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Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created "Sunday in the Park with George"
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A behind-the-scenes look at the making of the iconic musical Sunday in the Park with George
Putting It Together chronicles the two-year odyssey of creating the iconic Broadway musical Sunday in the Park with George . In 1982, James Lapine, at the beginning of his career as a playwright and director, met Stephen Sondheim, nineteen years his senior and already a legendary Broadway composer and lyricist. Shortly thereafter, the two decided to write a musical inspired by Georges Seurat’s nineteenth-century painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte .
Through conversations between Lapine and Sondheim, as well as most of the production team, and with a treasure trove of personal photographs, sketches, script notes, and sheet music, the two Broadway icons lift the curtain on their beloved musical. Putting It Together is a deeply personal remembrance of their collaboration and friend - ship and the highs and lows of that journey, one that resulted in the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning classic.
A behind-the-scenes look at the making of the iconic musical Sunday in the Park with George
Putting It Together chronicles the two-year odyssey of creating the iconic Broadway musical Sunday in the Park with George . In 1982, James Lapine, at the beginning of his career as a playwright and director, met Stephen Sondheim, nineteen years his senior and already a legendary Broadway composer and lyricist. Shortly thereafter, the two decided to write a musical inspired by Georges Seurat’s nineteenth-century painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte .
Through conversations between Lapine and Sondheim, as well as most of the production team, and with a treasure trove of personal photographs, sketches, script notes, and sheet music, the two Broadway icons lift the curtain on their beloved musical. Putting It Together is a deeply personal remembrance of their collaboration and friend - ship and the highs and lows of that journey, one that resulted in the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning classic.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published August 3, 2021
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March 15, 2022
If, like me, you were saddened by the death of composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim late last year, this book – about the making of his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1984 musical – will make you appreciate him and his genius a little bit more.
Sunday In The Park With George – inspired by Georges Seurat and his famous painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte – has never been my favourite of his musicals. But after reading this book, which deals with every aspect of the show, from the first kernel of an idea to drafts, workshops, rewrites and ultimately the Broadway transfer and endless white-knuckle previews before opening night, made me admire it a great deal.
Art, to borrow a line from the show, isn’t easy. But it is satisfying to learn about.
After discussions of particular songs, I would sometimes stream them and wonder at their construction, artistry and sheer beauty. The marvellous Act One closing song, “Sunday,” during which Georges (Mandy Patinkin) moves the characters around to recreate his famous painting, is one of the most transcendent numbers in the musical canon.
What I didn’t realize going in was how inexperienced book writer and director James Lapine was at the time; he had a background in graphic design and had written and directed a couple of things, mostly off-Broadway. He was a lot younger than Sondheim and wasn’t even that familiar with the older man’s work when they met; both of those things probably helped make their collaboration work.
For the book, Lapine sat down and talked with almost every living person who had worked on the show, from the actors in the workshop (who included Kelsey Grammar and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) to its leads (great stories about an excitable Mandy Patinkin and a very warm and understanding Bernadette Peters) to the producers, designers, stage managers, musical arrangers and conductor… even the designer of the iconic poster. And, of course, the most conversations are with Sondheim himself, who is candid, thoughtful and modest throughout. (Who knew he considered himself a procrastinator?)
Lapine, too, candidly discusses his own shortcomings, and isn’t afraid to bring up disagreements he may have had with various people (Patinkin, for one) decades earlier. I had no idea the show’s second act was missing two crucial songs until the final previews. Until I read this book, I didn’t really appreciate how important this collaboration was to Sondheim’s evolution in the 1980s. (Lapine and he went on to create Into the Woods and Passion together.)
So Putting It Together is part memoir, part oral history and part archive – there are lots of photographs, manuscript pages and notes sessions. It also includes the complete text of the musical.
While this book may not be for everyone, it’s worth reading for people looking to collaborate on something big, bold and new. As the master himself writes:
“Anything you do, let it come from you. Then it will be new.”
Sunday In The Park With George – inspired by Georges Seurat and his famous painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte – has never been my favourite of his musicals. But after reading this book, which deals with every aspect of the show, from the first kernel of an idea to drafts, workshops, rewrites and ultimately the Broadway transfer and endless white-knuckle previews before opening night, made me admire it a great deal.
Art, to borrow a line from the show, isn’t easy. But it is satisfying to learn about.
After discussions of particular songs, I would sometimes stream them and wonder at their construction, artistry and sheer beauty. The marvellous Act One closing song, “Sunday,” during which Georges (Mandy Patinkin) moves the characters around to recreate his famous painting, is one of the most transcendent numbers in the musical canon.
What I didn’t realize going in was how inexperienced book writer and director James Lapine was at the time; he had a background in graphic design and had written and directed a couple of things, mostly off-Broadway. He was a lot younger than Sondheim and wasn’t even that familiar with the older man’s work when they met; both of those things probably helped make their collaboration work.
For the book, Lapine sat down and talked with almost every living person who had worked on the show, from the actors in the workshop (who included Kelsey Grammar and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) to its leads (great stories about an excitable Mandy Patinkin and a very warm and understanding Bernadette Peters) to the producers, designers, stage managers, musical arrangers and conductor… even the designer of the iconic poster. And, of course, the most conversations are with Sondheim himself, who is candid, thoughtful and modest throughout. (Who knew he considered himself a procrastinator?)
Lapine, too, candidly discusses his own shortcomings, and isn’t afraid to bring up disagreements he may have had with various people (Patinkin, for one) decades earlier. I had no idea the show’s second act was missing two crucial songs until the final previews. Until I read this book, I didn’t really appreciate how important this collaboration was to Sondheim’s evolution in the 1980s. (Lapine and he went on to create Into the Woods and Passion together.)
So Putting It Together is part memoir, part oral history and part archive – there are lots of photographs, manuscript pages and notes sessions. It also includes the complete text of the musical.
While this book may not be for everyone, it’s worth reading for people looking to collaborate on something big, bold and new. As the master himself writes:
“Anything you do, let it come from you. Then it will be new.”
June 22, 2021
SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE is perhaps my all time favorite musical. The ending of Act One is one of the most moving moments I have experienced in the theater. This behind the scenes memoir of the creation of SUNDAY is mesmerizing. On these witty pages author/creator Lapine shares the blood, sweat and tears shed in the creation of the Pulitzer Prize winning musical. If you love theater you will not be able to put this book down. Bravo.
December 23, 2021
Full disclosure: I cried for days when I found out Steven Sondheim had died. And one of my illogical regrets at the time was that I'd read this superlative oral history several weeks prior, because it was the perfect book to read to celebrate his brilliance and his legacy. (It's alright, I'm sure to revisit this book in years to come. It's definitely one for the keeper shelf.)
The book was actually "written" by James Lapine, but it was really more a matter of shaping the narrative. It was very much a collective effort. Dozens of people involved with the original production of Sunday in the Park with George were interviewed, and they were refreshingly candid. For instance, Mandy Patinkin was not shy about telling Lapine to his face how much he'd disliked him at the time. Lapine does a terrific job of including people from all different aspects of the production, giving the broad view this Pulitzer Prize-winning drama deserves.
Sunday in the Park with George is a brilliant piece of theater, one that I've been pretty intimately familiar with for decades. But it turns out that I didn't know anything about the drama of it's creation. I was riveted to this history from the first page to the last. It's worth noting that the audiobook is read by an entire cast of actors, which works exceptionally well with the oral history format. If you, too, cried over the loss of Steven Sondheim, this is the book for you--and this is the time to read it!
The book was actually "written" by James Lapine, but it was really more a matter of shaping the narrative. It was very much a collective effort. Dozens of people involved with the original production of Sunday in the Park with George were interviewed, and they were refreshingly candid. For instance, Mandy Patinkin was not shy about telling Lapine to his face how much he'd disliked him at the time. Lapine does a terrific job of including people from all different aspects of the production, giving the broad view this Pulitzer Prize-winning drama deserves.
Sunday in the Park with George is a brilliant piece of theater, one that I've been pretty intimately familiar with for decades. But it turns out that I didn't know anything about the drama of it's creation. I was riveted to this history from the first page to the last. It's worth noting that the audiobook is read by an entire cast of actors, which works exceptionally well with the oral history format. If you, too, cried over the loss of Steven Sondheim, this is the book for you--and this is the time to read it!
March 25, 2022
4.5, rounded down.
I guess it's especially appropriate that I read most of this on what would have been Sondheim's 92nd birthday. It follows in the grand tradition of the sine qua non of such books: Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies, which chronicled the creation of another Sondheim masterpiece. (Fun fact - the author of that, Ted Chapin, was the roommate of Mandy Patinkin when they both started out). Whereas the earlier book was comprised of Chapin's thoughts as he was actually working on the show as a production assistant, the current book in question is mainly interviews George's librettist/director conducted 40 years AFTER the fact - and, sadly, that makes all the difference. The immediacy and freshness of the former is lacking in the somewhat hazy recollections related here. And in attempting to be thorough, he often gets bogged down in minutiae about contracts and technical aspects of the show that are of little interest to most devotees.
But perhaps it isn't fair to compare the two books - and I probably would have been more enthralled had I not had the other for comparison. But also, as good as George is, I would have to say it falls into '2nd tier' Sondheim - I doubt it is ANYONE'S favorite of his shows, and that also colored my feelings a bit about the book.
The first 55% is comprised of those recollections and reminiscences, and Lapine's own spin on things (apparently, he was NOT universally liked by MANY of the cast and crew, so it also serves as somewhat of an apologia). The remaining 45% is the published script of the show - I followed along 'reading' that latter half as I rewatched the DVD of the original 1984 production, which is undoubtedly the way to go, since the script cannot possibly capture the magic in the staging and performances. I also dug out Sondheim's own Look, I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics, 1981-2011, With Attendant Comments, Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Digressions, Anecdotes, and Miscellany, and read HIS own thoughts about the show, which provided an invaluable counterpoint to Lapine's.
My only other 'complaint' is that the photos and illustrations are postage-stamp sized on the Kindle edition, and there didn't appear to be any way to enlarge them (at least on my Fire!) GRRRR! This review reads a bit harshly, but for any Sondheim fan. it is undoubtably essential reading, so if that's you, don't hesitate to pick it up. It's informative, fun and contains a modicum of juicy gossip - if nothing else it makes me appreciate Mandy and Bernie even more. My sincere appreciation to Netgalley and FS&G for the ARC in exchange for this honest review.
I guess it's especially appropriate that I read most of this on what would have been Sondheim's 92nd birthday. It follows in the grand tradition of the sine qua non of such books: Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies, which chronicled the creation of another Sondheim masterpiece. (Fun fact - the author of that, Ted Chapin, was the roommate of Mandy Patinkin when they both started out). Whereas the earlier book was comprised of Chapin's thoughts as he was actually working on the show as a production assistant, the current book in question is mainly interviews George's librettist/director conducted 40 years AFTER the fact - and, sadly, that makes all the difference. The immediacy and freshness of the former is lacking in the somewhat hazy recollections related here. And in attempting to be thorough, he often gets bogged down in minutiae about contracts and technical aspects of the show that are of little interest to most devotees.
But perhaps it isn't fair to compare the two books - and I probably would have been more enthralled had I not had the other for comparison. But also, as good as George is, I would have to say it falls into '2nd tier' Sondheim - I doubt it is ANYONE'S favorite of his shows, and that also colored my feelings a bit about the book.
The first 55% is comprised of those recollections and reminiscences, and Lapine's own spin on things (apparently, he was NOT universally liked by MANY of the cast and crew, so it also serves as somewhat of an apologia). The remaining 45% is the published script of the show - I followed along 'reading' that latter half as I rewatched the DVD of the original 1984 production, which is undoubtedly the way to go, since the script cannot possibly capture the magic in the staging and performances. I also dug out Sondheim's own Look, I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics, 1981-2011, With Attendant Comments, Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Digressions, Anecdotes, and Miscellany, and read HIS own thoughts about the show, which provided an invaluable counterpoint to Lapine's.
My only other 'complaint' is that the photos and illustrations are postage-stamp sized on the Kindle edition, and there didn't appear to be any way to enlarge them (at least on my Fire!) GRRRR! This review reads a bit harshly, but for any Sondheim fan. it is undoubtably essential reading, so if that's you, don't hesitate to pick it up. It's informative, fun and contains a modicum of juicy gossip - if nothing else it makes me appreciate Mandy and Bernie even more. My sincere appreciation to Netgalley and FS&G for the ARC in exchange for this honest review.
December 19, 2021
Putting Together is an extraordinary book about the act of making art. Sunday in the Park with George is one of my favorite plays, and I found it thrilling that Lapine pulls back the curtain and reveals what it’s really like to produce a show of this magnitude. Lapine takes the reader from the initial concept phase to opening night on Broadway, and what a difficult journey it was.
Similar to the polyphonic writing of Nobel Prize Winner, Svetlana Alexievich, Lapine uses the voices of those that helped him put the show together - Sondheim, Manny Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, and a collage of other actors, performers, musicians, crew, producers, and supporters. Since the narrative is interview style, the various voices and perspectives illuminate the chaotic process of the show's production.
I found it especially inspiring to know that even the best artists at the height of their careers (Sondheim) had moments of doubt and insecurity. Lapine suggests that even if the finished product is not a success, it's the process that matters most.
Sunday in the Park with George is now considered one the greatest Broadway plays, but when it first appeared, there were many detractors. There are still detractors to this day, but if you gather them all up, they can't take away the show and the story of its making. They also can’t remove the various soundtracks, recordings, and productions that exist now or will be made in the future.
Against the odds, Lapine and Sondheim carried a vision all the way through to completion, and this book details how they did it and why. With this book, Lapine shows that no matter the task - art, work, life, perhaps business - it’s important to work hard, persevere, and finish the hat.
“Our process ended up being not unlike Seurat's. We had to wait until all the dots filled the canvas...before we could step back and look at what we made. You go through the whole process of doing what you do, and then finally, you just have to put it up there and hope others respond. The irony is, you want it to look effortless, and to get to that, it's such hard work.”~ James Lapine
I love this play, and I loved this book. Thank you, James Lapine, for putting this all together.
Similar to the polyphonic writing of Nobel Prize Winner, Svetlana Alexievich, Lapine uses the voices of those that helped him put the show together - Sondheim, Manny Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, and a collage of other actors, performers, musicians, crew, producers, and supporters. Since the narrative is interview style, the various voices and perspectives illuminate the chaotic process of the show's production.
I found it especially inspiring to know that even the best artists at the height of their careers (Sondheim) had moments of doubt and insecurity. Lapine suggests that even if the finished product is not a success, it's the process that matters most.
Sunday in the Park with George is now considered one the greatest Broadway plays, but when it first appeared, there were many detractors. There are still detractors to this day, but if you gather them all up, they can't take away the show and the story of its making. They also can’t remove the various soundtracks, recordings, and productions that exist now or will be made in the future.
Against the odds, Lapine and Sondheim carried a vision all the way through to completion, and this book details how they did it and why. With this book, Lapine shows that no matter the task - art, work, life, perhaps business - it’s important to work hard, persevere, and finish the hat.
“Our process ended up being not unlike Seurat's. We had to wait until all the dots filled the canvas...before we could step back and look at what we made. You go through the whole process of doing what you do, and then finally, you just have to put it up there and hope others respond. The irony is, you want it to look effortless, and to get to that, it's such hard work.”~ James Lapine
I love this play, and I loved this book. Thank you, James Lapine, for putting this all together.
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September 6, 2025The most interesting bits here for me were Sondheim's comments about how much he learned from collaborating with Lapine as a member of a younger generation. He seemed particularly startled by Lapine's willingness to find a piece by working from reactions to images. At the time, Sondheim would have been 54 and Lapine 35. I hope I'll be collaborating with much younger people when I'm that age.
September 10, 2021
Briefly, a wonderful book. I’ve only heard the musical Sunday in the Park with George once (not all of it - the songs of the original cast album, and that, a few days ago!) but I can tell I’m going to want to hear it again, and see the whole show; and the interviews, sketches, the description of what went into making this musical was a terrific read, combining many of the qualities of Ted Chapin’s book on Follies and Sondheim’s own two books on the background of his musicals, while adding others. At least for fans of his work like me, this and the Putting It Together podcast (not associated with this book beyond the name also coming from Sunday, but a terrific in-depth Sondheim podcast) have been some of the great recent discoveries for me.
June 20, 2022
I met Stephen Sondheim in the mid-1970s. He was in Boston with a production of A Little Night Music. Sondheim happened to come into the place where I was then working. I heard his name and asked, "Are you the Stephen Sondheim?" He said that he was. As I recall over fifty years later, that was our entire conversation. Damn!
I think that Sunday in the Park with George might have been the only musical that I ever saw on Broadway during its first appearance there. Mandy Patinkin, the original male lead, had already left the show when I saw it; he had been replaced by Robert Westenberg, who had previously played the part of the Soldier. Bernadette Peters was still playing the leading female role. I have since seen it performed in a student production at the New England Conservatory. As I read this book, I watched the Great Performances recording of the original Broadway production on YouTube.
James Lapine, author of this book, had written the book for this show, that is, the spoken dialogue of the play. He also directed the play.
Sunday in the Park with George is about, as one of the songs states, "the art of making art." There are two acts. The first is a fictionalized story about the French pointillist painter Georges Seurat. (Seurat's first name is given the anglicized spelling and pronunciation "George" throughout most of the play.) Seurat is working on his second major painting, the one for which he is now best known, "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte." The painting shows a number of people, most of them well dressed, sitting or strolling near the shore of a wooded island in the Seine. Throughout the first act, George sketches the scene, returning to his studio to turn the sketches into a very large painting. George draws many passersby, but he also has one model, his lover, Dot. Dot, tired of George paying attention to his art rather than to her, leaves him and marries a baker, Louis, even though she knows that she is pregnant with George's child; Louis knows this, but agrees to marry Dot anyway. After the baby is born, Dot, Louis, and their new daughter leave to go to America. George finishes his painting.
The second act begins at an American art museum, the one in which the "La Grande Jatte" painting now hangs. A different young man named George "has been commissioned by this museum to create an art piece commemorating Georges Seurat's painting..." He will be using a machine called a Chromolume, the seventh such variety of this type of machine, which uses, appropriately, color and lights. He has brought his ninety-eight year old grandmother, Marie, who takes part in the presentation. Marie is Dot's daughter, the child born in France and brought to America, who was told by her late mother that Marie's biological father was Seurat. After some initial difficulty with this Chromolume, George proceeds with the "art piece"; a part of which is shown in the play. After this, George meets with people at the museum - officials, critics, other artists, potential sponsors, and his ex-wife, who is still friendly with both George and Marie. In the last scene of the play, at the invitation of the government, George has brought the Chromolume to the now built-up island of La Grande Jatte. Marie has died and George feels that he is just repeating works of art that he has already made. Dot appears to him, thinking that he is her George, this young man's great-grandfather. She tells him that he must move on.
The actors from the first act assume different personae is Act Two. The two Georges are played by the same actor and the elderly grandmother is played by the actress who also plays Dot.
The last section of this book is the text of the play, including all the songs. This is both humorous and moving, itself a work of art. It is important to remember that merely reading lyrics is a very different thing from hearing the music and singing.
The larger part of the book tells of how that work of art came to be, how many artists and technicians, from many different fields, combined to turn the idea of a play inspired by the painting into a piece of musical theater, Sunday in the Park with George.
Some of this material is presented as Lapine's memories of what took place. The rest of it consists of interviews conducted by Lapine with many of those who had been involved in that first production. Some of the actors only took part in a pre-Broadway period at Playwrights Horizons; these included some people now quite famous, such as Christine Baranski, Kelsey Grammer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Carmen Mathews. The actors in the first Broadway production included Dana Ivey (five time Tony Award nominee), Charles Kimbrough (Jim Dial on the television show Murphy Brown), and Brent Spiner (Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation).
Sondheim was already famous when planning for this play began. Lapine was much younger, but had become known for having written some relatively successful plays and directing the musical play March of the Falsettos. The two men were introduced and discussed potential projects. They decided on a musical play incorporating elements of the painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte." ("La Grande Jatte," the internet tells me, means something like "the big bowl" or "the big crater." I don't know why the island was given that name.) They began to write the first act, with Sondheim working on the title song. A space was rented and other people began to be involved.
A musical director and a casting director join the group and actors are interviewed and hired. The set designer, Tony Straiges, comes on board; the set is extraordinarily important for this play. Costume designers too become part of the group.
The "musical team" is recruited, including a musical director and an orchestrator. Lapine is now working with the actors, running "workshops" in which the performers take part in games and exercises. Some of them enjoy this; others emphatically do not. Lapine makes it clear that he and some of the actors often did not work together harmoniously. One of the actors with a large part (Remak Ramsay, whom I have seen on stage and enjoyed) walked out without notice, sending Sondheim a message that "said something to the effect of, 'Why are you working with this guy, James Lapine? He doesn't know what he's doing. I quit.'" Rehearsals went on, even though much of the show, including most of the second act, was still unfinished.
Issues arise and are dealt with. The Chromolume has to be designed, at considerable expense.
Various people involved were tense, feeling either that what they were doing was not good enough, or the opposite - that their work was not sufficiently appreciated. Mandy Patinkin announced that he was leaving but was persuaded to stay. (Patinkin received and - reluctantly - turned down an offer to appear with Dustin Hoffman in Death of a Salesman.) Lapine admits that he himself was sometimes short-tempered; "when I finally just accepted the fact that everyone didn't like me and moved on," he states, "the better I got at my job." Bernadette Peters, who had been performing since childhood, almost always remained calmly professional.
The costume designers had to work out a problem which would seem to me to be easily done but was actually quite difficult; Dot has to step out of a heavy dress, almost magically, and then return to it. The dress must stand by itself when she is not wearing it. How hard can that be? Very, I now know - but they did it.
And as for the music - Sondheim kept working, but some of the songs used in the second act were still not finished. I quite honestly am not sure exactly what an orchestrator does, but that work went on. Michael Starobin, who was the orchestrator, says things like, "I knew I would want strings... The use of a harp seemed like it might be called for." I had always assumed that the composer - Sondheim, in this case - would at least take part in such decisions.
There is no dancing in the show but there was a choreographer, a "movement person to help with the Broadway staging."
Producers raised money. Even though the show was unfinished, they put on performances in front of audiences. And the show prepared to move to Broadway.
The show opened on May 2, 1984. It got generally good reviews. It received ten nominations for Tony Awards. Three actors from the show were nominated - Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters,
and Dana Ivey. Sondheim, Lapine, and the costume designers, the set designer, and the lighting designer were all nominated. It won for the set design and the lighting, but lost in every other category, mostly to La Cage aux Folles. Jerry Herman, who wrote the score for Cage, gave a famous acceptance speech which was widely regarded as a denigration of Sondheim's work.
Sunday in the Park with George subsequently received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama; at that time, it was only the sixth musical in fifty-seven years to win the award.
Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created Sunday in the Park with George is an excellent book. I know that similar books have been written regarding the creation of other works of art. I have only read a few of those, but I am convinced that this one is indeed, as the song "Putting It Together" says, "the state of the art." Lapine tried to include thoughts from most of the people involved in this production who were still living when the book was published in 2021. Sadly, Stephen Sondheim died on November 26, 2021.
I do not think that a book of this type can have too much illustrative material. This has pretty much everything that a reader might want. There are costume designs, sections of the musical score, copies of pages of notes made during the period that all this work took place, copies of the exemplary poster advertising the show, reproductions of Seurat's paintings, and literally dozens of photographs. One of the photographs is of the artist Georges Seurat, painter of "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte," who died at the age of thirty-one.
I always assumed that putting together and performing a musical play must be a formidable task. Clearly I was right, but I had no idea just how much goes into this, how many people contribute work and talent and, if the audience is lucky, genius. Lapine makes that clear. He makes the reader care not only about the show that is performed but also about all the people who bit by bit...piece by piece...dot by dot create a work of art.
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I want to add some comments not regarding the book but about the play itself. Offering my opinions about a Pulitzer Prize-winning play may be presumptuous, but there are observations that I would like to make.
Starting with a very few somewhat negative comments, I would have suggested three major changes:
First, giving Seurat's model and lover the name "Dot" seems to me to be a silly, childish joke. Seurat is renowned as an exponent of pointillism, a type of art in which the paint is not applied in strokes but in small dots of color; the point is that the human eye perceives those dots as a whole, mixing the colors in the eye and the brain rather than on the canvas. Naming a major character in the play after a silly pun seems to me to diminish her importance.
The beginning of the second act has the people in the painting, now hanging in an American museum, complaining that they are hot and their "lives" are monotonous. This is meant to be humorous, and it succeeds at that. But, to my mind, this is barely a part of the play, totally at odds with the rest of the material. This Pirandello-ish joking seems to me to interrupt the flow of the play, sacrificing continuity for comedy.
Perhaps the most famous song in the play is "Finishing the Hat," certainly the most moving song that Seurat is given. He explains that he knows that he sees life as if through a window, losing Dot and their baby because he is consumed by his desire to make works of art. Before reading the book and watching the play once more, I remembered incorrectly that this was sung in George's studio as he worked on a hat in the painting. In fact, the song is a follow-up to a conversation that George has had with Dot, in which George says that he can not go to the Follies with her as they had planned because he had to finish painting a hat. It would make sense for George to be directing the thoughts in this song to Dot or, possibly, to his friend and fellow-artist Jules or just musing to himself. But that is not the situation really used in the play as the setting for the song. George is not painting in his studio, he is outdoors sketching, and he is speaking to a dog. It works - the song is wonderful - but I think that it would have worked even better if it had indeed been sung in Seurat's studio as he painted.
***********************************
I have never understood the play's reputation as being difficult to understand or hard to follow. Yes, the second act is set in a different time and place from the first act, but I think that the transition is clear. The two Georges both have problems relating to their art; the problems are, admittedly, quite different, and perhaps members of the audience were confused by that, but I think that both situations are well delineated.
I know that many people think that the first act is far more interesting than Act Two, both in terms of drama and of the songs. Act One has the great costumes and some wonderful music. The song "Sunday" that concludes the first act is one of the moments that I remembered really well even years after seeing the show. As I mentioned above, the song "Finishing the Hat" is also excellent.
Act One also has some things that I don't like. I find the very caricatured American couple less amusing than I am sure was intended. Likewise, the inanimate soldier is an interesting concept, but I don't think that it works well.
The second act also has some wonderful things. The "Putting It Together" number is genuinely clever and funny. The reprise of "Sunday" works well. The character of Marie, the ninety-eight year old grandmother, is consistently fine.
And the most moving songs are in Act Two. "Children and Art" is, simply, terrific. In addition to the end of Act One, what has always stayed firm and strong in my memory is Marie looking at the painting and seeing what she believes are multiple versions of her mother:
"Isn't she beautiful?
There she is -
There she is, there she is, there she is -
Mama is everywhere,
He must have loved her so much..."
And then the two songs that come late in Act Two. "Lesson #8," in which George reads from Dot's old grammar book and thinks of his recently deceased grandmother:
"'Marie has the ball of Charles...'
'Good for Marie...'
'Charles misses his ball...'
George misses Marie...
George misses a lot...
George is alone."
And this goes on to show George's loneliness and his despair.
And then a phantom appearance by Dot. Late in Act One, Dot sings:
"I have to move on."
Now she brings hope to George, whom she mistakenly believes is her George:
"Move on.
Stop worrying where you're going -
Move on.
If you can know where you're going,
You've gone.
Just keep moving on.
I chose, and my world was shaken -
So what?
The choice may have been mistaken,
The choosing was not.
You have to move on..."
And then the lovely ending in which George realizes that he has "so many possibilities..."
**********************************
A very fine ending to a marvelous musical play.
I think that Sunday in the Park with George might have been the only musical that I ever saw on Broadway during its first appearance there. Mandy Patinkin, the original male lead, had already left the show when I saw it; he had been replaced by Robert Westenberg, who had previously played the part of the Soldier. Bernadette Peters was still playing the leading female role. I have since seen it performed in a student production at the New England Conservatory. As I read this book, I watched the Great Performances recording of the original Broadway production on YouTube.
James Lapine, author of this book, had written the book for this show, that is, the spoken dialogue of the play. He also directed the play.
Sunday in the Park with George is about, as one of the songs states, "the art of making art." There are two acts. The first is a fictionalized story about the French pointillist painter Georges Seurat. (Seurat's first name is given the anglicized spelling and pronunciation "George" throughout most of the play.) Seurat is working on his second major painting, the one for which he is now best known, "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte." The painting shows a number of people, most of them well dressed, sitting or strolling near the shore of a wooded island in the Seine. Throughout the first act, George sketches the scene, returning to his studio to turn the sketches into a very large painting. George draws many passersby, but he also has one model, his lover, Dot. Dot, tired of George paying attention to his art rather than to her, leaves him and marries a baker, Louis, even though she knows that she is pregnant with George's child; Louis knows this, but agrees to marry Dot anyway. After the baby is born, Dot, Louis, and their new daughter leave to go to America. George finishes his painting.
The second act begins at an American art museum, the one in which the "La Grande Jatte" painting now hangs. A different young man named George "has been commissioned by this museum to create an art piece commemorating Georges Seurat's painting..." He will be using a machine called a Chromolume, the seventh such variety of this type of machine, which uses, appropriately, color and lights. He has brought his ninety-eight year old grandmother, Marie, who takes part in the presentation. Marie is Dot's daughter, the child born in France and brought to America, who was told by her late mother that Marie's biological father was Seurat. After some initial difficulty with this Chromolume, George proceeds with the "art piece"; a part of which is shown in the play. After this, George meets with people at the museum - officials, critics, other artists, potential sponsors, and his ex-wife, who is still friendly with both George and Marie. In the last scene of the play, at the invitation of the government, George has brought the Chromolume to the now built-up island of La Grande Jatte. Marie has died and George feels that he is just repeating works of art that he has already made. Dot appears to him, thinking that he is her George, this young man's great-grandfather. She tells him that he must move on.
The actors from the first act assume different personae is Act Two. The two Georges are played by the same actor and the elderly grandmother is played by the actress who also plays Dot.
The last section of this book is the text of the play, including all the songs. This is both humorous and moving, itself a work of art. It is important to remember that merely reading lyrics is a very different thing from hearing the music and singing.
The larger part of the book tells of how that work of art came to be, how many artists and technicians, from many different fields, combined to turn the idea of a play inspired by the painting into a piece of musical theater, Sunday in the Park with George.
Some of this material is presented as Lapine's memories of what took place. The rest of it consists of interviews conducted by Lapine with many of those who had been involved in that first production. Some of the actors only took part in a pre-Broadway period at Playwrights Horizons; these included some people now quite famous, such as Christine Baranski, Kelsey Grammer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Carmen Mathews. The actors in the first Broadway production included Dana Ivey (five time Tony Award nominee), Charles Kimbrough (Jim Dial on the television show Murphy Brown), and Brent Spiner (Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation).
Sondheim was already famous when planning for this play began. Lapine was much younger, but had become known for having written some relatively successful plays and directing the musical play March of the Falsettos. The two men were introduced and discussed potential projects. They decided on a musical play incorporating elements of the painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte." ("La Grande Jatte," the internet tells me, means something like "the big bowl" or "the big crater." I don't know why the island was given that name.) They began to write the first act, with Sondheim working on the title song. A space was rented and other people began to be involved.
A musical director and a casting director join the group and actors are interviewed and hired. The set designer, Tony Straiges, comes on board; the set is extraordinarily important for this play. Costume designers too become part of the group.
The "musical team" is recruited, including a musical director and an orchestrator. Lapine is now working with the actors, running "workshops" in which the performers take part in games and exercises. Some of them enjoy this; others emphatically do not. Lapine makes it clear that he and some of the actors often did not work together harmoniously. One of the actors with a large part (Remak Ramsay, whom I have seen on stage and enjoyed) walked out without notice, sending Sondheim a message that "said something to the effect of, 'Why are you working with this guy, James Lapine? He doesn't know what he's doing. I quit.'" Rehearsals went on, even though much of the show, including most of the second act, was still unfinished.
Issues arise and are dealt with. The Chromolume has to be designed, at considerable expense.
Various people involved were tense, feeling either that what they were doing was not good enough, or the opposite - that their work was not sufficiently appreciated. Mandy Patinkin announced that he was leaving but was persuaded to stay. (Patinkin received and - reluctantly - turned down an offer to appear with Dustin Hoffman in Death of a Salesman.) Lapine admits that he himself was sometimes short-tempered; "when I finally just accepted the fact that everyone didn't like me and moved on," he states, "the better I got at my job." Bernadette Peters, who had been performing since childhood, almost always remained calmly professional.
The costume designers had to work out a problem which would seem to me to be easily done but was actually quite difficult; Dot has to step out of a heavy dress, almost magically, and then return to it. The dress must stand by itself when she is not wearing it. How hard can that be? Very, I now know - but they did it.
And as for the music - Sondheim kept working, but some of the songs used in the second act were still not finished. I quite honestly am not sure exactly what an orchestrator does, but that work went on. Michael Starobin, who was the orchestrator, says things like, "I knew I would want strings... The use of a harp seemed like it might be called for." I had always assumed that the composer - Sondheim, in this case - would at least take part in such decisions.
There is no dancing in the show but there was a choreographer, a "movement person to help with the Broadway staging."
Producers raised money. Even though the show was unfinished, they put on performances in front of audiences. And the show prepared to move to Broadway.
The show opened on May 2, 1984. It got generally good reviews. It received ten nominations for Tony Awards. Three actors from the show were nominated - Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters,
and Dana Ivey. Sondheim, Lapine, and the costume designers, the set designer, and the lighting designer were all nominated. It won for the set design and the lighting, but lost in every other category, mostly to La Cage aux Folles. Jerry Herman, who wrote the score for Cage, gave a famous acceptance speech which was widely regarded as a denigration of Sondheim's work.
Sunday in the Park with George subsequently received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama; at that time, it was only the sixth musical in fifty-seven years to win the award.
Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created Sunday in the Park with George is an excellent book. I know that similar books have been written regarding the creation of other works of art. I have only read a few of those, but I am convinced that this one is indeed, as the song "Putting It Together" says, "the state of the art." Lapine tried to include thoughts from most of the people involved in this production who were still living when the book was published in 2021. Sadly, Stephen Sondheim died on November 26, 2021.
I do not think that a book of this type can have too much illustrative material. This has pretty much everything that a reader might want. There are costume designs, sections of the musical score, copies of pages of notes made during the period that all this work took place, copies of the exemplary poster advertising the show, reproductions of Seurat's paintings, and literally dozens of photographs. One of the photographs is of the artist Georges Seurat, painter of "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte," who died at the age of thirty-one.
I always assumed that putting together and performing a musical play must be a formidable task. Clearly I was right, but I had no idea just how much goes into this, how many people contribute work and talent and, if the audience is lucky, genius. Lapine makes that clear. He makes the reader care not only about the show that is performed but also about all the people who bit by bit...piece by piece...dot by dot create a work of art.
**************************************
I want to add some comments not regarding the book but about the play itself. Offering my opinions about a Pulitzer Prize-winning play may be presumptuous, but there are observations that I would like to make.
Starting with a very few somewhat negative comments, I would have suggested three major changes:
First, giving Seurat's model and lover the name "Dot" seems to me to be a silly, childish joke. Seurat is renowned as an exponent of pointillism, a type of art in which the paint is not applied in strokes but in small dots of color; the point is that the human eye perceives those dots as a whole, mixing the colors in the eye and the brain rather than on the canvas. Naming a major character in the play after a silly pun seems to me to diminish her importance.
The beginning of the second act has the people in the painting, now hanging in an American museum, complaining that they are hot and their "lives" are monotonous. This is meant to be humorous, and it succeeds at that. But, to my mind, this is barely a part of the play, totally at odds with the rest of the material. This Pirandello-ish joking seems to me to interrupt the flow of the play, sacrificing continuity for comedy.
Perhaps the most famous song in the play is "Finishing the Hat," certainly the most moving song that Seurat is given. He explains that he knows that he sees life as if through a window, losing Dot and their baby because he is consumed by his desire to make works of art. Before reading the book and watching the play once more, I remembered incorrectly that this was sung in George's studio as he worked on a hat in the painting. In fact, the song is a follow-up to a conversation that George has had with Dot, in which George says that he can not go to the Follies with her as they had planned because he had to finish painting a hat. It would make sense for George to be directing the thoughts in this song to Dot or, possibly, to his friend and fellow-artist Jules or just musing to himself. But that is not the situation really used in the play as the setting for the song. George is not painting in his studio, he is outdoors sketching, and he is speaking to a dog. It works - the song is wonderful - but I think that it would have worked even better if it had indeed been sung in Seurat's studio as he painted.
***********************************
I have never understood the play's reputation as being difficult to understand or hard to follow. Yes, the second act is set in a different time and place from the first act, but I think that the transition is clear. The two Georges both have problems relating to their art; the problems are, admittedly, quite different, and perhaps members of the audience were confused by that, but I think that both situations are well delineated.
I know that many people think that the first act is far more interesting than Act Two, both in terms of drama and of the songs. Act One has the great costumes and some wonderful music. The song "Sunday" that concludes the first act is one of the moments that I remembered really well even years after seeing the show. As I mentioned above, the song "Finishing the Hat" is also excellent.
Act One also has some things that I don't like. I find the very caricatured American couple less amusing than I am sure was intended. Likewise, the inanimate soldier is an interesting concept, but I don't think that it works well.
The second act also has some wonderful things. The "Putting It Together" number is genuinely clever and funny. The reprise of "Sunday" works well. The character of Marie, the ninety-eight year old grandmother, is consistently fine.
And the most moving songs are in Act Two. "Children and Art" is, simply, terrific. In addition to the end of Act One, what has always stayed firm and strong in my memory is Marie looking at the painting and seeing what she believes are multiple versions of her mother:
"Isn't she beautiful?
There she is -
There she is, there she is, there she is -
Mama is everywhere,
He must have loved her so much..."
And then the two songs that come late in Act Two. "Lesson #8," in which George reads from Dot's old grammar book and thinks of his recently deceased grandmother:
"'Marie has the ball of Charles...'
'Good for Marie...'
'Charles misses his ball...'
George misses Marie...
George misses a lot...
George is alone."
And this goes on to show George's loneliness and his despair.
And then a phantom appearance by Dot. Late in Act One, Dot sings:
"I have to move on."
Now she brings hope to George, whom she mistakenly believes is her George:
"Move on.
Stop worrying where you're going -
Move on.
If you can know where you're going,
You've gone.
Just keep moving on.
I chose, and my world was shaken -
So what?
The choice may have been mistaken,
The choosing was not.
You have to move on..."
And then the lovely ending in which George realizes that he has "so many possibilities..."
**********************************
A very fine ending to a marvelous musical play.
April 20, 2023
Even as a huge fan of the musical I was worried this would be a bit dry but I flew through it. Really interesting format with lots of interview snippets from all the various creators and actors but still felt like a clear linear storyline from start to finish. Loved it!
March 29, 2022
A beautiful, in-depth look into making a work of art.
February 9, 2022
If you're interested in the creation of a musical, this was fabulous.
I'm surprised with how willing James Lapine was to point out his flaws. There are many interviews in this book calling him unlikeable and unprofessional. And he just says- yeah, I was like that!
As a contrast, the Andrew Lloyd Webber autobiography was a masturbatory list of his accomplishments, and a take-down of all the people he had argued with in his career.
I'm surprised with how willing James Lapine was to point out his flaws. There are many interviews in this book calling him unlikeable and unprofessional. And he just says- yeah, I was like that!
As a contrast, the Andrew Lloyd Webber autobiography was a masturbatory list of his accomplishments, and a take-down of all the people he had argued with in his career.
October 9, 2021
I love to read about the creation of shows. I love Sondheim. I was likely always going to love this book. That being said, there is a lot of information (more than in some similar books), and it is well organized into easily-digestible chapters. The interview format also makes it a quick read. Looking back on the show after so many years and with so many of the original individuals involved in it is delightful. Lapine is pretty open about his faults, which is nice. Sunday is not a show that I heavily gravitate towards, but this made me want to rewatch the proshot. I think it would have been nice to have a section on the longevity of the show and different significant productions, but I also understand that's not what this book is about. I'd highly recommend it to anyone even remotely interested. It's a very engaging read.
September 23, 2021
I consider myself to be somewhat of a musical theatre fan but I have seen Sunday in the Park with George only once, quite some time ago, and not on Broadway. And, I guess, I'm not that much of a fan because I just couldn't get into a lot of the detail, although I found some of it quite interesting. I basically skimmed the book and read the parts that were more general, skipping a lot of the who did exactly what when and how they felt about it. I'm sure real fans of this play and people who are more into Broadway than I am will find it fascinating.
Read
August 17, 2021Devoured this so quickly I didn't even take the time to post it on my "currently reading" shelf. Yeah, theater nut here, and I love to read memoirs--especially about process.
My thanks to everybody who agreed to be interviewed.
My thanks to everybody who agreed to be interviewed.
August 4, 2021
Way too short. I needed so much more of this. 60000/10
July 5, 2022
A detailed oral history of how Sunday in the Park with George was created, from workshops to previews to opening night. Lapine was wonderfully thorough in tracking people down; he spoke with all of the original cast, set and costume designers, producers, and of course, Sondheim. Lapine has a warm relationship with Sondheim and Mandy Patinkin and many others, which comes through on the page--but it's interesting to hear how much some of the actors struggled with the process at the time. Most of them look back with fondness because it eventually turned into such an artistic success, but it's really fascinating to pull back the curtain a bit. The final third of the book is the script for the show.
I like Sunday, and it was helpful to be familiar with the show so that I could picture the scenes and hear the music in my head as I read. Really, though, this book was also interesting in a more general "how a show comes together" kind of way. I love learning about process, and this introduced me to so many creative details and practical pieces of the puzzle that I hadn't considered.
So glad Lapine took on the project when he did--it would not have been nearly as rich without the long conversations with Sondheim!
I like Sunday, and it was helpful to be familiar with the show so that I could picture the scenes and hear the music in my head as I read. Really, though, this book was also interesting in a more general "how a show comes together" kind of way. I love learning about process, and this introduced me to so many creative details and practical pieces of the puzzle that I hadn't considered.
So glad Lapine took on the project when he did--it would not have been nearly as rich without the long conversations with Sondheim!
August 31, 2021
Nice overview of the first Broadway performances of Sunday in the Park with George with the original cast. Very nice.
December 4, 2021
Book: 5/5
Audiobook: 3.5/5
Audiobook: 3.5/5
June 29, 2021
Thanks to Netgalley and FSG for the ebook. This is one of my favorite musicals and it’s fascinating to see how it all came together. The second half of the book is the complete script, but the first half is how this show was created. It’s written by the man who wrote the book for the musical as well as directed the show. The directing is key because that means he has to deal with every aspect of the show: The actors, musical team, customers and designers, which gives us an even greater look into all aspects of this show. The most remarkable part of this book is seeing how this simple idea morphs and grows, sometimes painfully, into this beloved musical.
August 6, 2021
In this compulsively readable volume, James Lapine has stitched together personal memoir and candid chats with artists of all stripes to recount the making of Sunday in the Park with George, the 1984 Stephen Sondheim musical which Lapine directed and for which he wrote the book.
Lapine recounts the genesis of the project from its earliest days, during his transition from the design world into the realm of experimental theater, and how it began to take shape shortly after meeting Sondheim and suggesting a collaboration. Through dozens of casual—and often humorous—conversations with Sondheim and the many producers and artists who contributed to mounting the show, Lapine manages to give fans of the show behind-the-scenes looks at how the story was shaped, the songs tortuously composed, the orchestrations set, the sets and costumes constructed, and even how its casting decisions arose and its unforgettable promotional poster was conceived.
The story is rife with backstage gossip and conflict. Decades enough have passed, though, that most of the participants are able to recount them with a sense of humor. Lapine is disarmingly frank about his inexperience as a Broadway director and recognizes how frustrated the professional actors and artists must have been with his inability to express what he wanted in terms they would readily understand. In a similar vein, lead actor Mandy Patinkin is equally vocal about how difficult he was to Lapine and his fellow actors, thanks to his own insecurities at the time.
The book really only stretches as far as the show's opening night, with a brief, sweet coda when it won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. As a bonus, Lapine includes the complete book of the show. Any fan of Sondheim or of the theatrical creative process should enjoy this fascinating tale; I found it so enjoyable that by book's end I was merrily composing a list of other shows I'd love to see receive a similar treatment.
Lapine recounts the genesis of the project from its earliest days, during his transition from the design world into the realm of experimental theater, and how it began to take shape shortly after meeting Sondheim and suggesting a collaboration. Through dozens of casual—and often humorous—conversations with Sondheim and the many producers and artists who contributed to mounting the show, Lapine manages to give fans of the show behind-the-scenes looks at how the story was shaped, the songs tortuously composed, the orchestrations set, the sets and costumes constructed, and even how its casting decisions arose and its unforgettable promotional poster was conceived.
The story is rife with backstage gossip and conflict. Decades enough have passed, though, that most of the participants are able to recount them with a sense of humor. Lapine is disarmingly frank about his inexperience as a Broadway director and recognizes how frustrated the professional actors and artists must have been with his inability to express what he wanted in terms they would readily understand. In a similar vein, lead actor Mandy Patinkin is equally vocal about how difficult he was to Lapine and his fellow actors, thanks to his own insecurities at the time.
The book really only stretches as far as the show's opening night, with a brief, sweet coda when it won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. As a bonus, Lapine includes the complete book of the show. Any fan of Sondheim or of the theatrical creative process should enjoy this fascinating tale; I found it so enjoyable that by book's end I was merrily composing a list of other shows I'd love to see receive a similar treatment.
August 12, 2021
Theater buffs, acting students and budding playwrights will love this delicious masterclass on creating a Broadway musical.
I grew up with Sunday In The Park With George, so this was just a treat.
These witty pages author/creator Lapine shares the blood, sweat and tears shed in the creation of the Pulitzer Prize winning musical. If you love theater you will not be able to put this book down. Bravo.
I grew up with Sunday In The Park With George, so this was just a treat.
These witty pages author/creator Lapine shares the blood, sweat and tears shed in the creation of the Pulitzer Prize winning musical. If you love theater you will not be able to put this book down. Bravo.
September 12, 2021
If you like theater, Broadway, Sondheim, backstage gossip you will devour this book. Sunday in the Park with George is actually one of my least favorite shows, but I like Sondheim, it was a lot of fun to go on a deep dive into the behind-the-scenes making of a musical and all the problems joys and larger-than-life folks behind things before anyone ever takes to the stage. The book breezes by and really was a treat.
April 19, 2023
Good but weird. Here's a few stray thoughts:
-First and foremost, I LOVE Sunday in the Park with George. If you haven't seen it, there's a wonderful filmed stage production available (most likely) through your local library.
-I'm not very familiar with this genre: that is, tell-all books of stage and film productions. Going in, I assumed it would be a nice mix of personal anecdotes about the show, a fair amount of showbiz complimenting and maybe a little gossip about who was difficult to work with, etc.
-My expectations bore out, for the most part. Putting It Together is more an oral history than a memoir, but still filtered through the perspective of playwright/director James Lapine. The best bits are when he's talking with Stephen Sondheim, his main collaborator on Sunday in the Park with George. There's some showbiz complimenting/gossip, but when talking with Sondheim, there's a lot more discussion on the nature of the show, and theory behind why he writes the music that he does. It's fascinating hearing him expound on his craft.
-The gushing praise people give one another in the interviews was expected, but got to be a little much at times. And the criticism? It was a little juicy, but I wanted it to have more teeth. I wasn't expecting nor hoping there'd be outright bitterness during the production of Sunday in the Park with George, but everything, both the positive and negative people had to say about each other, seemed tamer through the haze of memory, which I guess is how things usually work. Well, that, and you want to stay in people's good graces because you still have to work with one another in the industry.
-I think the previous point sticks out for me not because I'm craving conflict in this, but because I wanted more specifics in the retelling of the production story. Cary Elwes's memoir on filming The Princess Bride was a fanastic read because he structured it like a narrative: there was a through-line between the start of the production to its end, and in-between were specific and vivid memories of cast and crew shooting. Putting It Together has that, too, but it's less structured, and I definitely wanted more details, more day to day descriptions of what it was like in rehearsal. Maybe in talking to so many people, the impact gets diffused?
-Also, I listened to the audiobook, and it's all voiceover artists reading the interviews of other people. Not bad, and I especially loved Len Cariou's interpretation of Sondheim, but I think that also created this distancing effect, knowing that these weren't the original people.
-Still, for all my burbling here, Putting It Together was interesting and added to my love of a show I already adore. Check it out? It's not necessary, but I offer you a solid review of definitely maybe.
-First and foremost, I LOVE Sunday in the Park with George. If you haven't seen it, there's a wonderful filmed stage production available (most likely) through your local library.
-I'm not very familiar with this genre: that is, tell-all books of stage and film productions. Going in, I assumed it would be a nice mix of personal anecdotes about the show, a fair amount of showbiz complimenting and maybe a little gossip about who was difficult to work with, etc.
-My expectations bore out, for the most part. Putting It Together is more an oral history than a memoir, but still filtered through the perspective of playwright/director James Lapine. The best bits are when he's talking with Stephen Sondheim, his main collaborator on Sunday in the Park with George. There's some showbiz complimenting/gossip, but when talking with Sondheim, there's a lot more discussion on the nature of the show, and theory behind why he writes the music that he does. It's fascinating hearing him expound on his craft.
-The gushing praise people give one another in the interviews was expected, but got to be a little much at times. And the criticism? It was a little juicy, but I wanted it to have more teeth. I wasn't expecting nor hoping there'd be outright bitterness during the production of Sunday in the Park with George, but everything, both the positive and negative people had to say about each other, seemed tamer through the haze of memory, which I guess is how things usually work. Well, that, and you want to stay in people's good graces because you still have to work with one another in the industry.
-I think the previous point sticks out for me not because I'm craving conflict in this, but because I wanted more specifics in the retelling of the production story. Cary Elwes's memoir on filming The Princess Bride was a fanastic read because he structured it like a narrative: there was a through-line between the start of the production to its end, and in-between were specific and vivid memories of cast and crew shooting. Putting It Together has that, too, but it's less structured, and I definitely wanted more details, more day to day descriptions of what it was like in rehearsal. Maybe in talking to so many people, the impact gets diffused?
-Also, I listened to the audiobook, and it's all voiceover artists reading the interviews of other people. Not bad, and I especially loved Len Cariou's interpretation of Sondheim, but I think that also created this distancing effect, knowing that these weren't the original people.
-Still, for all my burbling here, Putting It Together was interesting and added to my love of a show I already adore. Check it out? It's not necessary, but I offer you a solid review of definitely maybe.
October 16, 2021
Our process ended up being not unlike Seurat's. We had to wait until all the dots filled the canvas... before we could step back and look at what we made.
What a treat this book was to read. Written in essentially an oral history format, this has got to be one of the most thorough behind-the-scenes books I've ever read personally. Here James Lapine takes the reader through the entire process of developing the 1980s musical Sunday in the Park with George from soup to nuts - starting with his personal entrance into the New York theatre industry, to beginning to write and workshop the show with musical veteran Stephen Sondheim at his side, all the way through opening night and the critical response the show received afterwards. Lapine goes deep into the weeds here, speaking to basically as many living members of the cast, creative and production teams as he could get his hands on. As a fan of theatre in general, it was interesting. As a huge fan of this show in particular, it was unputdownable! I'd recommend this for anyone interested in the nuts and bolts of show business, because this book allows you to experience it all, for better or worse. I have heard some complaints about the quality of the photos included in this book. This wasn't really an issue for me, but I would have enjoyed seeing even more photos. The production of this show seems like it was very well documented, so any other behind-the-scenes bits and bobs would be much appreciated!
What a treat this book was to read. Written in essentially an oral history format, this has got to be one of the most thorough behind-the-scenes books I've ever read personally. Here James Lapine takes the reader through the entire process of developing the 1980s musical Sunday in the Park with George from soup to nuts - starting with his personal entrance into the New York theatre industry, to beginning to write and workshop the show with musical veteran Stephen Sondheim at his side, all the way through opening night and the critical response the show received afterwards. Lapine goes deep into the weeds here, speaking to basically as many living members of the cast, creative and production teams as he could get his hands on. As a fan of theatre in general, it was interesting. As a huge fan of this show in particular, it was unputdownable! I'd recommend this for anyone interested in the nuts and bolts of show business, because this book allows you to experience it all, for better or worse. I have heard some complaints about the quality of the photos included in this book. This wasn't really an issue for me, but I would have enjoyed seeing even more photos. The production of this show seems like it was very well documented, so any other behind-the-scenes bits and bobs would be much appreciated!
September 27, 2022
5 STARS
This book is an absolute must read for anyone who loves treater or is interested in the process of creating art.
James Lapine is truly a gifted artist and this book is no exception. He is honest in the harsh realities that was creating Sunday in the Park with George. He interviews a long list of creatives involved in the creation of the show - from producers, to the stars Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin. They address the harsher realities of tension and arguments and remain, at times brutally, honest as they recount their versions of events. It pains such a visceral image that this beautiful piece of art was created at the cot of hurt feelings and tension along the way - to quote the show "art isn't easy".
The most poignant parts of the book for me were his discussions with the late great Stephen Sondheim whom I consider a deity. Since losing Sondhiem in 2021, his words feel even more precious. Hearing how he felt creating this show, writing music that would become seminal in my life, was so moving. We will never know another Sondheim and I am so glad this book happened before he passed.
I came to realize that Sunday in the Park with George, a Pulitzer winning work of art now so loudly celebrated, at many points almost didn't happen and couldn't happen in the same way again. This book is truly a love letter to creativity and taking risks for your art. A must read I will revisit time and time again as I attempt to finish my own hat in life.
This book is an absolute must read for anyone who loves treater or is interested in the process of creating art.
James Lapine is truly a gifted artist and this book is no exception. He is honest in the harsh realities that was creating Sunday in the Park with George. He interviews a long list of creatives involved in the creation of the show - from producers, to the stars Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin. They address the harsher realities of tension and arguments and remain, at times brutally, honest as they recount their versions of events. It pains such a visceral image that this beautiful piece of art was created at the cot of hurt feelings and tension along the way - to quote the show "art isn't easy".
The most poignant parts of the book for me were his discussions with the late great Stephen Sondheim whom I consider a deity. Since losing Sondhiem in 2021, his words feel even more precious. Hearing how he felt creating this show, writing music that would become seminal in my life, was so moving. We will never know another Sondheim and I am so glad this book happened before he passed.
I came to realize that Sunday in the Park with George, a Pulitzer winning work of art now so loudly celebrated, at many points almost didn't happen and couldn't happen in the same way again. This book is truly a love letter to creativity and taking risks for your art. A must read I will revisit time and time again as I attempt to finish my own hat in life.
January 6, 2023
I've been a fan of this show for a long time, but it wasn't until Sondheim passed away in 2021 where I really dug into it. In the simplest terms, Sunday in the Park with George is a musical about artists creating art and this book is about the artists who created the show. I know, so meta.
I have always and forever will be fascinated by how pieces of art come together. It's probably one of the reasons I enjoy the musical so much, and this book. James Lapain, author / director of the show, worked with Stephen Sondheim to create a new musical in the 1980s based on the French pointillist painter Georges Seurat's painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (which is a MASSIVE painting, it lives at the Chicago Institute of Art - check it out!!). This book is a collection of interviews with the cast and crew who took the show from a small workshop with the ngo theatre company, Playwrights Horizons, to the full fledged Broadway production. Sunday was the first professional show James was involved in and the first time Stephen and him collaborated. They continued to work together after this, including the creation of the mega hit, Into The Woods. Its very cool to learn how they met, worked together, and what getting a show to Broadway was like in the 80s. Spoiler, it seems much easier than it is today.
For any Sunday or Sondheim fan, I'd highly recommend.
I have always and forever will be fascinated by how pieces of art come together. It's probably one of the reasons I enjoy the musical so much, and this book. James Lapain, author / director of the show, worked with Stephen Sondheim to create a new musical in the 1980s based on the French pointillist painter Georges Seurat's painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (which is a MASSIVE painting, it lives at the Chicago Institute of Art - check it out!!). This book is a collection of interviews with the cast and crew who took the show from a small workshop with the ngo theatre company, Playwrights Horizons, to the full fledged Broadway production. Sunday was the first professional show James was involved in and the first time Stephen and him collaborated. They continued to work together after this, including the creation of the mega hit, Into The Woods. Its very cool to learn how they met, worked together, and what getting a show to Broadway was like in the 80s. Spoiler, it seems much easier than it is today.
For any Sunday or Sondheim fan, I'd highly recommend.
December 9, 2023
Years after writing and directing “Sunday in the Park with George” James Lapine went back to his various collaborators to write a hybrid memoir-oral history of his process creating the show. While this would be valuable regardless of how it turned out, “Putting it Together” is particularly useful—maybe even indispensable—because Lapine focuses so much on the collaborations, reflecting on how he worked with each member of the cast and crew and what role they played in the production’s success.
Even the most intimate and detailed accounts of a director’s work rarely feature interviews with say, financial backers or costume designers, and here, Lapine not only offers that but invites a dialogue on how their perception of the process might differ from his own.
The book works particularly well because of the strangeness of “Sunday” and Lapine’s process. The work itself is odd for a musical: odd material, odd structure, odd staging. And yet, it is a work of genius. And it is probably the blending of Sondheim and Lapine’s particular experimental yet somewhat commercial sensibilities that make the show work. And hearing how every collaborator entered into and either trusted or did not trust the process is particularly enriching.
If you are an artist, if you are a storyteller, “Putting it Together” is not only worth a listen, it could change how you look at your creative work.
Even the most intimate and detailed accounts of a director’s work rarely feature interviews with say, financial backers or costume designers, and here, Lapine not only offers that but invites a dialogue on how their perception of the process might differ from his own.
The book works particularly well because of the strangeness of “Sunday” and Lapine’s process. The work itself is odd for a musical: odd material, odd structure, odd staging. And yet, it is a work of genius. And it is probably the blending of Sondheim and Lapine’s particular experimental yet somewhat commercial sensibilities that make the show work. And hearing how every collaborator entered into and either trusted or did not trust the process is particularly enriching.
If you are an artist, if you are a storyteller, “Putting it Together” is not only worth a listen, it could change how you look at your creative work.
December 25, 2021
This is absolutely divine. It's not surprising that James Lapine was able to put together a beautiful oral history of the writing and original production of Sunday in the Park with George, but that does not make this book any less special. Lapine is naturally a gifted writer and interviewed many of the key players in the making of Sunday, first and foremost Stephen Sondheim himself. And while we sadly could never have known this, the book feels all the more poignant now after Sondheim's passing the day after Thanksgiving. I certainly think I read this book at the right time, and it is so wonderful and special that Lapine was able to interview Sondheim for this project. This is a must-read for anyone who loves theater, musicals, Sondheim, or all of the above. This literary work of art about a work of art (the musical) about a work of art (Seurat's painting) will hold a special place in my heart.
February 6, 2022
As a huge Broadway and Sondheim fan, I loved how this book puts the reader "in the room where it happens", to quote Lin-Manuel Miranda. James Lapine interviewed dozens of people involved in the creation of Sunday in the Park with George. The conversations seem strikingly honest and Lapine himself, among others, reveals his own shortcomings and mistakes on the road to creating this Pulitzer Prize winning drama. It's all very fascinating. Sondheim is portrayed as such a supporter of young talent, as has been attested by so many after his death recently. I am sure this is a book I will read again. If you love theater, this is a must read. And listening to the original soundtrack with Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters is also a must. A love letter to the process of making art. Bravo!
February 1, 2024
Sunday in the park has always sat with me and echo the struggles of bringing your artistic vision to fruition. Getting to hear from each of the involved parties about the process of putting it together was a treat that I didn’t know was possible. But more than that, hearing from each of them that they were filled with the same insecurities, and struggles that every one of us goes through was enough to give you a little surge of hope for all of your own endeavors. The poison of pedestal in people makes them infallible, getting to hear about the fear in the fallibility of putting your work together and sharing it with the world makes these people even more wonderful - even if it takes them after pedestal, so to speak. Bit by bit. Anything you do, let it come from you, then it will be new. Give us more to see.
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