Here We Are, legendary composer Stephen Sondheim’s final musical, features a book by Tony Award–nominee David Ives. It is inspired by Luis Buñuel’s films The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Exterminating Angel. Here We Are is directed by Tony Award–winner Joe Mantello.
The cast will include Francois Battiste, Tracie Bennett, Bobby Cannavale, Micaela Diamond, Amber Gray, Jin Ha, Rachel Bay Jones, Denis O’Hare, Steven Pasquale, David Hyde Pierce, and Jeremy Shamos. The understudies for Here We Are are Bradley Dean, Adam Harrington, Bligh Voth, Adante Carter, Mehry Eslaminia, and Lindsay Nicole Chambers.
Produced by Tom Kirdahy, its executive producers are Sue Wagner, John Johnson, and Jillian Robbins. Co-presented by The Shed.
Performances begin in September 2023.
What music there is, though, doesn’t disappoint. Sondheim’s score is decidedly within his most familiar vocabulary, a final master class in pressing music into the service of character. As the recent revivals of Sweeney Todd and Merrily We Roll Along also demonstrate, one of Sondheim’s superior gifts was his impeccable understanding of how the ear processes language. Rhythm and melody, under his pen, allow the text to crash like a wave over us, somehow guiding the listener response so that everyone gets the joke at the exact same moment.
We’ve been through sharper existential crises with convergences of Sondheim characters over the years: the painted figures stuck forever together on the Seurat canvas in “Sunday in the Park with George,” the fairy-tale denizens wandering bewildered in the forest of “Into the Woods.” We’re consoled in “Here We Are” with one more chance to gather together with Sondheim, to hear his irreplaceable voice on a stage. The resulting evening might not be stranded at square one, but it doesn’t satisfactorily cross the finish line, either.
2023 | Off-Broadway |
The Shed Off-Broadway Premiere Production Off-Broadway |
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