OLD FRIENDS Reviews

A Great Big Broadaway Show - Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends a musical celebration of the icon’s work. Tony Award winners Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga, alongside a whole roster of unmissable theatrical talent, pay tribute to one of musical theatre’s most acclaimed composers in this special Broadway production.

Merrily We Roll Along, Follies, Sweeney Todd, Gypsy, Sunday in the Park with George: Hear groundbreaking scores come to life, sung by the best in the business. After an acclaimed run in London, Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends, devised by producer extraordinaire Cameron Mackintosh (Les Misérables, Miss Saigon), brings this spectacular theatrical event across the pond for a Broadway bow. See Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends on Broadway, where Peters, Salonga, and an ensemble of treasured performers give new life to cherished classics. This isn't just a concert — it's a full-scale, star-studded celebration of an iconic artist.

I'm expecting flat-out raves tonight.

No doubt everyone will give raves except Jesse Green who will give the show a pan, tell us that the Sweeney section is not as well sung as Depp/HBC, and declare Judith Ivey to be the best Sally of all time who should have been in the show in place of Bernadette.

TaffyDavenport said: "The show doesn’t deserve raves."

I agree. It's a fine revue, but I have no idea how it got such accolades in London.

Check the Broadway dot com instagram stories to see what Jordan Roth has emerged as tonight 🤯

Variety

‘Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends’ Review: Not Just a Broadway Tribute but a Musical Feast

https://variety.com/2025/legit/reviews/old-friends-review-broadway-stephen-sondheim-1236363218/

" not only are the songs transformed. So are star personas, the most eye-popping being Salonga going all out as Mrs. Lovett (from “Sweeney Todd”), accompanied by Jeremy Secomb in magnificent voice as Todd. But even more remarkable is Salonga’s Momma Rose with “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” (from “Gypsy”), displaying a belt and a fierceness that make the number a showstopper."

MemorableUserName said: "NYT Critic's Pick from Jesse Green

Review: A Party With 17 ‘Old Friends’ and 41 Sondheim Songs

Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga lead the festivities in a new Broadway revue of the great musical dramatist’s work.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/08/theater/old-friends-review-sondheim-peters-salonga.html

"These gems had been waiting in the 12 tones of the Western scale and the million words of the English language, unobserved, until he came along with his flashlight and pickax. Any opportunity to experience how the feelings he channeled and the connections he made have mined our psyches and reshaped our world is an opportunity even old friends should take.""



https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/08/theater/old-friends-review-sondheim-peters-salonga.html?unlocked_article_code=1.-U4.JA1z.SkpcSZqNIsG2&smid=nytcore-android-share

Theatermania

Review: Good Times, Not Bum Times, Will Be Had at Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends

Bernadette Peters, Lea Salonga, Beth Leavel, and more pay tribute to the master.

https://www.theatermania.com/news/review-good-times-not-bum-times-will-be-had-at-stephen-sondheims-old-friends_1769925/

WSJ

‘Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends’ Review: A Lot of Night Music

Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga lead Cameron Mackintosh’s song-stuffed revue of the Broadway composer’s legendary career, stretching from ‘Gypsy’ to ‘Sweeney Todd’ to ‘Passion.’

https://www.wsj.com/articles/stephen-sondheim-old-friends-review-revue-broadway-bernadette-peters-lea-salonga-bbcd7f1e

"The headliners are wonderfully showcased. Ms. Peters has been an exemplary interpreter of Sondheim’s work for decades, having starred in the original stagings of “Sunday in the Park With George” and “Into the Woods.” While her voice has lost some of its rich timbre, her rendition of “Send in the Clowns” is so deeply infused with soul-searching that any vocal imperfections are quickly forgotten as Ms. Peters’s evocation of a love that might have been—could have, should have—burrows into your heart. Equally extraordinary is her performance of another exquisite song of ill-fated yearning, “Losing My Mind.”"

Vulture

Here’s to Us: Old Friends, a Familiar Trip Through the Sondheim Canon

https://www.vulture.com/article/old-friends-bernadette-peters-sondheim-revue-review.html

"Old Friends stretches to two and a half hours, counting an intermission, which is both way too long and woefully incomplete. You can’t take offense at the concept — it accomplishes exactly what it aims to do, which is to remind you that Sondheim wrote some really great songs — but you do start to fantasize about it all slowing down and just committing to the dramatic frames that contained them. Should we just revive Sweeney Todd again? Or Follies? Or wait, it’ll never make as much money as a revue, but let’s do Passion."

NY Sun

Mass Appeal Seems To Be the Main Aim of ‘Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends’

Producer Cameron Mackintosh has recruited Matthew Bourne, a director and choreographer who shares his fondness for spectacle, to guide the actors and provide ‘musical staging’ for this new revue celebrating Sondheim.

https://www.nysun.com/article/mass-appeal-seems-to-be-the-main-aim-of-stephen-sondheims-old-friends

The Wrap

‘Old Friends’ Broadway Review: Do We Need Another Stephen Sondheim Revue?

This tired songfest does nothing to enhance the master composer’s reputation

https://www.thewrap.com/old-friends-broadway-review-stephen-sondheim-revue/

Three stars from TimeOut

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/old-friends-broadway-musical-review-stephen-sondheim-bernadette-peters-lea-salonga

"To those unfamiliar with Sondheim’s oeuvre, Old Friends offers a respectable and professional introduction to the late master’s voice, both as a peerlessly witty lyricist and as a unique compositional dramatist. What it doesn’t provide is context. The show contains vanishingly little biographical information about Sondheim’s personal or even professional life; neither, for the most part, does it place its songs in the dramatic moments they were written for. (When it tries, the results are spotty: The semirealized microstagings of suites from Into the Woods and Sweeney Todd seems out of place amid the rest of the show’s rather stodgy style: performers in ballgowns and tuxedos, on a cheeseball set of light-bulp prosceniums and swoopy musical bars.) Extracting musical flowers from their original soil is fine for songwriters like Rodgers and Hart, but it’s a challenge with Sondheim, who tied his songs insistently to character and situation. "