Candide on Stage Videos - West End

Leonard Bernstein was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He took piano lessons as a boy and attended the Garrison and Boston Latin Schools. At Harvard University, he studied with Walter Piston, Edward Burlingame-Hill, and A. Tillman Merritt, among others. Before graduating in 1939, he made an unofficial conducting debut with his own incidental music to 'The Birds,' and directed and performed in Marc Blitzstein's 'The Cradle Will Rock.' Then at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, he studied piano with Isabella Vengerova, conducting with Fritz Reiner, and orchestration with Randall Thompson. 

Signature Theatre, winner of the 2009 Regional Theatre Tony Award, presents the Washington premiere of the hit musical comedy [title of show], winner of three Obie Awards and a Tony nomination. A zany take on two friends' decision to write a musical, [title of show] runs April 6 through June 27 in Signature's remarkably intimate 110-seat ARK Theatre.

Angela Lansbury, the great star of stage, film, and television, was honored April 12 with the first annual Stephen Sondheim Award, given by Virginia's Signature Theatre at a black-tie Gala Benefit at the Embassy of Italy. The Sondheim Award, established by Signature last year in the name of America's most influential contemporary musical theater writer and composer, was presented to the actress by Mr. Sondheim himself.