WISH-LIST WEDNESDAY: Sunday In The Park With George

Artwork from the 2017 broadway revival

This week we are reiterating the desire to see a mid-period Stephen Sondheim masterpiece return to the west end, especially since it had one planned that has seemingly been indefinitely postponed. The last time we saw Sondheim and James Lapine's musical "Sunday In The Park With George" perform in London was almost 20 years ago, in a production led by Daniel Evans and Jenna Russel, both of whom won Olivier awards and reprised their roles in the subsequent broadway revival.

Sunday in the Park has a plot inspired by pointillist artist Georges Seurat, and the process of his painting of his best known work "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte", around the years 1884-86. The titular "George" refers to both a fictionalised version of Seurat himself, and his great-grandson in 1984, himself a contemporary artist suffering from great internal and creative conflict.

An official photo from the original broadway production

It made its premiere on broadway in 1984, with a cast led by Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin, both receiving Tony nominations for their respective performances; Sondheim and Lapine were subsequently awarded a Pulitzer Prize for the piece in 1985. The most recent broadway revival, in 2017 starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford, had planned to transfer to London in 2020, however COVID-19 put paid to those plans, so who knows when we will see this piece of genius return to London...