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.

Talya Zax is the Forward’s opinion editor. Contact her at zax@forward.com or on Twitter, @TalyaZax.

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