Stephen Sondheim Reveals New Details on David Ives Collaboration, ALL TOGETHER NOW!

As previously reported, Stephen Sondheim and David Ives have teamed up on a new musical, which is currently in the earliest phases of composition.  

BroadwayWorld tracked down the music man, who revealed to us that: "it's an idea I've had for a long time and that it springs indirectly from a moment in a play of David's."

A new interview with Sondheim out in the UK Times today reveals new details on the project, titled All Together Now. The musical is his first in nearly 10 years, his last, Bounce (later titled Road Show), opened in 2003. The musical, reportedly follows a similar structure to Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along, in which the storytelling occurs in reverse chronological order. He tells The Times that the project centers on “two people and what goes into their relationship...We’ll write for a couple of months, then have a workshop. It seemed experimental and fresh 20 years ago. I have a feeling it may not be experimental and fresh any more.” Sondheim began the project in 1991. He explains further: “I’m writing very slowly. It’s hard to get back on the bicycle... I have spent the past four years writing books [Finishing the Hat and Look, I Made a Hat], so I’m rusty."

For the full report in The Times, click here.

David Ives is currently represented on Broadway with Venus in Fur, starring Hugh Dancy and Nina Arianda. Ives is additionally the book writer of Irving Berlin's White Christmas and Dance of the Vampires, and has adapted Is He Dead and Wonderful Town for Broadway. He is a regular book adapter for the Encores! Broadway series. He is also the author of All in the Timing, which originated as an evening of one-act comedies that premiered at Primary Stages in 1993 and later moved to the John Houseman Theatre for 606 performances. The production won him the Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Award for Playwriting. 

Living legend Stephen Sondheim is the winner of one Academy Award, eight Tony Awards (more than any other composer), multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award. His most famous scores include A Little Night Music, Company, Follies, Sweeney Todd, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, and Assassins. He additionally wrote the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy. Film contributions include contributing the song "Goodbye For Now" to the 1981 Warren Beatty film Reds, and five songs for the 1990 movie Dick Tracy, including Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man), which won the Academy Award for Best Song. He was last represented on Broadway this season with the revival of Follies.

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