Word: broadwayize
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...Hammerstein, Sondheim is frequently cast as the last of the genre's greats. But far from being a relic from a golden age, his work continues to gain new audiences and interpretations. This season saw major revivals of A Little Night Music in London and West Side Story on Broadway - where there's been at least one Sondheim show playing annually for the past five years. Add in smaller venues, there are hundreds - even thousands - of revivals of his shows in any given year. (See the top 10 plays and musicals...
Like the aging chanteuse in his paean to theatrical longevity, "I'm Still Here," Sondheim has survived through musical vogues and eras. The Broadway where he started out in the '50s is no more. Once the majority of Broadway audiences were New Yorkers; now they are mostly tourists. Rock and pop have moved into the mainstream, edging out movie and show tunes as the world's musical lingua franca. Sondheim's not bitter: "Pop made people listen to lyrics more." He is regretful, though, that orchestras have shrunk - no new Sondheim show has had a full orchestra since...
...This season, fans in the U.S. can see productions of his works from the Midwest to Florida, or take their pick from hundreds of versions of what Sondheim and collaborator James Lapine once joked was their "pension" - the (relatively) feel-good Into the Woods. There's also a gutsy Broadway West Side Story, with many of the lyrics rendered in Spanish. (Read "What's Wrong with This Spring's Broadway Plays...
...small, in many ways, has been good for his art. Moving off-Broadway - which he did with Sunday in the Park with George, his groundbreaking work on painter Georges Seurat - proved something of a relief to Sondheim. "I remember being very exhilarated," he says. "I found it liberating. It was nonprofit, so I could indulge myself. We were less worried about the commercial aspects of the piece...
HUGH JACKMAN possibly to star as Houdini on Broadway. Just glue a top hat to the guy's head, already...