19 cast members of the original 1981 Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim's MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, including leading actors Lonny Price, Ann Morrison and Jim Walton, were reunited at New York City Center for a reception and performance of the City Center Encores! production last night, February 14. BroadwayWorld was on hand for the special show and brings you exclusive footage of both casts performing "Old Friends", featuring a special cameo by Stephen Sondheim! Stay tuned for complete video coverage of the evening.
Original cast members Mana Allen, Donna Marie Asbury, James Bonkovsky, David Cady, Liz Callaway, Daisy Prince Chaplin, Paul Hyams, David Loud, Marc Moritz , Ann Morrison, Abby Pogrebin, Lonny Price Forest D. Ray, Janie Scott, Tom Shea, David Shine, Gary Stevens, Jim Walton, Terry Finn and Maryrose Wood met at City Center yesterday afternoon for a reception with City Center's Encores! cast, before attending the evening performance.
The Encores! production features Colin Donnell, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Elizabeth Stanley, Betsy Wolfe, Adam Grupper and Zachary Unger.
Merrily We Roll Along, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by George Furth, is a musical about friendship and the compromise of youthful ideals, based on the 1934 play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. The show moves backwards in time from 1980 to 1955 and examines the lives of three people whose friendship is tested by time, events, ambition and fate. It charts the rise of a songwriting team during the years of Sondheim's own early career and includes some of his most brilliant and bruising songs, such as "Not a Day Goes By," "Old Friends," "Our Time" and "Opening Doors." Merrily We Roll Along will run February 8 - 19, 2012.
