Saturday Night
October 30, 2021 5:25 AM Subscribe
Stephen Sondheim was about to launch his Broadway career! Just out of college, he wrote three songs on spec for Lemuel Ayers who was producing a script by Jules J. Epstein (Casablanca), adapted into a musical. Ayers liked what Sondheim wrote, hired him to complete the score, and the show Saturday Night was headed to Broadway in 1955! Except that Ayers died of cancer shortly after auditions, and the production folded. It received an Off-Broadway premiere, finally, in 2000, and it is from this we get this YouTube playlist of the Off-Broadway Cast.
For a better experience, here is also the libretto [PDF link] so you can read and listen and pause and read and unpause. For a brief taste of the 2000 Off-Broadway production here are a few songs in one 11m video: Class, One Wonderful Day, and What More Do I Need?.
Saturday Night got its first actual production in London in 1997. [Playbill summary article] The book was revised by Sondheim for a Chicago production in 1999 [Playbill article], shortening the show from 3 hours to 2, and adding some new songs. Chicago Tribune review from May 1999. In 2019, Second Stage Chicago did a one-night concert performance [Broadway.com]. Playbill wrote up a really excellent "explainer" of the show at this time.
Sondheim calls this show his "baby pictures", and they certainly are. The script and some of the songs reflect their time with their attitudes toward women [Exhibit A would be exhibit a], and the plot is depression era New York, and the setting is much more Broadway Song And Dance, very much so. But this is very much Sondheim in flavor and texture. Several of these songs have been used in review shows such as 1980's Marry Me A Little.
This is one of only two Sondheim stage musicals not to have a Broadway production so far. When this show's production collapsed in 1955, Sondheim found himself employed as a lyric writer for several years.
For a better experience, here is also the libretto [PDF link] so you can read and listen and pause and read and unpause. For a brief taste of the 2000 Off-Broadway production here are a few songs in one 11m video: Class, One Wonderful Day, and What More Do I Need?.
Saturday Night got its first actual production in London in 1997. [Playbill summary article] The book was revised by Sondheim for a Chicago production in 1999 [Playbill article], shortening the show from 3 hours to 2, and adding some new songs. Chicago Tribune review from May 1999. In 2019, Second Stage Chicago did a one-night concert performance [Broadway.com]. Playbill wrote up a really excellent "explainer" of the show at this time.
Sondheim calls this show his "baby pictures", and they certainly are. The script and some of the songs reflect their time with their attitudes toward women [Exhibit A would be exhibit a], and the plot is depression era New York, and the setting is much more Broadway Song And Dance, very much so. But this is very much Sondheim in flavor and texture. Several of these songs have been used in review shows such as 1980's Marry Me A Little.
This is one of only two Sondheim stage musicals not to have a Broadway production so far. When this show's production collapsed in 1955, Sondheim found himself employed as a lyric writer for several years.
I really love "What More Do I Need."
Echoed later in "Who Wants To Live In New York" from Merrily or "Another Hundred People" in Company. Stephen seems to really love the gritty, dirty New York City experience.
posted by hippybear at 8:17 PM on October 30, 2021
Echoed later in "Who Wants To Live In New York" from Merrily or "Another Hundred People" in Company. Stephen seems to really love the gritty, dirty New York City experience.
posted by hippybear at 8:17 PM on October 30, 2021
Even Sondheim's "baby pictures" are noticeably better than a lot of other composers' adult stuff. The way that some of the rhymes work with a good Brooklyn accent (which the London cast sadly didn't quite pull off) is pretty brilliant.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 7:02 AM on October 31, 2021
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 7:02 AM on October 31, 2021
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posted by BlahLaLa at 8:53 AM on October 30, 2021