the sondheim - lighting & sound · pdf filesondheim,andthesceneryandvideo...

56 • June 2010 • Lighting&Sound America

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know what we’ll do/We’ll do arevue.” Show fans will recognizethese lines from “Opening Doors,”in the Stephen Sondheim/George

Furth musical Merrily We Roll Along.They’re words that theatre peoplehave taken to heart; ever since 1977’sSide by Side by Sondheim, revuesbased on the songwriter’s cataloghave proliferated. Some, like OpeningDoors, are linked to events inSondheim’s life; others, like Putting itTogether and Marry Me a Little, placethe songs in a loose narrativecontext. In addition, many benefitperformances, beginning with 1973’sSondheim: A Musical Tribute, havebeen recorded.

Given these—and given the factthat not a season goes by without amajor Sondheim revival—one mightwonder about the necessity of a newSondheim revue. The questionseemed particularly urgent this year,when his 80th birthday triggered anunprecedented number of musicalsalutes. Thanks to the Encores! atCity Center program of concertproductions of musical shows, NewYorkers even got to see the rarelyseen 1964 flop, Anyone Can Whistle.Really, what more was there to say?

But Sondheim on Sondheim, asconceived and directed by JamesLapine and presented by theRoundabout Theatre Company atStudio 54, sheds new light on thesubject. Originally titled iSondheim,the program of songs is linked to aseries of video interviews withSondheim, tracing the events of his

life and examining the pains,pleasures, and problems of writing forthe musical theatre. It’s filled withstimulating and/or revelatory nuggetsof information. A sequence combiningthree totally different openingnumbers written for A Funny ThingHappened on the Way to the Forumopens a window on that show’stroubled out-of-town tryout. Thejuxtaposition of two closing numbersfrom Company reveals how Sondheimadjusted his work to fit changes inthe show’s libretto. And even hard-core fans may not have heard “Smile,Girls,” which lasted one night onlyduring Gypsy’s Philadelphia tryout.

The interviews also examine keyaspects of Sondheim’s personal life,including his chilly, unloving mother;his close relationship with OscarHammerstein II; and the confessionthat he first fell in love only in his 60s.He shies away from very little, offeringa ribald account of Ethel Merman’sfilthy mouth, brusquely dismissing DoI Hear a Waltz? as the only show heregrets, and spoofing his own godlikestatus among musical-theatre fans.

The juxtaposition of these videosequences with first-rate perform-ances of Sondheim’s songs by thelikes of Vanessa Williams, TomWopat, and the great Barbara Cookresults in a kind of dramatic tensionthat makes Sondheim on Sondheimunique. The contrast between thisblunt, funny, analytical man and hissongs, which overflow with feeling, isfascinating—and, arguably, morerevealing than anyone intended.

Stephen Sondheim was at theforefront of artists who reinvented themusical with a modernist sensibility.What Picasso and cubism were topainting, Sondheim is to the musical.Sondheim on Sondheim helps toexplain why.

Onstage, Sondheim on Sondheimunfolds with such elegant simplicitythat one might not guess that itscreation proved to be a brain-teasingchallenge for the members of itsdesign team. In essence, they weren’tjust putting together a show; theywere inventing a new format.

Defining the format“We started out not really knowingwhat we were doing,” says theshow’s scenic designer, BeowulfBoritt, who worked with directorLapine and Peter Flaherty, thevideo/projection designer, to figureout the basic components ofSondheim on Sondheim. “We knew itwould be video clips and songs,”Boritt adds, “but we didn’t know whatthe songs were, and we didn’t havethe video. There was no structure,just a basic idea; the possibilitieswere wide open, which made it hardto design.” As a result, “We wentthrough three or four months of ideaafter idea.”

Eventually, recalls Boritt, “I cameup with the idea of a structuralrevolve with RP screen placed behindit.” But this proved impractical; at thetime, the production was to bestaged at the Alliance Theatre inAtlanta, with a national tour after- P

hoto:JoanMarcus

Assembling the pieces of Sondheim on Sondheimwas a brain-teasing task

By: David Barbour

THESONDHEIM PUZZLE

“I

Copyright Lighting&Sound America June 2010 http://www.lightingandsoundamerica.com/LSA.html

www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • June 2010 • 57

In an especially witty stage look, the video wall, bearing an image of the young Sondheim, splits to reveal part of the cast.


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wards; working with Sam Ellis, ofHudson Scenic Studio, Boritt says,“We realized that, on a normalBroadway touring schedule, therewasn’t time to get four or fiveprojectors focused on bizarre shapesduring an eight-hour load-in. We werefour or five months out fromproduction, and we had to rethink it.”

It was at this point that “the idea ofLCD screens came up,” says Boritt.“James was doing the first workshopof the show. I was watching aperformance, and it was one of thefew times in my life when I’ve had a‘Eureka’ moment; I suddenly knew

what the setshould be. Wewent into moremeetings withPeter, making aseries of 1/4"models andconsidering howwe would stagethe show on it.At the end, wehad the thing wehave on stage.”

That “thing”consists of afive-wide-by-seven-high wall

of LCD screens, which can breakapart in various ways, offering variousshapes and configurations. Behindthe wall is a turntable. From the front,it provides a second level for theperformers; it also spins around toreveal two staircases and more LCDscreens—a slightly askew pair ofcolumns of screens plus screensscattered about in apparently randomfashion, like so many broken tiles. Itlooks rather like a ruin, and, indeed,Boritt says it was partly inspired byThe Sea of Ice, a painting by CasperDavid Friedrich depicting a shipwreckin the arctic. (He adds that he studied

the work of Boris Aronson, scenicdesigner for such Sondheim works asCompany, Follies, and PacificOvertures; the design of Sondheim onSondheim does allude to Aronson’shighly sculptural approach.)

“I was always interested in startingwith a box that we would shatter—asimple rectilinear space that is brokeninto pieces,” says Boritt, who notesthat the idea is a reflection of the waySondheim “took an establishedformat and remade it.” Also, he says,the set design allows for extra visualvariety. “The lead actor in the show isSondheim, and the scenery and videohave to represent him. Just poppinghim onto a normal ratio screen wouldbe dreadfully dull. This way, we cankeep changing how you see him.”

And it’s true that Boritt andFlaherty have an almost infinitenumber of ways to use theirscenic/video concept. (The design’spuzzle-like aspects are all too appro-priate for a show about Sondheim,who is famously addicted to puzzlesand games of all kinds.) One of theproduction’s wittiest images featuresa black-and-white photo of the youngSondheim, looking every inch thecocky Broadway comer, with acigarette dangling between his lips. It To

pleftphoto:Richard

Term

ine;Toprightandbottom

photos:CourtesyofBeowulfBorittA sketch by Boritt shows the broken-tile look, with the video wall

also in a fragmented state.

Above left: Vanessa Williams, in a wash of saturated colors, smolders in the number “Ah, But Underneath.” Above, right: Images ofEthel Merman in “Smile, Girls.” This is the broken-tile look that, Flaherty says, “offered so much compositional fun.”


is broken in half, along jagged lines;sitting between the two halves of theimage are four members of the cast.For “The Gun Song,” from Assassins,the wall assembles behind the cast,as each screen reveals the likes ofJohn Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln,Malcolm X, John David Hinckley, andBenazir Bhutto. Sondheim’s parentsare seen in two vertical photos,separated by blackness to reflect theend of their marriage. “Epiphany,” thesoul-shattering solo from SweeneyTodd, gains in power from beingstaged in front the scattered-tileturntable, the screens filled withimages of splattered blood; thisnumber also makes use of a smallquadrant of the video wall, as does“Smile Girls,” which features imagesof Ethel Merman, both on thequadrant and the scattered tiles.“Opening Doors,” that lengthymusical sequence from Merrily,features singers moving up and downthe turntable’s stairs as it spins; onthe screens, one sees animationsdepicting images of New York, whichthe characters dream of conquering.

Such visual variety came at aprice, however. “Tracking this showwas one of the biggest nightmaresI’ve ever had,” Boritt says. “There areonly four moving pieces, but they cango together in a million ways. And theset list kept changing; there was somuch to do in integrating lighting,video, and automation.”

That integration only came togetherconceptually a few months beforepreviews began. “Right beforeChristmas, we had a rough runningorder,” says Boritt. “Peter had a planfor the images, I took pictures of themodel, and we did a flow chart. Wewent through the show, beat by beat,and got a basic idea of how it wouldwork. If we had a clear idea for ascene—like the broken prosceniumarch we use in the Follies sequence—we put it in. Also, there was what Petercalls ‘the glue,’ meaning amorphousimagery used in some numbers. In thisway, we got the general idea of the

charting of the show.”Next, he says, “One of my assis-

tants built a virtual model of the set,and I started churning out story-boards, which were turned into aPowerPoint file by one of James’assistants. That became our visualscript; it was about 100 slides long—but, each day, there would be achange, and we’d have to adjust. Thepaperwork was exhausting; everychange in a number would mean achange in tracking.”

Such changes proved labor-intensive. For example, Boritt says,“There are so many cables built intothe turntable, it couldn’t rotate foreverwithout wrecking the cabling. Wecould have built a commutator intoit”—this would have allowed forendless revolutions—“but it wouldhave been very expensive. It was amajor problem dealing with thecabling; a couple of times, we had toreprogram an entire act to accom-modate a seemingly minor revolvechange.” The dry tech took twoweeks, with ten more days for tech.

Dealing with the many movingparts created endless challenges. Asan example, Boritt cites a sequenceof songs from Passion. “Going into it,we do a 360° turn of the turntable; onthe screens is footage from Passiond’amore [the film on which Passion,the musical, is based]; it was verycomplicated to work out the flying ofthe screen with the movement of theturntable; they just barely miss eachother. It was our nightmare that thescreens might crash into each other;the wrong move would be a $3,000mistake at best,” he adds, citing thecost of an individual screen

PRG fabricated the show’s scenery,and Boritt says the automation systemis run using the latest version of thecompany’s StageCommand system.Precision was the key at all times. “Wewere cueing things down to a tenth ofan inch,” he adds, citing in particularthe contributions of Steve Beers,Roundabout’s production manager,and Dan Hoffman, the master

carpenter, in making it all work.The rest of the set includes an

upstage drop with a semi-circularswoop cut out to reveal the bandmembers sitting on platforms. Behindthe band is a white cyc with ablackout drop in front of it. There’s apainted scrim that comes in directlybehind the turntable for certainnumbers, like “Smile, Girls.” It’s trans-parent and makes a good surface forlighting effects. Boritt calls it “thewatery drop” and adds, “It’s a way ofgetting some old-school feeling into aset with so much technology.” (GlobalScenic Services, working with RoseBrand, provided the drops, usingNavy Memorable velour for the semi-circular band drop, as well as paintedsharkstooth and Leno filled scrim.)Also, the designer says, “Steve Beershad the crew put in a custom-builtcatwalk system that mirrored theshape of the cyc, with access panelsfor getting to the moving lights. It wasa big help, because, once the set wasbuilt, there was no access to thoselighting positions.”

Boritt says that Jo Winiarski, hisassociate set designer, made acrucial contribution (“I can’t praise herenough”), as did Jason Lajka, anassistant set designer, who draftedthe set in all its configurations. “Whatwas hard about it from thebeginning,” Boritt adds, “is the factthat, when you describe it, it doesn’tsound that compelling. It seemedsimple, because there are relativelyfew pieces—but then you saw all theconnections,” and, suddenly, the taskwasn’t simple at all.

The video starWhile Boritt was working on thescenic concept, Peter Flaherty wasshooting footage of Sondheim, first athis town house on the East Side ofManhattan, and, later, at his countryhouse in Connecticut. A third shoottook place at Playwrights Horizons,with a fourth taking place during tech,to create footage for a new numberthat spoofs the reverence for


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Sondheim among theatre folk.Like Boritt, Flaherty notes that the

beginning of the project was dauntingto the point of paralysis. “We had noframe of reference for the budget orwhere it was going,” he says. “Wedidn’t need a traditional set, becausewe didn’t need locations or props,and we didn’t want any awards-showset dressing. It dawned on me that

what we wantedwas to make awebsite, whereyou could accesspods of infor-mation. In thisformat, we hadthe license to dipin and out, ratherthan writing thedefinitivebiography of theman.”

Echoing Boritt,Flaherty says the

idea of conventional rear or frontprojection was abandoned “becausewe needed so many surfaces, and, atthe time, we thought we were goingto tour the show before coming toBroadway. That’s when I got excitedabout LCD screens. Othertechnologies were proposed,including LED walls, but I felt that, ifwe were doing a portrait of the man,

it needed to be shot in full HD.Roundabout understood that need,and followed through with the budget.There were many corners they couldhave cut, but didn’t.”

The designer notes that the LCDs“bring two main things to the show:One is resolution and the other isluminosity. You can’t get a look likewe have—which is like a computerscreen that segments and recom-poses itself—with refracted light; it’snever going to be that sharp or thatbright.” The screens were purchaseddirectly from NEC Display Solutions.

Flaherty says he was enthusiasticabout Boritt’s final concept.“Honestly,” he says, “my favorite partof the whole thing is the back side ofthe turntable [with the scattered tilelook]. I love non-traditional surfacesand atypical aspect ratios. Four tothree is death, and 16:9 is not muchbetter. People are acclimatized tothose ratios, and, if you put them on

A suite of numbers from Assassins features images of Benazir Bhutto, Robert Kennedy, and Abraham Lincoln, among others.

Boritt’s sketch shows the video wall assembling into one unit.

Topphoto:Richard

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ine;Bottom

photo:CourtesyofBeowulfBoritt


stage, the audience feels like it’swatching TV. You have to find ways toorganically change the ratio.”

Thanks to the LCDs’ brightness, headds, the days of worrying about thelighting rig are over: “Now, it’s theother way around; I have to turn downthe brightness. We have so muchluminosity up there that it’s difficult forthe lighting department to compete.”This poses other challenges, however:“In certain numbers, if I turned myintensity down past a certain level, westarted to lose punch and felt washedout. This was a problem in some of themoodier numbers, because some ofthe footage of Steve in Connecticutwas very bright. We tried to use eachpiece of video to its strength in theway that we framed it. With a 16:9image shot in 4K using the REDcamera [used for the majority of thefootage], we could move in as weneeded,” thus focusing on Sondheim’sface and eliminating any distractinglybright background information.

Through it all, Flaherty adds he andBoritt continued to “play with theshapes of the screens. He’d configurepieces, and we’d walk through differentnumbers in James’ office. The frontscreen is trickier; the back of theturntable offered so much composi-tional fun. But, honestly, it was aguessing game, and the truth is that theset was being bid before we had a fullunderstanding of what the song listwould be.” The process could havebeen terrifying; instead, says Flaherty,“When everything is up for grabs, it’sliberating. With the screens, we had anaesthetic. Sondheim is the puzzle man;I’ve always thought of the set as aphysical representation of that interest.”

In addition to the Sondheim inter-views, Flaherty had to source othermaterial—including interviews with MikeDouglas and Diane Sawyer, personalphotos from Sondheim’s collection, andan amusing YouTube montage ofvarious singers taking a pass at “Sendin the Clowns.” He also created anima-tions for the Forum sequence and“Opening Doors.” And there was the

“glue”—blocks of color and abstractdesigns used in certain numbers.

“The Forum animation was acomplicated one to get started,” thedesigner comments. “We always knewthat the ‘Opening Doors’ animationwas going to be a Saul Bass kind ofblack-and-color silhouette look, with alot of spinning. And we knew that thefirst-act finale, with ‘Sunday’ and ‘AWeekend in the Country,’ required acomplicated animation.” Working onthe fully assembled wall, he notes,involved making an image in a 3800 x4400 pixel configuration. “In somecases, it was four or six times thehighest HD that anyone typicallyrenders. Using such a variety of HDelements in our animations, it took along time to lock that system in place,with proxies and workarounds. Wefigured out the animations that weresong-specific, and then we filled in theblanks. We didn’t lock it until the weekbefore we opened; little embellish-ments were added each day.”

The images are controlled by aDataton Watchout system, chosenbecause, he says, “I realized that wewanted to deliver so muchresolution—and, given the math ofthe tile wall, we had to have a largenumber of servers to drive it. Also,looking at the number of songs thataccumulated, I knew that, if I wentwith something that was lesstimeline-oriented, I’d be in big trouble.It was clear that the song order wouldbe shifted; if I had to use a server thatneeded to be programmed by a proxydevice, like a lighting console, I’d bein trouble.” As a result, he has an 11-display Watchout system, each forboth the main and backup systems.Aside from the screens, video gearwas supplied by Sound Associates.

Flaherty adds, “We have really longruns of cable sending DVI to the wall;it’s 100% digital signal and it hits adistribution amplifier, which amplifiesand splits the signal just before it hitsthe screens. If you divide the wall intothree-by-three clusters, each is gettingone Watchout signal, but the screens

do all the internal image splitting. I’mresponsible for getting my 11 synchro-nized signals to their destination, andthe NEC technology does the rest.”

The video cues are triggered fromthe show’s lighting board, an ETCObsession II. “The new version ofWatchout has integrated MIDI,” saysFlaherty. “You get a MIDI inputdevice, put the USB into thecomputer, and the light board sendsthe control cue number. It’s super-simple now; all the video sound isdriven out of the Watchout system.There’s no SMPTE link; it’s all in thecomputer on Quicktime files. There’sa lot of redundant sound; if all elsefails, the show could go on withsound only.”

Lighting for videoKen Billington, the show’s lightingdesigner, who has worked on manyshows with complex video and/orprojection designs, concurs that theuse of LCD screens has made his lifeeasier. “The monitors don’t reflectlight,” he notes. “I can put light righton them—even from followspots—and it doesn’t mean a thing. InJanuary, we set up six screens in thetheatre and focused lighting units onthem, to see what they would looklike, if they looked bad, or if I couldput a gobo on them. That relieved meof a great tension.”

Of course, he adds, “I wasconcerned about the brightness ofthe screens. During the dry tech, Ikept asking have them pulled down. Ifthey got too bright, I had to use toomuch stage light to pop the actors,and it became annoying. I was thebright police. They’d groan and take itdown. We dealt with it, but it’s noteasy, because the screens fade differ-ently from LEDs. We have all sorts ofbrightness levels—the screens go upand down all night long.”

In many ways, the main challengefor Billington had to do with the revueformat. “There are 30-somethingsongs and a few medleys,” he says.“Basically, it consists of set pieces,


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and it got to the point of, how do Iend each of these numbers so theydon’t all look the same? It wasn’teasy coming up with different looksso it didn’t seem like we were doingthe same thing all night long.”Throughout the project, he says hiswatchword was restraint. “You don’tneed a cue on every modulation. Ikept thinking, What would Tharon[Musser] do?,” referring to the greattheatre lighting designer and hismentor, who was known for her laser-like precision and lack of fussy detail.

And, of course, Billington had todeal with a set that was frequently inmotion, especially in “OpeningDoors,” a number that, he says, “wasa brain twister. First of all, jumping ona moving object is not easy for thecast. It took a long time to geteveryone to do it in work light. Theycan’t grab onto the LCD screens;they’re not handrails.” Then heworked to integrate his lighting cues,keeping the in-motion performers andthe set well-lit at all times.

Sondheim on Sondheim is anintimate show and, Billington says,“The other thing I was conscious of—especially with Stephen Sondheimsongs and a nine-piece orchestra—was fan noise. That drove the design.I knew that any fan noise woulddefeat this event. What many lightingdesigners forget is that this is ourjob—fan noise is part of our territory,and we have to resolve it.” Hisapproach: “For the washes I used[Vari*Lite] VL5s, which don’t havefans. I also used VL3500Qs becausethey’re quiet and I needed the zoom.The rest of the moving light rig usesClay Paky Alpha Profile 1200s,because, for my money, they’re thequietest moving lights ever made.Where I didn’t have room for them, Iused [Martin] MAC 700 Profilesbecause, when you put them instudio mode, you can’t hear the fans.I also had [City Theatrical] AutoYokeson the front truss. In the case of the[Wybron Coloram] scrollers on thesidelight, the fans were turned off. I

really went out of my way to makethat happen.” The conventional unitsare controlled by an ETC ObsessionII; it is linked to the PRG Virtuoso,which controls the moving units. (Alsoin the rig, supplied by PRG, areapproximately 255 ETC Source Foursof varying types, two Lycian 1290followspots, a selection of PAR 64s,single-cell L&E Broad Cycs, ETCMultiPar striplights, an MDGAtmosphere hazer, a Jem fan, and 30LED panels from LightWild.)

Billington notes that overhead hehas moving lights only, with conven-tional units deployed only in side lightpositions. He worked to find the rightcolors to work with the blue upstagedrop, even turning it a bloody red forthe Sweeney Todd sequence. Most ofall, he subtly reshapes the stage,song by song, creating an atmos-phere that allows the songs to soar.

Do I hear a waltz?Also helping the music to soar is DanMoses Schreier, the sound designer,who, thanks to his familiarity withboth Sondheim’s oeuvre and theacoustics of Studio 54, skillfullyproduces the right intimate audioenvironment. This time, however, heis working with the band in theupstage position, as opposed tositting in the house right and leftbalconies. To deal with this change,he says, he “approached it like arecording studio, as opposed toletting the acoustics lead you.”

The placement of the band“affected which loudspeakers I used,”he adds. “When the orchestra is outfront, I use d&b [audiotechnik] E3s,which are small boxes and are usedonly for fill. When the band is upstagebehind a wall, you need largercabinets, so I went with d&b E10s.”He placed them in a left/right/centerconfiguration on the proscenium; theyare, he adds, “the best positions inthe house, no matter what.” In theunderbalcony position, Schreier saysthe Roundabout “has a permanentinstall of EAW JF80s. Upstairs, I had

E3s all over the place.”Again, with the band upstage—

“When the video wall is in place,they’re completely cut off,” he says—Schreier needed to supply foldbackfor the singers. The system heassembled included E3s in sidepositions and Meyer Sound UPMsoverhead. Interestingly, the musiciansdon’t use a personal monitoringsystem. “They wanted to keep it asacoustic and chamber-like aspossible,” the designer adds. Headds that Michael Starobin’s trans-parent orchestrations made his lifeeasier, getting the most of a band thatconsists of a piano, keyboards, violin,cello, two woodwinds, one Frenchhorn, and one bass.

In some ways, the major challengefor Schreier wasn’t the live sound, butthe sound coming from the video.“The footage of Sondheim was takenfrom different locations and times, andthe room tone is different in everyclip,” he says. “We spent anenormous amount of time to make itsound as similar as possible. DavidBullard [the associate sound designer]sat at a ProTools rig at the back of thehouse, EQ-ing, de-essing, andcleaning up everything.” The samewas done with the older archivalfootage and the “Send in the Clowns”montage. “After we did our first passon everything,” he adds, “we got anaudience reaction, then went back inand made more changes.”

In any event, the performers wearDPA 4061 capsules with SennheiserSK5212 transmitters, a typical choicefor the designer. Most of the bandmembers are also miked with variousDPA models that were available fromSound Associates, the house thatprovided the sound gear.

Recently, Schreier has been usingStuder consoles on musicals, but, thistime out, he went with a Vi6 boardfrom Soundcraft, which is allied withStuder. The budget didn’t allow for aStuder console, but, the designersays, “Studer is putting a lot of itsgreat stuff into the Soundcraft boards.


If you’re looking for a good mid-leveldigital console, this one is reallygood.” (Katy Templeman-Holmes, fromSoundcraft-Studer, says that thecompany, having noticed an opening,has targeted Broadway and the WestEnd, using discussions with Schreierand other designers to developproducts that are now aimed at everylevel of the theatre market.)

Schreier comments on thepleasure of working with such blue-chip vocal talents as Williams andCook, and notes that the challengefor Scott Anderson, the show’sproduction sound engineer, is topresent Sondheim’s songs in asperfect a setting as possible: “Youhave to concentrate on the mix tomake sure the words are right in themiddle. It’s a tricky job; the listeningis really intense. You don’t want tomiss a single word. In a number like‘Now You Know’ [from Merrily], thephrases just come tumbling out—andevery single phrase is fantastic.”

Also involved were John Demous(associate lighting designer), AustinSwitser (associate videodesigner/programmer), Michael Bell-Smith (lead video animator), JoshuaHiggason (video associate), TimothyF. Rogers (moving light programmer),Jessica Morton (conventional lightingprogrammer), Chad Woerner(assistant technical supervisor), JohnWooding (production electrician), AnnCavanagh (automation carpenter),Steve Jones(flyman), PaulColtoff and JennFagant (followspotoperators), T. J.McEvoy (decksound), Maiko Chii(assistant setdesigner), JeremyCunningham(assistant lightingdesigner), DanielBrodie (assistantvideo designer),

Buist Bickley (production propertiescoordinator), and Lawrence Jennino(house properties).

During previews, the show openedwith a video montage of games andpuzzles, reflecting Sondheim’s fasci-nation with them. The idea waseventually dropped, but it’s safe tosay that the creative team solved theirown Sondheim puzzle, finding a wayof presenting him and his work in analtogether fresh light.

Above: Boritt and Flaherty say the many screen configurations provide visual variety. Below: The cast with their star.

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pphotos:CourtesyofBeowulfBoritt

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