Saturday Night

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 9/24/05 at 3:45pm

Anyone heard of this Sondheim show? I'm not a huge fan of Sondheim (the only other recording of his I have is the new Assassians revival - which I don't really care for except for "soemthing just broke" which is brilliant). Anyways, I was browsing throuhg Barnes & Noble wanting to buy a CD but not sure what to buy and came across this show. I had no clue what it was. IF it weren't for the packaging, I don't think i would have noticed it. It's a pretty recent show, I think 2002 or so? It has Christopher Fitzgerald in it Wicked fans. I have yet to pop it in the CD player, but I enjoyed the clips i heard.

[AttendTheTale]

Posted: 9/24/05 at 4:10pm

"Saturday Night" is one of the very first (if not the first) shows that Sondheim started working on, if I'm remembering correctly. He stopped working on it for some reason, and then released the new recording of it a few years ago. I'm pretty sure it never actually played on Broadway, but may have played in New York (Off-Broadway?) In my opinion it's a great score. It has a very "classic" Broadway feel to it, mixed with the specific "Sondheim sound".
Updated On: 9/24/05 at 04:10 PM

[GovernorSlaton]

Posted: 9/24/05 at 4:17pm

Right, it was his first full show, but he couldn't get it produced, and then Hammerstein suggested he start out with real theatre professionals, and the rest is history. They just did an Off-Broadway production in the late 90's, which was the first (...maybe second) time it was produced.

[Pinguin]

Posted: 9/24/05 at 4:21pm

It's allright...I love the song "What More Do I Need?" -I agree that the show has a very typical Sondheim feel.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 9/24/05 at 4:30pm

Yeah, me being the "rock musical" lover that I am, I didn't think i would enjoy this show. But I really do. It has a very classic feel to it, which I guess makes sense considering it was one of his first shows. I'm surprised it never had a very commerical run. Anyone know what kind of reviews it got? Is it available for like regional productions and highschools and stuff?

[AttendTheTale]

Posted: 9/24/05 at 4:39pm

Yeah, it's available from MTI for regional/amateur productions. I know SpeakEasy in Boston did it a few years ago. Other than that, I haven't seen any theatre companies in the Boston area producing it.

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/24/05 at 4:57pm

You can find a terrific recording of the title number on the "Unsung Sondheim" CD. (Performed by the boys from Forever Plaid.) I like this version even better than the recent cast recordings.

And Liz Callaway's rendition of "What More Do I Need?" (from A Stephen Sondheim Evening) is still the best by far.

[Pinguin]

Posted: 9/24/05 at 5:55pm

I LOVE Liz Callaway's rendition...she's incredible.

[ScubaSteve]

Posted: 9/24/05 at 10:51pm

I actually was in a production of this show, oddly enough.

It is my least favorite Sondheim, and I don't exactly know too much of his stuff, but this one caught me as boring. "What More Do I Need" is interesting, and the "Saturday Night" theme itself is decent, but it hits some bad notes for me, like in "Man of Means", "That Kind Of A Neighborhood", and the ending was like "wait, this is over now? what the hell???"

I'd only get this one if you were a massive Sondheim collector. Like, if you had three different recordings of Into The Woods, I'd think about it. But that's just me

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/25/05 at 12:04am

I would cut the guy some slack. I think he wrote it when he was 18 years old.

[ScubaSteve]

Posted: 9/25/05 at 4:23am

Right, Sondheim was incredibly young when he wrote it, I'm just saying that that shows. He's a genius, just wasn't back then.