Review: Sullivan Rep's MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG Shows Sondheim is Worth a Second Look

Stephen Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along” was a rare Broadway flop for the legendary composer when it opened at the Alvin (now the Neil Simon) Theatre on November 16, 1981, and closed after just 44 previews and 16 performances.

The show may have stumbled out of the gate but with a score that includes songs that have since become Sondheim classics, it developed a cult-like following and spawned numerous regional and off-Broadway productions. A 2012 production at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory, with British musical theater performer Maria Friedman making her directorial debut, was presented at The Huntington in Boston in 2017.

Friedman later helmed a 2023 Broadway production that starred Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lindsay Mendez. won the Tony Award for Best Revival – plus a Tony each for Graff and Radcliffe – and put the show back on the map. Local enthusiasm for “Merrily We Roll Along” is likely to increase further with the intimate, well-drawn Sullivan Rep production now at Dedham’s Mother Brook Arts & Community Center through June 27.

Based on the 1934 play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, “Merrily We Roll Along” opens in 1976 and then travels back in time almost 20 years to tell the story of Franklin Shepard, an ascendant Broadway composer who, unable to resist the siren call of fame and fortune, leaves the New York theater and his two closest friends and collaborators behind to become a Hollywood movie producer. In the book by George Furth, show-business sophistication swirls around these characters, though even their drollest observations could use more depth. That said, many of the characters are very appealing, and the story of the central trio’s friendship is compelling, more so in its current Friedman-inspired iteration than in earlier versions. Time has been good to “Merrily We Roll Along,” which has firmly taken its place as a Sondheim hit.

Daniel Forest Sullivan – Sullivan Rep’s founder, artistic director, and president – does quadruple duty in Dedham as director, choreographer, costumer, and actor, playing the role of Charley Klingas, Franklin’s often overshadowed friend and contentious collaborator. To play the other two friends at the heart of “Merrily,” Sullivan has wisely cast Sean Donnelly as Franklin Shepard and Carly Evans as wisecracking author and theater critic Mary Flynn. Much of the action pivots off Donnelly, but Sullivan makes his sartorially challenged Charlie very worth watching. And Evans uses Mary’s sharp tongue to mask her long-held soft spot for Franklin. The trio demonstrate winning brio on act one’s “Old Friends,” and tender harmony on “Our Time,” the second act closer.

As Franklin’s first wife, Beth, Meghan Rose offers up a powerfully emotional rendition of “Not a Day Goes By” – emblematic of Sondheim’s gifts as both composer and lyricist – in act one, reprising it with a fitting change in tone in act two. Katie Clark plays Franklin’s second wife, the always gussied-up Gussie Carnegie who has abundant self-focused aplomb, lending her warm-toned vocals to a wonderful “Growing Up.” Another memorable number is the 1960-set “Bobby and Jackie and Jack,” a sweet ode to not only our 35th president, his first lady Jacqueline, and attorney general brother Bobby, but also the AG’s wife Ethel and others on the Kennedy family tree, including Joe and Rose, Eunice and Sarge, Pat and Peter, Jean and Steve, and, of course, Ted and Joan.

Fine supporting work is also done by Vinny Saracino as the torn-between-two-parents Franklin Jr., by Justin Boudreau as Joe Josephson, Gussie’s ever loyal first husband, and, in the ensemble, by Scott Berozi, Essie Canty Bertain, Kevin Hanley, Michael Herschberg, Evan Hill, Katie Howe, Marcia Irwin, David J. Kim, Briar-Robin Pollock, Melissa Paz, Kristen Sehn, Aeon Smith, and Anthony Rinaldi.

An excellent seven-member pit band, led by music director Jenny Tsai, a 2025 Elliot Norton Award winner for Sullivan Rep’s “A Little Night Music,” sets the mood perfectly throughout with its fulsome embrace of Sondheim’s stellar score. The use of the classic sound of clacking typewriters on act two’s “Opening Doors” is  also wonderfully well-executed.

Scenic and Costume Designer Ryan DuBray’s simple, multipurpose set serves as everything from 1950s and 1960s New York rooftops, apartments, and the Alvin Theatre to a circa-1973 NBC-TV studio where Amanda Atkinson channels a young Jane Pauley, a sleek Sutton Place apartment, and a sprawling Bel Air mansion. Less impressive is DuBray’s lighting design which, at a recent matinee, more than once left the actors struggling to find their light. Sullivan’s wide array of well-sourced costumes conveys each period, too, with a light-color palette at first and later evening wear accented by everything from bouclé to marabou feather trims. Especially eye-catching are the mod black and white outfits complete with mini-skirts and patent leather go-go boots for act two’s “The Blob,” popping as if they were in technicolor.

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Merrily We Roll Along

6/12 - 6/27/2026

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