January 2, 2024

Dateline – New York, New York –

The trip up North is about to tie up loose ends and I hit the road back to the Southland tomorrow. But the time off from work still has nearly a week to run. I’m not due back until Monday the 8th. Which is just as well, as I may need a couple of days to recuperate from the city that never sleeps. Personally, I’ve been alternating between sleeping a lot and adding a nap days with run around and do it all days. So far so good. But on those run around days I’m starting to feel my age. Perhaps if I colored my hair…

What has happened since I last checked in? I had a day of Sondheim with Josh Groban in Sweeney Todd for the matinee (Annaleigh Ashford was out but Jenna de Waal was fabulous and I can’t say I’m sorry for that.). It remains one of my favorite pieces of theater and it was great to hear and see it in a Broadway size house with the full orchestrations. Groban sings it beautifully – not the scariest and most imposing of Sweeney’s but he has settled into the role nicely and he and Jenna had great chemistry in their scenes together. My only complaint with the supporting cast was the Toby who was, to my mind, too old for the role and they had to transpose keys way down for them. In group stuff where changing the key would have been tougher, he was singing down the octave. I particularly liked the foppish turn from Beadle Bamford (whose name I do not remember and I’m too lazy to get up and go check the playbill). There are plans afoot for another theater weekend this spring and, if so, I’ll come back and check it out with Aaron Tveit and Sutton Foster who take over next month.

For the evening show, I went to Here We Are, Sondheim’s last work which is receiving an Off Broadway production at The Shed at Hudson Yards. Hudson Yards had not yet opened when I was last in New York so this was my first trip over to that part of the west side. It was lovely at night, all dolled up for Christmas with fairy lights everywhere. The Shed is devoted to modern and avant-garde works of all kinds and it was an appropriate venue. The theater, reached by ascending many escalators, is a large black box which can be configured for just about anything. The show was in 3/4 on a thrust stage. It’s based on a couple of Luis Bunuel films and is an ensemble piece with a sterling cast of eleven including Denis O’Hare, Bobby Canavale, Steven Pasquale, Micaela Diamond, and David Hyde-Pierce. In the first act, a group of idle rich bourgeoisie have difficulty finding brunch. In the second, they’re trapped inside an opulent room in a mansion while the end of the world may or may not be ending outside. The show is quirky, erudite, unexpected at times and only Sondheim and David Ives could possibly have written it. The score is most reminiscent of Sunday with riffs and melodic lines that build and recombine. It feels unfinished. Which it was as he was still working on it when he died.

New Years Eve and New Years Day were off from theater as I had no intention of being anywhere near Times Square and the theater district for that madhouse. The younger members of the extended party went down to the Battery for the fireworks over the harbor. The old folk stayed home and did a puzzle depicting Times Square. It remains unfinished but progress has been made. To celebrate the new year, I and Frank Thompson and Ginny Stahlman Crooks spent the latter evening at Marie’s Crisis singing show tunes. Frank brought the house down with Trouble (and that crowd knew the backup lines) and Ginny had a big diva moment with If He Walked Into My Life. We have been told to come back… and bring more friends.

I’ve been a bit melancholy the last few days. Some of it is New Year and the thoughts of what’s past and what’s to come and feeling a bit unmoored. Will this year bring retirement? Are the finances in place to allow that to happen? How to I replace the void of not working on a multi volume social history of the pandemic? As the world returns to normal, what should that mean for me? There’s also been a ton of memories, good and bad, flooding in of me, of Steve, of Tommy, and how we all intertwine in New York and with theater over the course of the last forty years. I know that when I get back, when work is in full force, and when I’m in rehearsal for Into the Woods that should all take care of itself. In the meantime, it’s off this evening to the last of the trifecta of Sondheim with Merrily We Roll Along with Daniel Radcliffe and Jonathan Groff.