 12. That unusual adaptation of the classic follows four Catholic schoolboys who sneak out to act in the tragic love story. It will be directed by Patricia Ansuini, who also received Back Stage West honors for "Coyote on a Fence."
Tickets $22-$25. 5552 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim Hills. 714-777-3033, www.chancetheater.com
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THEATER REVIEW
Sunday in the Park with George
by James Scarborough, What the Butler Saw
August 6, 2007
George Seurat's landscape painting of an afternoon spent on an island was a staggering achievement of design, order, and composition.
So is The Chance Theater's production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lupine's musical, Sunday in the Park with George, directed by Oanh Nguyen.
The secret of the painting's success? A rendition of form that seems stable but is really made up of small dots. The secret of this production's success? A rendition of life that seems stable but is really made up of small imbroglios and big heartaches.
Nguyen composes the thing so well that you find your self looking at the production the same way you look at one of Seurat's paintings. You step back and appraise (and applaud) the show for its overall composition. The piece brims with metaphors of life and art: monumentality, carriage (it's the corsets, methinks), ambition, and obsession.
And then you can examine close-up the details of the messiness that is life: a father who won't acknowledge his patrimony; an artist who proclaims disdain (read: jealousy) for the work of his colleague; married men who duck into the tall grass with women who are not their wives; an artist who dies young because he worked too hard; an artist who attains success, but at what cost?
Nguyen runs with a script that is a love story, an art history lesson, and a look at the modern art market. It's got some very funny sequences (two shop girls vie for the soldier who isn't a deaf mute; models tire of holding poses and turn on the artist the way Charlie Brown's teammates turned on him). And the songs are lyrical and filled with insight and self-knowledge, puns and double entendres.
The show offers an exceptional ensemble performance (connect the dots: they're great). Especially Bob Simpson's George Seurat who let his obsessions play out on his canvas; Lowe Taylor's Dot the model - Dot as in pointilliste brush strokes - who let her emotions play out everywhere but the canvas; and Jules (Jonathon Lamer), the epitome of the polite, backstabbing artist colleague.
The visuals will take your breath away. The frozen model-posed scenes are something out of Laguna Beach's Pageant of the Masters. John Robinson's set, with slide-out silhouettes of characters and dogs that not only relieve the space constraints of the shoebox stage but also provide moments of humorous asides, is a miracle.
Cassandra L. Stone's late 19th century Parisian costumes ensured that the characters looked French and not Continental-somethings out of an Ivory Merchant film.
And, most amazing, John MacDonald's projection design: not only did the huge painting dissolve into a blank, virgin white canvas and then reappear piece by piece, it also allowed George to play God: Dog in, tree out, sailboat, skirt across the Seine, erase this, re-scale that.
If only life were so damn clean and mercifully seamless.
Performances are 8pm, Friday and Saturday, 2pm, Sunday. The play runs until September 16. Tickets are $22-25. The Theatre is located at 5552 E. La Palma Avenue, Anaheim. For more information call (714) 777-3033 or visit www.chancetheater.com.
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THEATER REVIEW
Sunday in the Park with George
by Eric Marchese, Back Stage West
August 8, 2007
Like the innovative gargantuan oil painting Georges Seurat labors over during much of the play, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's meditation on the nature of art and creativity is a large, bold undertaking for any-size theatre company. Just as Seurat's pointillist "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" is constructed of thousands of tiny points, or dots, of paint, the 1983 musical rests upon dozens of small details -- character interaction, Sondheim's score and lyrics and Lapine's libretto, and the perspective afforded of time and space -- that render it an ambitious product of the recent era.
Director Oanh Nguyen not only has an eye for casting but he and musical director Bill Strongin also have an acute ear for Sondheim's shattering discords and the occasional haunting, heart-rending ballad. The staging combines artistic yet functional set design (by John Robinson), lighting (Masako Tobaru), sound (Dave Mickey), costumes (Cassandra L. Stone), and projection design (John MacDonald) that let us see the painting gradually develop in Seurat's mind from blank canvas to fully formed masterpiece, while bringing us forward in time to the struggles of George, Seurat's great-grandson, to find his place in the commerce-driven ambiance of the modern art world.
During the play's 1884-1886 segment (the time it took Seurat to complete "A Sunday Afternoon"), the bearded, shaggy-haired Bob Simpson is a calm, glum, likably desperate Seurat obsessed with finding a new way to represent images on canvas. Simpson captures the full range of his role's emotions, from intensity and despair to whimsy. Lowe Taylor is passionate, vibrant, and honest as his lady love and No. 1 model, Dot, who leaves him for someone more emotionally available. The pair are well-matched in the 1984 scenes, as a frenzied George (Simpson) struggles to give birth to a new multimedia art form, the Chromalume, under the watchful eye of his grandmother Marie (Taylor), an elderly Southern belle who is the daughter of Dot and Georges.
The rest of Nguyen's cast breathes life into the strangers who swirl around the 19th-century artist, strolling in the park each Sunday, inspiring a grand vision no one but he can fathom.
Presented by and at the Chance Theater, 5552 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim. Thu.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m. Aug. 3-Sep. 16. (714) 777-3033. www.chancetheater.com.
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THEATER REVIEW
Big Picture Lives In Small Details
Review: Chance Theater shows the grand vision of Sondheim's 1984 musical and its subject, Georges Seurat
by Eric Marchese, OC Register
August 10, 2007
For 19th-century artist Georges Seurat, his first pointillist painting, "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte," must have been a daunting undertaking.
Thousands of points, or dots, of paint placed upon an enormous canvas. The pioneering of a new technique. The lack of empathy or understanding from his fellow artists.
"Sunday in the Park with George," Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's 1984 opus on the nature of art and creativity, isn't necessarily the most innovative musical in recent history, but like the mammoth oil painting Seurat labors over during much of the play, it's a work of greatness and a large, bold undertaking for any size theater company.
Though not without limited resources, including the tight confines of its venue, Anaheim's Chance Theater company finds a way to pull together the dozens of small details which constitute the play, from its subtle, often piquant character interactions to the perspective only time and space can afford.
Seurat was a groundbreaking artist who produced a total of only eight great canvases and died at age 31. This musical's second half tells us all that; its first half is spent getting into the world and the mind of Seurat's artistic genius.
Through its combination of technical and visual elements, the play not only lets us see the painting gradually develop in Seurat's mind from blank canvas to fully-formed masterpiece; it also bring us a century into the future, as Seurat's great-grandson George struggles to find his place in the commerce-driven ambiance of the modern art world.
In Oanh Nguyen's Chance Theater staging, Bob Simpson portrays both Seurats. The great artist is seen from 1884 to 1886, laboring over "A Sunday Afternoon," with the bearded, shaggy-haired Simpson terse and purposeful, intensely focused as his new art form simmers. Not merely an artist, he's a scientist – a lonely inventor who sees something no one else does.
As his own great-grandson, Simpson gives us an artist of a different stripe – one who uses laser lights to present "Chromalumes" (mass-media fusions) of his ancestor's great works. This late-20th-century man, though, is high-strung and anxious, as Simpson gives us his sense of isolation and fear.
As Dot, Seurat's lady love and number-one model, Lowe Taylor is honest and vibrant, but also a natural comic with a deadpan delivery. Dot tolerates Georges as a lover only because she recognizes his artistic greatness. Taylor gets at her role's poignancy and flirty humor, and together, she and Simpson exhibit the chemistry of opposites – cerebral man versus sensual woman.
In the 1984 scenes, Taylor portrays Seurat's daughter, a now-elderly Southern belle and the grandmother of our era's George Seurat (Simpson) – but the pair of actors benefit from Nguyen's eye for casting, surrounded by figures who appear to have stepped out of a painting.
Jonathon Lamer is elegant and sophisticated as Jules, Georges' smooth old friend and colleague, who envies Seurat's blazing talent. Tanya Raisa Mironowski shows the quiet despair of Jules' wife, who longs to be gazed at in adoration by Jules as Georges gazes at Dot. Sarah Pierce charms as their spoiled young daughter.
Casey Long is winsome as Jules' German manservant Franz, whose wife Frieda (Micaela DeLauro), a soft-spoken beauty, is coveted by Jules in scenes reminiscent of Sondheim's "A Little Night Music."
As Dot's new beau, Louie, Daniel Berlin caters smilingly to Taylor. Sarah Moreau and Mary Lauren Wilson are studies in comic relief as two frivolous young ladies hoping to become part of the giant painting. Bryan Seastrom is quirky as the Soldier they both fancy.
Sherry Domerego is Georges' fussy, critical, aging mother and Alex Bueno her long-suffering Nurse. Patrick Kelly gets his laughs as a misanthropic Boatman who ferries the bourgeousie to the island.
Nguyen and musical director Bill Strongin have an acute ear for Sondheim's shattering discords and the occasional haunting, heart-rending ballad. Sondheim's lyrics and Lapine's dialogue are pungent, intimating emotions as can only music, not just dialogue.
Cassandra L. Stone's costumes use complementary pastels with soft browns and grays plus elegant touches of black and white. John MacDonald's rear-projected backdrops shift from scene to scene, changing color, hue and saturation, as we see the smaller sections of the "Sunday Afternoon" painting gradually form into the larger whole. The giant canvas is effected by these elements plus Masako Tobaru's lighting and Dave Mickey's sound and John Robinson's overarching set design.
"Sunday in the Park with George" shows us the artistic heights able to be reached by those – Sondheim and Lapine included – for whom no artistic demand is too much to ask.
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Shirle Gottlieb
member of LADCC, and Back Stage West contributor
August 10, 2007
This production of Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George is truly astounding. I can't tell you how impressed I am with what The Chance has achieved with this challenging award-winning material on such a small stage. From Oanh's terrific direction and Bob Simpson's virtuoso performance on down, the results are electrifying.
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THEATER REVIEW
Sunday in the Park with George
by Steven Stanley, LAStageScene.com
August 13, 2007
Presenting a contemporary classic like Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Sunday in the Park with George in an "intimate" theater presents several challenges: fitting a Broadway size musical into a small space, finding singer/actors up to the Sondheim challenge, and staging a Class A production which will somehow distinguish itself from countless others which have preceded it.
After last season's triumphant Into the Woods, it should come as no surprise that Oanh Nguyen's revival of Sunday in the Park at the acclaimed Chance Theater succeeds on all counts.
John Robinson's simple set design (basically an empty stage with black side panels speckled with gray paint and a projection screen filling the upstage wall) gives the actors plenty of room to move around, especially with the American couple visiting France excised (missed, but not too badly). The rear screen lights up with Georges Seurat's paintings, filling the stage with color and light. Cassandra L. Stone's elegant costumes complete the picture. This is a Sunday that's lookin' good.
Six Chance Theater members are joined by eight talented visitors to create a (younger than usual) perfectly meshed cast, headed by the oh so talented stars of Into the Woods, Bob Simpson and Lowe Taylor.
Simpson may not have Mandy Patinkin's pipes, but he's a good singer (who can hit the high notes just fine) and an even better actor. He perfectly captures George's manic obsession with his art. This is a man possessed, and Simpson is just the actor to capture this intensity. (Remember his Jamie in The Last Five Years?) Taylor is every bit his match, with a rich and lustrous voice and a unique beauty. Her Dot is charming and funny (Taylor's a fine comedienne), both uneducated and savvy at the same time. As grandmother Marie in Act 2, she is deeply touching. After her recent star turn as Suzy in The Marvelous Wonderettes, Taylor is on a roll.
As large as the cast is, Sunday in the Park. is essentially a two person show, with the rest of the ensemble making essentially cameo appearances, but all are excellent-Sherry Domerego as George's mother, Alex Bueno as her companion, Jonathan Lamer as art critic Jules and Tanya Raisa Mironowski as his wife Yvonne, Patrick Kelly as the boatman, Mary Lauren Wilson and Sarah Moreau as the Celestes, Sarah Pierce as the child Louise, Casey Long as Franz and Micaela De Lauro as his paramour Frieda, Bryan Seastrom as the soldier, and Daniel Berlin as Louie, who takes Dot to America where Act 2's Marie is born. All double as 1980s characters after intermission.
Nguyen may well be the finest director in Orange County. After reinventing The Last Five Years and Into the Woods, he now puts his stamp on Sunday in the Park. Watch for the full cast fight just before George screams out "Order!" Pay attention to Louise's glasses in Act 1 and the modern day George's in Act 2 and the way they make for one of Act 2's most moving moments. Pure Oanh.
Musical director Bill Strongin's musical ensemble (piano and 2 violins) magically succeeds (with help from sound designer Dave Mickey) in replacing a full Broadway orchestra. Masako Tobaru's lighting design helps to fill the stage with the aforementioned color and light, and John MacDonald's projection design is perfection.
With work as outstanding as this, no wonder the Chance has been named the finest intimate theater in Orange County. This Sunday in the Park with George couldn't be better.
CHANCE THEATER, 5552 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim Hills, CA 92807 (714) 777-3033 Aug. 3 - Sep. 16 Thu., Fri., Sat. 8pm; Sun. 2pm
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THEATER REVIEW
Sunday in the Park with George
reviews on LA Times Blog
August 31, 2007
Robert S. Kut elegant props.ollen, MD
Irvine, CA
What a refreshing new event for local theater. Outstanding cast, great story, simple but elgant props. George In the Park is a hit
August 24, 2007
anne
Long Beach, CA
This is coming from someone who has been in theater for about 20 years. Ive seen this show done in many big spaces before but never have been truley touched. That changed last night when I saw this production. I certainly hope people are open minded enough to realize that Sunday in the Park doesn't have to be in a 2500 seat theater with an expensive sets. This production was clever and used the space extremely well!!!
August 21, 2007
Barbara See
Orange, CA
Mesmerizing! That was Bob Simpson's George. His star was able to shine because of the amazing stars that surrounded him. The casts performances truly came from their hearts. One of Orange County's best shows this season.
August 17, 2007
JoAnn Noyes
Irvine, CA
I thought the show was well crafted and performed beautifully. I talked about the show for hours afterwards.
August 31, 2007
Stan Ashbaugh
North Tustin, CA
You are not taking a chance when you go to Chance! This theater's productions are always excellent in every respect-- acting, staging, lighting, directing. In addition, their choice of works to perform is far better than any other theater we attend in Orange County-- a wonderful blend of comedy, drama, and (to my delight) musicals and musical revues. Sunday in the Park with George is another in a long line of superb shows. I am thrilled by what the very talented bunch at Chance can do in a small space with a relatively difficult vehicle like Sunday. Bob Simpson as George and Lowe Taylor as Dot (and Erika Miller as Dot on another night) were absolutely in command of their roles and of the complicated, inspiring music and lyrics of Sondheim. The upcoming "Best of OC" may have Chance as the second best theater in Orange County (to SCR), but I am here to tell you they are NUMBER ONE.
August 13, 2007
Michael L.
Huntington Beach, CA
Minor quibbles aside, The Chance theatre scores with this well-acted well sung production of Sondheim's masterpiece. Bob Simpson brings the necessary intensity to the role of Georges Seurat and Lowe Taylor brings her own credible stamp to Dot and then beautifully plays the octagenerian Marie in Act II. The accompaniment by a piano and 2 violins is absolutely wonderful.
August 10, 2007
James
Los Angeles, CA
An excellent production! I have been involved in theatre as an actor & director for over 15 years and this production is poignant and right on the money!
August 8, 2007
BARBARA
ANAHEIM, CA
FIRST TIME TO CHANCE THEATER, WE THOUGHT THE SHOW WAS AWESOME!!!!! EVERYONE IN THE SHOW DID A SUPER GREAT JOB. WE WELL BE BACK TO SEE IT AGAIN, WE ARE SO HAPPY TO FIND A GREAT THEATER SO CLOSE & SO GREAT!!!
August 5, 2007
Victoria
Anaheim, CA
Oanh Nguyen's direction has brought this musical to life! Never have I enjoyed "Sunday in the Park..." so much. The actors are brilliant, incredible voices, and the technical elements are quite grand for this tiny space. I recommend this production to everyone who enjoys lovely music, a beautiful story, and a moving experience!
August 4, 2007
Carol
Chula Vista, CA
August 4, 2007 Though I have seen other productions of Sunday in the Park, I was more personaly touched by this cast. I found myself crying as Marie talked to Mama and again as Dot spoke to George. The actors in this cast are so personally invested in their characters, you forget they are acting. i take my hat off to all of you!
August 3, 2007
Josh
Irvine, CA
Great costumes, beautiful lighting, goregous set and fantastic actors. I was overwhelmed with the beauty of this piece. After seeing it done in such an intimate space, I can't imagine it being done anywhere else. Bravo!!!
August 3, 2007
tracy
Orange, CA
So good! Not one weak character. It's so wonderful when you see a show like this and even the actor with the smallest part blows you away. That's how talented this cast was. I can only hope to gain 1/3 of the talent on that stage
Write your own L.A. Times review about this production.
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THEATER REVIEW
Sunday in the Park with George
by Joyce Rosenthal, Fullerton Observer
August 14, 2007
Chance Theater has mounted a beautiful production of the Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine play Sunday in the Park with George. The play was inspired by George Seurat's masterpiece, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. The painting depicts people of all ages and classes enjoying a summer's day in the late 1880's; the play brings these people to life.
The set, designed by John Robinson, is striking. It is Seurat's studio and the painting is displayed life size on the back wall (the original is approximately 7 ft. x 10ft.). Seurat believed that color could be used to create emotion in art and spent most of his time trying to prove this. He applied color to the canvas in tiny dots which then blend not on the canvas, but in the viewer's eyes. The painting changes as Seurat works on it through the Projection Design by John MacDonald.
The play traces the course of Seurat's life during the two years it took him to complete the painting. He was totally absorbed in his painting and tended to ignore the world around him especially the woman who was his model for one of the most striking figures in the painting. He seems unmoved even when he learns that she is pregnant with his child. She brings his newly born daughter, Marie, to him and when there is still no reaction, announces that she is going to America with the local baker.
Throughout the first act various characters come and go in a constant stream and we hear their stories. Act 1 ends with them lining up in front of painting in the same position as their counterparts. Thanks to the Costume Design by Cassandra L Stone, the match between cast and painting is a sight to see.
The second Act takes place in 1984 at the Art Institute of Chicago (Note: this is where the original painting is currently in exhibition). Seurat's great-grandson (also George) is preparing for the first showing of his current work "Chromolume #7," a mixed work combining sound, color and light. His grandmother Marie (Seurat's daughter) is on hand and she encourages her great-grandson to continue in his efforts.The play ends with the current George back on the Island of La Grand Jatte for a showing of Chromolume #7 and as he becomes absorbed in his work, he is gradually surrounded by the figures from the original painting.
This is a musical and while you probably won't leave humming any songs, you will be fascinated with the production.
With the exception of George, all of the characters play dual roles and Director Oanh Nguyen keeps the large cast moving very well in a small space. Bob Simpson , who plays both Georges and Lowe Taylor as Dot/Marie, give outstanding performances. Special thanks to Sarah Pierce who turns in delightful performances as two young girls.
Sunday in the Park with George plays at Chance Theater through September 16, 2007.
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THEATER REVIEW
Sunday Best
The Chance takes a big one with Stephen Sondheim's smartest musical
by Joel Beers, OC Weekly
August 16, 2007
If you've ever wondered why Stephen Sondheim, the brightest, most complicated kid in the American musical-theater classroom, never tapped into the populist appeal of such Broadway darlings as Kander & Ebb, Lerner & Loewe, and Rodgers & Hammerstein, consider the smartest and most challenging work, Sunday in the Park with George.
You can't get any farther from Oklahoma (or Oklahoma!) than this cerebral, darkly hued examination of painter Georges Seurat's emotionally taxing quest to create his scientifically precise masterpiece of pointillism, Sunday Afternoon On the Island of La Grande Jatte.
Artsy subject matter alone isn't why Sunday is a hard sell for the Wicked crowd. The chief musical knock on Sondheim is his lack of hummable tunes; in Sunday, it's tempting to wonder if you're even hearing music. Melodies that constantly change within songs and lyrical phrasing that can sound like a rattling freight train one instant and a chorus of harmonizing angels the next does not make for the most audience-friendly, toe-tapping fare.
But just as Sondheim detractors find plenty to dislike in Sunday, his cadre of fevered acolytes see just as much to adore in his ravishingly clever lyrics and frenetically stimulating music.
And if director Oanh Nguyen's finely executed production at Anaheim's Chance Theater proves anything, it's that the Sondheim-as-genius camp has room to boast.
But is it entertaining? Guess that depends on whether Pink or John Coltrane is next on your iPod's shuffle.
Sondheim and librettist James Lapine's story is certainly deep and layered (it's one of just seven musicals to earn a Pulitizer Prize for drama). From detailing the obsessive nature of an artist's painstaking labor over every dot-stroke in his massive painting while increasingly isolating himself from the world around him, to a second act fast-forward of 100 years as a descendant of Seurat struggles to find purpose in his own artistic struggle, it's clear Sunday is concerned with lofty notions: the battle between art for art's sake and art as commerce; the danger of losing one's self through artistic immersion; the fascinating nexus between impersonal science and personal expression.
A script and score this arty and brainy need a lively cast to hold an audience's interest, and Nguyen's production is graced with a terrific ensemble and solid leads. Bob Simpson is a suitably self-consumed yet likeable Seurat, and Lowe Taylor's Dot, the painter's model, mistress and possible muse, lights up the stage with her sensual, comic and riveting performance.
Two other reasons this production works are a remarkably full-sounding three-person band (Bill Strongin on piano and Aimee Gomez and Kathleen Mangusing on violins) and John MacDonald's astonishing projection design, which keeps Seurat's painting evolving and devolving throughout the play.
It's solid, frequently amazing work. And while the Chance's production may not convince Sondheim detractors he's the best the American musical can aspire to, it's tangible evidence that anyone who thinks professional-caliber theater in OC only happens on its biggest stages isn't paying attention to what's happening in the low-lands of Anaheim Hills.
SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE AT THE CHANCE THEATER, 5552 E. LA PALMA AVE., ANAHEIM, (714) 777-3033; WWW.CHANCETHEATER.COM. THURS.-SAT., 8 P.M.; SUN., 2 P.M. THROUGH SEPT. 16. $22-$25.
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THEATER ARTICLE
Sondheim times two
Revel in the genius of one of the great musical theater writers.
by Christopher Trela, OC Metro
August 30, 2007
A musical based on a famous French painting. A musical based on a famous Swedish movie. What does it mean? Sondheim's in town.
Legendary composer Stephen Sondheim has tackled many challenges in his career, including setting lyrics to Leonard Bernstein's score for "West Side Story" and crafting a musical about the lives of notorious people who attempted (and sometimes succeeded) in snuffing out the lives of American presidents.
Two of his most fascinating plays are being presented this September, one by OC's smallest theater company and another by OC's largest. "Sunday in the Park with George" will be performed at the 60-seat Chance Theater in Anaheim, and "A Little Night Music" at the 500-seat South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa.
"Sunday in the Park with George"
A meditation on the creation of art and the art of creation, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, "Sunday in the Park with George" shines a light into the mind of a groundbreaking artist. And through Sept. 16, the Chance Theater shines a light on a Sondheim masterpiece while it delves into the mind of a groundbreaking playwright.
Director Oanh Nguyen says that he has re-imagined the musical for an intimate space. "This play is filled with such grand ideas, imagery and music, that it has been an amazing process re-envisioning it as an intimate theatrical experience.
"The audience that comes to see this production will find new shades and colors in the story and characters, and they'll understand more of the characters' relationships and desires."
For more information, call 714.777.3033, or visit chancetheater.com.
"A Little Night Music"
Famed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman first garnered international acclaim with his 1955 film "Smiles of a Summer Night." This film provided the impetus for equally famous musical theater composer Stephen Sondheim's brilliant 1973 hit "A Little Night Music," which South Coast Repertory is presenting Sept. 7 through Oct. 7 as the opening play of its 2007-2008 season.
A sophisticated musical that nabbed 6 Tony Awards, "A Little Night Music" traces the lives of several couples, with the music set almost entirely in waltz time.
This romantic and often humorous tale contains Sondheim's best-known song, "Send in the Clowns," plus a handful of other notable tunes crafted in Sondheim's inimitable style, which in this case means difficult-to-sing lyrics and music written in three-quarter time. But isn't that what we love about Sondheim?
For tickets, call 714.708.5555, or visit scr.org. OCM
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