Eldergay Stephen Sondheim workshopping NEW musical with Nathan Lane and Bernadette Peters

Please, God, no.

Golden Girls: The Musical

Sondheim is an ancientgay, not an eldergay.

Hmmm … a new Sondheim, or another musical adapted from a cartoon or teevee show … hmmm …❓. 🤔❓

My condolences to Bernadette. She deserves better.

Eldergay is over 30 so yes Sondheim would be an ancient gay which is like what? Over 55?

Apparently it’s called Square One and it opens next season.

Sondheim looked great -- much trimmer than he's looked in recent years. As R6 mentioned, Sondheim confirmed it was a work with David Ives (one would assume the same work that's been gestating for a while) and that the workshop was well received. He didn't definitely say it was going to open next season, but more that it appears to be heading in that direction. I hope he's right!

I was hoping for “Follies 2: Electric Boogaloo”

Eldergays rejoice!

It will run eight months, just long enough to lose the entire investment and Sondheimites to see it twice and scream it's the greatest thing they ever saw.

Sondheim has had way more successes than flops. Even musicals like Follies which at one time were not well received are now much beloved. Not sure why you think it will flop R10.

Will Bernadette actually fucking SING in this one or just recite the lyrics like it's a spoken word piece?

If it's what they were saying he was working on, it's an adaptation of two Buñuel films - the Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and the Exterminating Angel.

These were great movies but I don't see a musical version working. And not exactly crowd pleasers.

And yes, most of Sondheim's musicals were flops during their initial run - Follies was a flop, Pacific Overtures was a flop, Merrily was a flop, Sunday just broke even. His late-career veneration is the result of high school drama club nerds taking over the media as they hit their 30s and 40s.

It depends on how you define flop. Some people define a flop entirely on whether the show made a profit, or at least earned back its costs. Others insist that's too narrow a criteria and and take artistic quality into account.

Artistic quality is subjective

He was adorable on Colbert last night. Very humble.

It’ll be such fun to play spot the tune.

As long as it's not another retitled version of that show about the weird gigolo brothers.

Thomas Ades's THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL is already an opera house fave.

A Broadway musical is redundant.

Bernadette Peters Is like nails on a chalkboard.

The last one, Bounce or whatever it ended up being called, was so cliched Sondheim on every level.

It's as if he has a chest of songs and tricks that he pulled out to score that show.

[quote]His late-career veneration is the result of high school drama club nerds taking over the media as they hit their 30s and 40s.

You totally made that up. Sondheim's work was adored by the same kinds of people who adore it now, right back to at least the early 1970s. There was a tribute show for him in 1973, for God's sake (the "Scrabble" album).

FORUM was an early genuine hit, but until Sweeney Todd his work never sold out for years like a Phantom or a Wicked. A show like FOLLIES couldn't make back its investment at less success than that. It's not like most of them didn't attract good audiences, they just didn't attract the kind of long-term sold-out status that allows an expensive musical to make a profit on its investment. Bialystock and Bloom would have found Pacific Overtures a more exciting prospect than Ulla.

Most of his shows were so innovative that a lot of critics didn't know what to make of them at first glance, add to which most theatre critics are not trained in music and were stumped by Sondheim's lack of earworms and multiple reprises. He said in the 70s that critics and peers will let you be successful and predictable OR innovative, but not both.

The argument over whether Sondheim should be called an "eldergay" reminds me of a DL-er explaining one time that Ellen Barkin in The New Normal, while very well preserved, was "not so much a cougar as a sabretooth".

I wonder if this new Sondheim piece will include songs retooled from his Bunuel piece, which he has said he’s no longer doing.

Will the audience be expected to regard Lane’s character to be a heterosexual in love with Peters’s character?

I agree with most of R23 that Sondheim is 1. a genius and 2. way ahead of his time.

It's just that I'm old enough to remember that he was treated with a bit of disdain by Broadway in general and the culture more broadly. If he was thought of at all, it was as a clever but tuneless guy who made arty shit that no one wanted to see.

He's a grand old man now and my point is that the reason the culture industry reveres him is because it is now staffed by people in their 30s and 40s who grew up idolizing him. Back when he was creating these shows, the cultural authorities weren't so impressed.

Sondheim is definitely celebrated now. He'll never be everyone's cup of tea especially to the tourists with their buckets of Bubba Gump shrimp and Junior's cheesecake bags that flock to matinees of Wicked, but he's not going anywhere. His work will continue to be performed and studied long after he's gone.

I'm thrilled that he's still trying out new things at his age and I hope this show is wonderful and a huge success. I'd love for him to close things out on a high note. At his age, you never know when it's the last chance.

Wrong R21. That would be you.

According to the NY Times this is NOT the Bunel musical, but some other project he's been working on with David Ives. I'm so intrigued. I hope it comes to fruition.

It's so weird when even big-time outlets like the Times create a whole story based on what people said on a talk show.

He looked ghoulish on Colbert. I couldn't turn the channel, like a car accident. At some point you need to withdraw from public life or get a massive facelift, fillers, porcelain veneers, etc.

No reputable surgeon will perform elective surgery on a person in their 90s. Far, far too many risks at that age.

Is he the one with the notorious kinkroom dungeon?

[quote]At some point you need to withdraw from public life or get a massive facelift, fillers, porcelain veneers, etc.

Your own withdrawal is eagerly anticipated.

Not everyone is terrified of aging.

R32, I hope you were joking because if you mean that, you're fucked in the head.

R32 is Marlene Dietrich.

I love him.

The one with the kink room was Jerry Herman, wasn’t it? Isn’t that how he got the AIDS, because he was such a whore?

Jerry was heavy into fisting. Sondheim had the purported dungeon.

Life is a celebration with you on my arm!

And when my little pinkie wiggles

Some young maiden gets the giggles

Then I make my knuckles active

My, he says, she's so attractive

Pressure with the thumbs, matrimony comes when

I put my hand in there!

Jeff Romley will need more Estate of Sondheim money. Stephen is just making sure there are more productions in the pipeline to support his spouse for the next 50-60 years.

It looks like Sondheim had possibly been taking retinols or had skin peels because some of those age spots or discolorations were not on his face (unless makeup took care of them). His voice sounds like a youthful person, but his eyes are so bloated, I wonder if he has a hard time seeing out of them.

Sondheim is 91, he looked fine.

The one that was agony to look at was Bette Davis.

Sondheimites were created when Company opened in '70. I know. I was there.

r41, don't forget the twinks hanging in the closets.

He was married to a much younger guy. Did they divorce?

I didn't realize Sondheim married. I know he's been in a relationship with the much younger guy for many years.

R41 & R43 I can't I unthink that! Now I can never listen to “I Put My Hand In” the same way again!

Do today's Broadway shows' castmembers still sing using vocal affectations and physical presence associated normally with Midwestern high school musical productions?

[quote] Is he the one with the notorious kinkroom dungeon?

No, that was Mary Rodgers.

You'd have to tell us, r52. You're the one from the Midwest, apparently.

What's Adam Guettel up to these days?

[quote] Bernadette Peters Is like nails on a chalkboard.

The last thing I saw her in was Mozart in the Jungle, she was tolerable.

Love him and Bernadette Peters is a fucking National Treasure.

"Sondheim is 91, he looked fine"

William Shatner is that age too but he had the necessary cosmetic adjustments through the years to not scare the children. With all that money, there's no reason Sondheim needs to look like a dried apple.

Sondheim is not an actor so he didn't have to constantly think about surgical touch ups for leading man looks. And I doubt he hangs out around children's playgrounds.

If I live to 91 I hope I fucking terrify the children.

[quote] necessary cosmetic adjustments

Seriously? NECESSARY? Cosmetic adjustments make actresses look frightening. I don't see why anyone who doesn't have to do it to get work would. Before social media, nobody did.