Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
We’ve Taken Down the Forward Paywall: An Open Letter to Our ReadersRead Now
Culture

WATCH: Steven Sondheim Revisits One of His Most Brilliant Failures

One of the highlights of the recent New York Film Festival was the premiere of Lonny Price’s documentary “Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened,” which goes behind the scenes of one of Broadway’s most legendary failures, “Merrily We Roll Along,” directed by Harold Prince with a score by Steven Sondheim. Though Sondheim’s score holds a cherished place among Sondheim fans, the show, told in reverse order and based on the play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, closed in 1981 after 52 previews and just 16 performances. The young cast included Jason Alexander, Abigail Pogrebin and director Lonny Price. The documentary will be released on November 18.

Engage

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.