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Merrily We Roll Along (New Broadway Cast Recording)

Merrily We Roll Along

Shows · Merrily We Roll Along

3476. Merrily We Roll Along [16 November 1981] musical play by George Furth (bk), Stephen Sondheim (mu, lyr) [Alvin Thea; 16p]. In 1980, the famous composer and film producer Franklin Shepard (Geoffrey Horne) addresses the graduating class of Lake Forest Academy and preaches about fighting for your ideals but in the subsequent scenes, which go backwards to 1955, we see that the younger Frank (Jim Walton) lost his ide…

Opened
1981
Performances
16
Type
Musical
Era
Megamusical
Music: Stephen SondheimLyrics: Stephen SondheimBook: George Furth

Productions7 on Broadway

1934 Music Box Theatre Original. September 29, 1934 · predates this show 155 performances
1981 Alvin Theatre Revival. November 16, 1981 · Harold Prince 16 performances
2001 Transfer Theatre not recorded.
2002 Sondheim Theatre Transfer. September 30, 2002
2012 Transfer Theatre not recorded.
2013 Transfer Theatre not recorded.
2023 Hudson Theatre Revival. October 12, 2023 · Maria Friedman 352 performances

Every Broadway staging held in broadway-data, sourced to IBDB. 1 of these predate the show itself and are almost certainly a different work of the same name. Shown, marked, not merged. West End runs are not yet held.

Licensing 1 entry

US Music Theatre International Merrily We Roll Along matched on title alone — a lead, not a confirmed licensor Another house is also recorded for this work.

Read from the licensor's own pages and catalogues. Rights move, and an empty row means we have not confirmed a publisher, not that the show cannot be licensed.

In the literature48 passages

Kaufman and Hart once again joined forces to write the next Music Box show: Merrily We Roll Along (1934). This unusual comedy started in the present and went back-wards in time. It served as the basis for a 1981 musical of the same title by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth. book:at-this-theatre-100-years-of-broadway-shows-stories-and-botto-louis-viagas-rober#p166

Kaufman returned with his collaborator Moss Hart and their unconventional play Merrily We Roll Along (9/29/34; 155 performances). The play told its story in a reverse chronology. Audiences were not completely confused by the strange construction, but they certainly did not care for any of the cynical, disillusioned cha… book:broadway-its-history-people-and-places-an-encyclopedia-bloom-ken-1949-2nd-ed-new#p385

Stephen Sondheim returned to the Alvin with his musical Merrily We Roll Along (11/16/81; 16 performances). Librettist George Furth, who had previously collaborated with Sondheim on Company (also at the Alvin), based his book on the Kaufman and Hart play of the same name. book:broadway-its-history-people-and-places-an-encyclopedia-bloom-ken-1949-2nd-ed-new#p396

The Prince-Sondheim collaboration ended with the ill-fated Merrily We Roll Along (11/16/81; 16 performances). Reteaming with George Furth, the pair attempted to musicalize a KAUFMAN AND Hart comedy about friendship that was told in reverse chronology. book:broadway-its-history-people-and-places-an-encyclopedia-bloom-ken-1949-2nd-ed-new#p445

The next Prince/Sondheim collaboration was the thriller Merrily We Roll Along (11/16/81; 16 performances), an adaptation of the Kaufman and Hart play. The show was told in reverse order. book:broadway-its-history-people-and-places-an-encyclopedia-bloom-ken-1949-2nd-ed-new#p523

Stephen Sondheim's score for Merrily We Roll Along was thrilling, augmented by Jonathan Tunick’s incredible, brassy orchestrations; but the show, as seen at the Alvin, no. book:broadway-musicals-the-101-greatest-shows-of-all-time-bloom-ken-1949-vlastnik-fra#p25

Passages naming this show, found by keyword across 178 books. Where this show turns up in the literature, not curated trivia about it.

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