FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Loretta Ramos Terry
lamos@mtr.org tsmith@mtr.org
The
Museum of Television & Radio
Presents
Good Thing Going: Celebrating
Sondheim at 75
March
18 to
New
York, NY
and Los Angeles, CA— In honor
of his seventy-fifth birthday, The Museum of Television & Radio will
present Good Thing Going: Celebrating
Sondheim at 75, a retrospective of the work of Stephen Sondheim, who is widely
regarded as the most significant force in American musical theater in the
second half of the twentieth century.
The screening series will run in
.
Over
the past five decades, Sondheim has explored such unlikely subjects as the
corrosion of America’s postwar optimism and the intrusion of Western
imperialism on nineteenth-century Japan, and has introduced theater audiences
to characters “as complex, subversive and nervously modern as anything in the
plays of Albee or Pinter or Pirandello,” in the words
of New York Times culture critic
Michiko Kakutani.
To celebrate
his birthday (
Screenings in
March 18 to 27 in
Includes
“The Two of You,” written in 1952 (and sung here by Crista
Moore); a Theatreland segment on the 1997 Bridewell Theatre production of Saturday Night; an
episode of Topper (1954) and Rendezvous: “In an Early Winter”
(1959), both written by Sondheim; and his only musical written expressly for
television: Evening Primrose (1966), starring Anthony Perkins and Charmian Carr. (130 minutes)
March 29 to April 3 in
March 30 to April 3 in
Includes
the “balcony scene,” with original cast stars Carol Lawrence and Larry Kert, on The Ed Sullivan Show (1958); a 1958 episode
of Look Up and Live, with director/choreographer Jerome Robbins and
Lawrence, Kert, and Mickey Calin;
a 1961 episode of the WCBS program The American Musical Theatre with
guests Sondheim and Martha Wright, hosted by Earl Wrightson;
and the 1985 program Great Performances: Bernstein Conducts West Side Story.
(175 minutes)
April 5 to 10 in
April 6 to 10 in
Includes
an excerpt from Gypsy Rose Lee’s 1965 talk show, with guest Ethel Merman (plus
home movies taken at the New Amsterdam Theatre during rehearsals for the
original Broadway production of Gypsy); and the complete 1993 television
production of Gypsy, starring Bette Midler, Cynthia Gibb, Peter Riegert, and Christine Ebersole,
and directed by Emile Ardolino. (160 minutes)
April 12 to 17 in
April 13 to 17 in
Includes
a 2002 NewsHour segment with Barbara
Cook, who talks about Sondheim’s work and sings "Send in the Clowns"
and “Anyone Can Whistle”; an excerpt from the 1971 Tony Awards, with Zero Mostel singing “Comedy Tonight”; a 1965 episode of the WCBS
program The American Musical Theatre, with Richard Rodgers and Do I
Hear a Waltz? stars Elizabeth Allen and Sergio Franchi;
a 1965 episode of Camera Three with Sondheim, Arthur Laurents,
and Beni Montresor, who
discuss Do I Hear a Waltz?; and, from
1984, The South Bank Show: Stephen Sondheim: A Master Class. (120
minutes)
April 19 to 24 in
April 20 to 24 in
Includes
an excerpt from a 1971 episode of The Carol Burnett Show, with Burnett
and opera stars Eileen Farrell and Marilyn Horne performing “You Could Drive a
Person Crazy”; D A Pennebaker’s fascinating 1970
documentary about the eighteen-and-a-half-hour recording session for the
Broadway original cast album of Company, featuring Dean Jones and Elaine
Stritch; and the 1996 Donmar
Warehouse London revival of Company,
starring Adrian Lester as Bobby and directed by Sam Mendes. (200 minutes)
April 26 to May 1 in
April 27 to May 1 in
From
the 1975 Tony Awards, Alexis Smith sings “The Story of Lucy and Jessie”; Yvonne
DeCarlo sings “I’m Still Here” in a 1978 special, Hollywood’s
Diamond Jubilee; from a 1977 episode of Saturday Night Live, Lily
Tomlin, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, and Laraine Newman sing “Broadway Baby”; the cast of the
original Broadway production of Follies joins the creative team
(Sondheim, librettist James Goldman, and producer/director Harold Prince) on The
David Frost Show in 1971; and, from 1985, Great Performances: Follies in
Concert, with Lee Remick, Barbara Cook, Mandy Patinkin, George Hearn, Carol Burnett, and Elaine Stritch. (170 minutes)
May 3 to 8 in
May 4 to 8 in
Includes
D. Jamin-Bartlett singing “The Miller’s Son” on The
Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1973); Glynis
Johns and Len Cariou performing “Send in the Clowns,”
from The Best of Broadway (1982); a forty-five-minute episode of Pebble
Mill devoted to the 1996 Royal National Theatre production of A Little
Night Music, starring Judi Dench; Sondheim: A
Musical Tribute and a commercial for A Little Night Music (1973);
and the 1974 program Theater in America: June Moon, in which Sondheim
appears (in his only television acting gig) as a Tin Pan Alley pianist. (170
minutes)
May 10 to 15 in
May 11 to 15 in
Includes
the 1976 Camera Three: “Anatomy of a
Song,” featuring Sondheim, librettist John Weidman, and the cast performing
“Someone in a Tree”; a 1984 interview from The
MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour,
in which Sondheim talks at length about the creative process; and the complete
1976 Broadway production of Pacific
Overtures, taped for Japanese television and never aired here. (160
minutes)
May 17 to 22 in
May 18 to 22 in
Includes
segments from two 1977 episodes of The
Mike Douglas Show devoted to Side by
Side by Sondheim; the 1977 program Previn and the
Pittsburgh: Stephen Sondheim, featuring Millicent Martin, Julia McKenzie,
and David Kernan; and a 1980 South Bank Show, Sweeney
Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street: Scenes from the Making of a Musical,
featuring Sondheim (who explains how he created “The Worst Pies in London” and
“God, That’s Good”), director Harold Prince, and London stars Denis Quilley and Sheila Hancock. (190 minutes)
May 24 to 29 in
May 25 to 29 in
Includes
a television commercial for the original 1979 New York engagement of Sweeney Todd and the complete 1982
telecast of the show—arguably Sondheim’s most daring and ambitious
work—starring national company cast members George Hearn, Angela Lansbury, Ken Jennings, Cris Groenendaal, Betsy Joslyn, and
Edmund Lyndeck, and directed for television by Terry
Hughes. (145 minutes)
May 31 to June 5 in
June 1 to 5 in
Includes
the BBC Omnibus documentary “Sunday
in the Park with……Stephen” (1990), which focuses on Sondheim as a visiting
professor at Oxford University and on the Royal National Theatre production of Sunday in the Park with George; and the
complete 1986 American Playhouse
production of Sunday in the Park with
George, with original Broadway cast members Mandy Patinkin
and Bernadette Peters. (200 minutes)
June 7 to 12 in
June 8 to 12 in
Includes Diane Sawyer’s 1988 interview with
Sondheim on 60 Minutes, filmed
shortly after the Broadway opening of Into
the Woods; and the complete 1991 American
Playhouse production of Into the
Woods, with original Broadway cast members Bernadette Peters, Joanna
Gleason, Chip Zien, Robert Westenberg,
and Tom Aldredge. (170 minutes)
June 14 to 19 in
June 15 to 19 in
From
the 1993 Laurence Olivier Awards, Henry Goodman and Anthony Barclay perform
“The Ballad of Guiteau” from the 1992 London
production of Assassins; on Charlie Rose in 1994, Sondheim discusses
his Broadway show Passion, the meaning of unconditional love, and his
relationships with his mentor, Oscar Hammerstein II, and his mother; plus the
complete 1996 American Playhouse production of Passion, with
Broadway stars Donna Murphy, Jere Shea,
and Marin Mazzie. (185 minutes)
June 21 to 26 in
June 22 to 26 in
At
an all-star tribute taped at Carnegie Hall in 1992, Sondheim is feted by
Madeline Kahn, Betty Buckley and the Boys Choir of Harlem, Glenn Close,
Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone, Patrick Cassidy, Victor
Garber, and Liza Minnelli; Sondheim joins Inside the Actors Studio host James
Lipton for a 1995 discussion of his life and work, with guest artists Liz
Callaway and Jim Walton. (150 minutes)
June 28 to July 3 in
June 29 to July 3 in
From
2004, TimesTalks, The New York Times
Speaker Series: Celebrating Sondheim, this is a conversation with Stephen
Sondheim and Barbara Cook, moderated by critic Stephen Holden of The New
York Times, on subjects including amplification in the theater, today's
young performers, and the particular challenges of performing Sondheim's music;
plus Stephen Sondheim: Musical and More, a 2000 German
documentary (in English) by Georg Wübbolt
and Michael Beyer, featuring musical clips and interviews with Sondheim, Harold
Prince, Elaine Stritch, Arthur Laurents,
Paul Gemignani, and Milton Babbitt, among others.
(120 minutes)
Admission to Good Thing
Going: Celebrating Sondheim at 75 is
included with the Museum’s suggested contribution: Members
free; $10.00 for adults; $8.00 for senior citizens and students; and $5.00 for
children under fourteen. Admission is
free in
The Museum of
Television & Radio, with locations in
###
The Museum of Television
& Radio in New York, located at 25 West 52 Street in Manhattan, is open
Tuesdays through Sundays from noon to 6:00 p.m. and until 8:00 p.m. on
Thursdays. The Museum of Television & Radio in