Follies - 1971 - Broadway Articles Page 12

San Francisco Playhouse will complete its twelfth season with Stephen Sondheim's trailblazing musical comedy, Company, directed by Susi Damilano. The play will feature a cast of local favorites, with Keith Pinto (Into the Woods) starring as Robert, along with Teresa Attridge, Velina Brown*, Morgan Dayley, Michelle Drexler, Ryan Drummond*, Richard Frederick*, John Paul Gonzalez, Monique Hafen*, Stephanie Prentice*, Chris Reber*, Abby Sammons, Nicole Weber and Michael Scott Wells.

The 69th Annual Tony Awards are this Sunday June 7th at 8/9c hosted by Kristin Chenoweth and Alan Cumming. It's the biggest award show of the Broadway season and it closes out a long award season for Broadway and Off-Broadway musicals and plays. We can't help but wonder what chances this year's Best Musical and Best Play nominees have of taking home the ultimate prize. 

Arden Theatre Company hosts its Master Storyteller Award ceremony and concert tonight, June 1, 2015. The award will be bestowed upon Composer and Lyricist Stephen Sondheim, who will accept the award at a ticketed ceremony and concert, which is a fundraising benefit for the Arden's extensive educational and outreach programs. Composer and Lyricist Jason Robert Brown will present Mr. Sondheim with the award.

The National Theater Institute includes a vibrant community of over 3,500 alumni. The many talents of these actors, writers, directors, and designers can be seen on Broadway, Off-Broadway, in films, television, London's West End, and at every major regional theater in the U.S. Today, in an excerpt from EVERYTHING WAS POSSIBLE: THE BIRTH OF THE MUSICAL FOLLIES, we hear from Ted Chapin (NTI Fall '70) who called his semester-away at NTI an 'extraordinary' 'experimental off-campus theater program.'

Arden Theatre Company announces a final list of performers for the Master Storyteller Award ceremony and concert on Monday, June 1, 2015. The award will be bestowed upon Composer and Lyricist Stephen Sondheim, who will accept the award at a ticketed ceremony and concert, which is a fundraising benefit for the Arden's extensive educational and outreach programs. Composer and Lyricist Jason Robert Brown will present Mr. Sondheim with the award.

Revenge will be delicious in the final production of Vancouver Opera's 2014-2015 season: Stephen Sondheim's brilliantly thrilling Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, onstage at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre for 6 performances tonight, April 25 - May 3, 2015.

Opening on April 17th 2015, The Milburn Stone Theatre presents Follies, the first and last reunion of the Weismann Follies. Follies, is interspersed with ex-showgirls reprising their old big numbers. Check out photos of the production below!

A massive 12,000-pound moving steel platform – and the Vancouver Opera Orchestra – will dominate the Queen Elizabeth theatre stage for VO's innovative new production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, opening April 25, 2015 for only 6 performances through May 3.

Bring home 6 Sondheim classics in a new DVD box set!

Today in 1971, Follies opened at the Winter Garden Theatre, where it ran for 522 performances. Follies is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman. The story concerns a reunion in a crumbling Broadway theatre, scheduled for demolition, of the past performers of the 'Weismann's Follies,' a musical revue (based on the Ziegfeld Follies), that played in that theatre between the World Wars. The musical was nominated for eleven Tony Awards and won seven. The piece has enjoyed a number of major revivals, and several of its songs have become standards, including 'Broadway Baby', 'I'm Still Here', 'Too Many Mornings', 'Could I Leave You?', and 'Losing My Mind'.

Revenge will be delicious in the final production of Vancouver Opera's 2014-2015 season: Stephen Sondheim's brilliantly thrilling Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, onstage at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre for 6 performances April 25 - May 3, 2015.

Acording to the Chicago Tribune, theatre legend Stephen Sondheim will receive Chicago Public Library Foundation's 16th Carl Sandburg Award. As a part of the ceremony on October 21, 2015, Sondheim will be interviewed onstage by Scott Simon of NPR. The Carl Sandburg Literary Award is presented annually to an acclaimed author in recognition of outstanding contributions to the literary world and honors a significant work or body of work that has enhanced the public's awareness of the written word. The Carl Sandburg Award in the Arts is presented to an individual who embodies a spirit of creativity and social consciousness.

On March 22, musical theatre legend Stephen Sondheim will celebrate his 85th birthday, and Buzzfeed has reached out to some of Broadway's finest to find out why they love his work. Barbra Streisand said:

'If music be the food of love, play on.' Even before the invention of the musical comedy (more on that later), William Shakespeare knew the importance of music in telling stories on stage. For our March feature, my colleague Jeff Walker and I thought that instead of marking the Ides of March with songs about murder, betrayal, and fate, we would focus on the synergy between showtunes and Shakespeare.

Tony Award-winning costume designer, JESS GOLDSTEIN (currently represented on Broadway with Jersey Boys and On the Town), and scenic designer DOUGLAS W. SCHMIDT are among the 2015 TDF/Irene Sharaff Awards recipients. The awards will be presented at a ceremony on Friday, May 1, at 6:30pm, at the Hudson Theatre (145 West 44th Street). Mr. Goldstein was selected to receive the 2015 TDF/Irene Sharaff Lifetime Achievement Award for costume design and Mr. Schmidt will receive the Robert L.B. Tobin Award for Sustained Excellence in Theatrical Design.

Welcome to the Roaring Twenties, a period of economic prosperity, and social and cultural change, when jazz flourished and prohibition was legal but no one paid attention.

Today we are journeying back to February 20, 1971, and the very first performance of legendary musical FOLLIES.

Under the direction of Philip Fazio, Stephen Sondheim's Follies is receiving Arizona's first fully produced production at Theater Works. Mr. Fazio has pulled out all the stops to stage an extravaganza that in Broadway lore has been dubbed one of the great milestones of musical theater. Conceptually, the show has the ingredients and the theatrical devices that can make for a great show, but, live and on stage, the production feels cluttered. Its brilliance lies rather in its outstanding technical aspects, in large part attributable to Mr. Fazio's artistic vision.

Welcome to the Roaring Twenties, a period of economic prosperity, and social and cultural change, when jazz flourished and prohibition was legal but no one paid attention.

The Daily Mail writes that Jennifer Coolidge has signed on to play 'Hattie Walker' in FOLLIES in Concert at the Royal Albert Hall on April 28, 2015. Also joining the lineup are Stefanie Powers as 'Solange Lafitte', with Alistair Brammer, Alexander Hanson and Laura Pitt-Pulford.

Arden Theatre Company announces composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim as the first recipient of the new Master Storyteller Award. Sondheim will be present to accept the award at a ticketed award ceremony and concert, on Monday, June 1st, at a fundraising event that benefits the Arden's extensive educational and outreach programs.

For one matinee and one evening performance only, FOLLIES in Concert makes a spectacular and rare return to the UK, at Royal Albert Hall on April 28, 2015. Featuring an all-star cast including Christine Baranski (Into The Woods, The Good Wife,Mamma Mia), Ruthie Henshall (Chicago - original Roxy, LES MISERABLES), Anita Dobson (Eastenders, Chicago), Anita Harris (Carry On films, CATS), Roy Hudd (Oliver! - Fagin,Coronation Street, Good Old Days) and Russell Watson (the UK's best-selling classical artist; winner of four Classical BRIT awards), FOLLIES in Concert will be directed by Craig Revel Horwood (Strictly Come Dancing), choreographed by Andrew Wright and supported by the City of London Philharmonic Orchestra.

After seeing the new INTO THE WOODS movie twice over the holidays, I posted on Twitter about how two of the songs had stuck with me. After a tweet conversation, my BWW colleague Jeff Walker and I decided to put our heads together to try and come up with a list of Sondheim's most hummable tunes. Despite not discussing it beforehand, Jeff ended up picking songs from the 1960s and 70s, and I filled in the gaps with numbers from the 80s and 90s.

Winner of seven Tony awards, including 'Best Score' for Sondheim, and the Drama Critics Circle Award for 'Best Musical,' Follies opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on April 4, 1971, and ran for 522 performances.

Broadway fans had plenty of reasons to celebrate this year, with dozens of shows having opened since January, hundreds of actors having made their debuts, and many more having returned to the stage for critically acclaimed performances. Not all news was good though, as we also suffered a loss of an incredible amount of talent. Below, BroadwayWorld sends a fond farewell to those who passed away in 2014.