SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE Opened 30 Years Ago Today — Page 2

Sunday isn't my favorite show, but it's most certainly the one closest to my heart. Nothing else comes close to capturing what it means to be an artist better than this piece. The parallels to Sondheim's life when compared with George are almost uncanny, as much as Sondheim will protest that nothing about it is based on his life. Jules is a perfect personification of all the gripes and criticisms of Sondheim that he was too avant garde, too out there.

The sheer brilliance of the musical composition from a purely theory standpoint - and of course melodically as well - always boggles my mind. I still love the fact that the orchestrations were scored for 11 musicians because that's the same amount of colors Seurat used in his painting.

Back in college, I studied the piece religiously, having to practically write a thesis on it for a class. Each viewing brought something new and unexpected, even in songs I used to fast forward through when I would watch it as a young teenager. When the first act would get to "Beautiful," I used to find it so boring, and would skip it as I thought it just halted the action. After studying the piece, it became one my favorites in the piece when I realized just how important the message of the song is to the entire show as a whole. His mother representing the old guard, Georges the new guard.

I finally had the opportunity to see the painting in Chicago last summer. I sat in front of it for hours just listening to the cast recording several times and cried my eyes out.

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Updated On: 5/3/14 at 06:41 PM

I'm deeply envious of all of you who were able to see the original production live. This is probably my favorite show ever. I honestly can't put into words how beautiful it is. Sometimes I have a hard time believing it was written by human beings, and some immortal, mystical gods of wisdom and beauty (I know, I know, Sondheim IS a God).

I was fortunate enough to play George in a production of Sunday a few months ago. I have to tell you, BEING in the show deepened my understand of it so much (and I already had a pretty deep understanding, if you don't mind my saying it). It seemed like every day at rehearsal or even during the run of the show, I would discover some deeper meaning of some line or scene. I'm sure I'll continue to find new meanings in it over the years, too. It seems to be an infinitely deep show.

I have a really strong recollection of seeing one of the early previews of the original Broadway production at the Booth in '84. At that point Act I was as we all know it, but Act II was still not complete-- they had yet to add "Children and Art" or "Lesson #8". So the act sort of floundered until Bernadette's reappearance as Dot to sing "Move On". Seeing the 2 centuries finally merge was still a great payoff, but it was clear where the weaknesses were in our preview.

Ironically, I was working on the original production of "La Cage Aux Folles" at the time-- that show had been going great guns for 9 months and we were about to take out the 1st National Tour. An hour after I saw that first preview of "Sunday", I found myself in our stage Manager Fritz Holt's apartment. Arthur Laurents was on the phone and was dying to know what I thought of "Sunday". Knowing Arthur back then, it was best to tell him what you thought he'd like to hear rather than a painful truth about a rival's show. I lied and said I thought "Sunday" was rarified and precious with a really weak second act (that last part seemed true at the time).

May Arthur and Heaven forgive me for not telling him the whole truth that night, but in the last 30 years I've come to find "La Cage" a very middling show, where "Sunday" has rightfully taken its place as one of the greatest masterpieces of the musical stage.

Brillant. I still listen to it at least twice a week

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I took a friend who had never seen the show to the Kennedy Center production during the Sondheim Celebration long ago. When the painting dropped at the close of the first act, he began heaving tears ... as I had done when I first saw the show.

And while the number Sunday is now used to a bit of manipulative effect in concert stagings, the magic of hundreds of people singing that song throughout the theatre at the most recent Sondheim Celebration was simply stunning.

My absolute favorite show. I watch the DVD constantly (wasn't born when it was actually on Broadway the first go-around). They are bringing a production to the Signature Theatre here in D.C. this August and I'm dying to see it live! This show has me in tears in the best possible way. It's so liberating.