Jake Gyllenhaal to Headline ‘Sunday in the Park With George’ Broadway Revival
Image by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
By Talya Zax December 13, 2016
It’s been a good year for Stephen Sondheim: a new musical in the works, a documentary reviving his brilliant flop “Merrily We Roll Along,” and now a star-studded revival of one of his best-loved shows, “Sunday in the Park with George,” which will have a 10 week run on Broadway this spring.
The production, which will star Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford, will begin previews February 11, open February 23, and close April 23 at the Hudson Theater. As The New York Times’ Michael Paulson wrote, the show will be the first staged at the soon-to-be reopened Hudson in almost 50 years.
Gyllenhaal and Ashford won’t be new to “Sunday in the Park,” which has a book by James Lapine in addition to music and lyrics by Sondheim. Both starred in a concert performance of the show that ran for four performances at Manhattan’s City Center in October. The production won widespread critical admiration; the Times’ Ben Brantley commended Gyllenhaal for displaying “both the radiant, centered stillness that can anchor a crowded stage — a clarity within opacity — and, who knew, a voice of richly flexible timbre that confidently elicits the most delicate shades of passion and despair,” and The Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney deemed the show “a rapturous day out.”
“Sunday in the Park With George” tells two stories: in the first act, that of the painter Georges Seurat and his mistress Dot, and in the second act, that of the duo’s great-grandson George and their now-aged daughter Marie. Gyllenhaal will fill the roles of Georges and George, and Ashford those of Dot and Marie. Their parts were originated, respectively, but Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
