The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts will celebrate the short-lived Stephen Sondheim and George Furth musical Merrily We Roll Along January 17, 2019, at 6 PM in the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center's Bruno Walter Auditorium.
Entitled How Did We Get There from Here: A Merrily We Roll Along Reunion, the evening will feature Merrily songs, as original cast members reunite to share memories, illustrated by rarely seen photographs and archival documents from the NYPL Theatre collections.
Around the same time, Roundabout Theatre Company will present a revival of the musical with Fiasco Theater. Performances will begin January 12, 2019, at the Laura Pels Theatre in the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre.
The 1981 musical, with a book by Furth and a score by Sondheim, is based on Kaufman and Hart's 1934 Broadway play. Merrily, which was directed by Harold Prince, famously travels backwards in time to navigate the bumpy history of three friends who start their careers in show business together.The musical was also celebrated in the documentary Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened. Lonny Price, who co-starred as lyricist Charley Kringas in the original production, directed and co-produced the film, which features interviews with Sondheim, director Prince, and Price's original co-stars, Ann Morrison and Jim Walton.
