The Broadway Maven To Host PACIFIC OVERTURES AT 50 A Special Anniversary Roundtable Honoring Stephen Sondheim And John Weidman

To mark the 50th anniversary of Pacific Overtures, The Broadway Maven will present a rare roundtable conversation devoted to Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's landmark musical, one of the most formally daring works in the Broadway canon. The event will take place on Tuesday, January 27 at 7:00 pm ET and will run approximately 90 minutes.

Premiering in 1976, Pacific Overtures broke new ground through its episodic structure, its engagement with Japanese theatrical forms, and its unsentimental examination of cultural collision, modernization, and loss. Long regarded as a challenging outlier within Sondheim's body of work, the musical has grown steadily in stature over the past five decades and is now widely recognized as one of his most searching and intellectually ambitious achievements.

The anniversary roundtable will be guided by Broadway Maven faculty member Gail Leondar-Wright and Edward Barnes, Professor of Music at Juilliard, and will bring together artists whose work is inseparable from the show's legacy:

• John Weidman, librettist

• Jonathan Tunick, orchestrator

• Francis Jue, Tony Award-winning performer

• BD Wong, Tony Award-winning performer

Together, the panelists will discuss the creation of Pacific Overtures, its radical musical and dramatic language, and its evolving resonance for contemporary audiences.

Attendance is included with Broadway Maven Membership. Non-members may register for $25, which includes access to the live event as well as a recording, available exclusively to registrants whether or not they are able to attend live. Registration also includes a full month of Broadway Maven membership, granting access to additional classes and programming. A calendar of upcoming classes is available here.