Friedman, Evans & Bickley Sing Simply SondheimDate: 31 July 2007
Olivier Award winners Maria Friedman and Daniel Evans (pictured together) - who appeared at the Royal Festival Hall earlier this month in the high-profile presentation of Sweeney Todd (See News, 14 Jun 2007) - will reunite for another dose of Stephen Sondheim next week. The concert celebration of the American composer and lyricist, entitled Good Thing Going: Simply Sondheim, will run for five nights only, from 7 to 11 August 2007, at Cadogan Hall in Chelsea, south London.
The revue – devised by David Firman - will feature Sondheim hits like “Broadway Baby”, “In Buddy’s Eyes”, “Losing My Mind”, “Old Friends”, “Barcelona”, “Another Hundred People” and “Being Alive” and others from musicals including Into the Woods, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sunday in the Park with George, Merrily We Roll Along, Evening Primrose, Company, Anyone Can Whistle, Marry Me A Little and Stavisky, as well as Sweeney Todd.
Maria Friedman has won Oliviers for By Special Arrangement, Ragtime and Sondheim’s Passion. She won Best Actress in a Musical in the Whatsonstage.com Theatregoers’ Choice Awards for her last West End outing, in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Woman in White, which she also starred in on Broadway. In addition to Sweeney Todd, her Sondheim credits include the 1990 UK premiere production of Sunday in the Park with George at the National Theatre.
Daniel Evans’ two Oliviers are both for Sondheim musicals: Merrily We Roll Along at the Donmar Warehouse and, this year, the Menier Chocolate Factory 2005/6 revival of Sunday in the Park with George, which transfers to Broadway’s Studio 54 in January. Friedman and Evans are joined in Simply Sondheim by Graham Bickley (who appeared with Friedman in Ragtime, for which he was Olivier and Whatsonstage.com Award-nominated) and Mary Carewe.
The four vocal soloists will be joined on stage by narrator / director Simon Green and a backing troupe of 16 singers from the Arts Educational Schools of London. They’ll be accompanied by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Cadogan Hall’s resident orchestra.
“Good Thing Going marks the beginning of a new direction for the summer at Cadogan Hall,” says the 900-seat concert venue’s artistic director, Ian Maclay. “We wanted to present something completely different to the main concert season, and this will be the first show of its kind to be performed here. Sondheim’s lyrics are all-important, and the intimate acoustic of the Hall will provide a perfect setting for some of his best work.”
Daniel Evans added: “The great thing about this show will be to hear Sondheim’s material with a full symphony orchestra. That sound – it will be amazing! And unlike previous compilations (such as Side by Side by Sondheim revived at The Venue this summer), the programme will span both early and late examples of Sondheim’s work. I’ll be doing some of the more cynical songs usually given to older performers – that makes it particularly interesting for me.”
- by Terri Paddock
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