Tom Wopat, Norm Lewis, Euan Morton & Matthew Scott Join SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM; Arden Bows Out

[Rob]

Posted: 12/9/09 at 2:00pm

https://www.broadwayworld.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=89934&preview=on

[lull89]

Posted: 12/9/09 at 2:04pm

Damn. Sounds great. Can't wait to see this.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 12/9/09 at 2:05pm

WOW!

I love Arden but this is totally fine by me as well!

[ljay889]

Posted: 12/9/09 at 2:06pm

Wow!

Not the usual Sondheim babies. This is good.

[ljay889]

Posted: 12/9/09 at 2:09pm

PS. They still need to replace Arden. So the cast will have 3 women, and 5 men. I am curious to see how this works out.

[TheBoyDownstairs]

Posted: 12/9/09 at 2:09pm

Oh I really like this a lot...some very interesting choices!

[mywonderwa11]

Posted: 12/9/09 at 2:11pm

Love it.

[scaryclowns2232]

Posted: 12/9/09 at 2:26pm

Any clue as to what Michael Arden booked that is keeping him out of this?

[AC126748]

Posted: 12/9/09 at 2:47pm

Michael is currently living in California. Perhaps he got a job there that is more lucrative than relocating to New York to perform in a non-for-profit show.

[wdwfreak]

Posted: 12/9/09 at 2:55pm

Yes! I love Norm Lewis. Very excited to see this.

[gustof777]

Posted: 12/9/09 at 2:55pm

I'm crushed about Arden's departure. I guess we can only hope that he has something bigger and better up his sleeve that's yet to be announced.

[Wicked Fanatic]

Posted: 12/9/09 at 4:15pm

Any clue as to what Michael Arden booked that is keeping him out of this?

He has a TV pilot in production and that's what made him bow out of this which he actually did right after the first announcement was made.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 12/9/09 at 4:17pm

Who is Matthew Scott?

[Kad]

Posted: 12/9/09 at 4:42pm

Hm, I didn't know the cast would be getting any larger.

[mywonderwa11]

Posted: 12/9/09 at 5:26pm

ljay - Doesn't the cast, as it stands now, have four men and three women?

Kad - The cast is suppose to have four men and four women originally.

RentBoy86 - Matthew Scott was on Broadway as a replacement understudy for the guys of Jersey Boys. He was also the Ralph understudy in A Catered Affair...and if I'm not mistaken he did the Whorehouse benefit a few years back. He's fantastic.

[ljay889]

Posted: 12/9/09 at 5:30pm

Yup, but the Playbill article states Arden's replacement will be announced shortly. So there will be 5 men. I assumed there would have been an equal amount of men and women.

[THDavis]

Posted: 12/9/09 at 5:30pm

Great, Tom Wopat. God, I think he's just terrible.

[mywonderwa11]

Posted: 12/9/09 at 5:32pm

Oh, I must have missed that part in the Playbill article. That's strange...I know the show was originally going to have four men and four women. I guess they've changed that. Wouldn't it make more sense with an equal amount of men and women? Hmmm...we shall see.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 12/9/09 at 6:11pm

Thanks! Sucks I'm going to miss this, but I hope there's a recording even if I don't quite understand the concept.

[legally_popular]

Posted: 12/9/09 at 7:27pm

Sweet! I know Norm Lewis just played Sweeney regionally and I would love to hear him sing a Sweeney song in this show.

[perfectlymarvelous]

Posted: 12/9/09 at 8:49pm

I know there was a casting call on playbill.com a while back where they were seeking a young soprano in addition to the 3 women they had already cast...I wonder why they would decide to do away with that?

Anyway I am in favor of anything involving Norm Lewis and Tom Wopat so I'm game for this.

[Pgenre]

Posted: 12/9/09 at 8:55pm

Why do I have a feeling there will be A LOT of medleys in this?

Big cast usually equals lots of medleys, not that that is always a bad thing.

I get the feeling this will be most like MOVING ON of all the Sondheim revues/reviews out there... and I hope they include "Water Under The Bridge" for Vanessa as Linzi Hately nailed it in MOVING ON and it's an awesome song with the right performer (Liza isn't one of them, lord love her).

P

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 12/10/09 at 12:40pm

I doubt there will be many medlys because each song goes with a video of Sondheim discussing the creation of that song.

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 12/10/09 at 1:56pm

This one will be sold out to the rafters -- every Broadway show queen in existence (including me) will be there. However, while I doubt there will be any long extensions, my gut feeling is that everyone's going to be tripping over themselves to see it and then . . . .

Same old, same old. Once the show queen audience is exhausted, what's left? Sorry, folks, the tourists have never sustained a Sondheim show for any amount of time (excluding his collaborative efforts like WSS and Gypsy, plus Funny Thing) brilliant though Sondheim may be, he's still a specialized taste and much of his material is just too esoteric for the tired business man. NO Sondheim show has ever passed the 1,000 performance mark -- or even made it, for that matter. I am NOT denigrating Sondheim -- just pointing out that he generally appeals to a specialized audience. I'm just as excited about seeing Wopat and Morton as I am about seeing Barbara Cook -- and will spend whatever I have to spend to see them. But none of them reach out into to the hinterlands and that, sad to say, is where the money usually comes from.

[somethingwicked]

Posted: 12/10/09 at 2:41pm

Matthew Scott is Michael Arden's replacement.

The press release specifically states, "An additional cast member will be announced shortly." Some news outlets have mis-interpreted that as being in place of Arden, but it's not.

The remaining track is the soprano ingenue one previously mentioned in this thread.