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… Seems like a theme song for the solitary & misanthropic blogger, no?
Serendipity on the currents of the internet. I am fond of Stephen Sondheim’s work, so Amazon told me earlier that The Birthday Concert was about to come out on DVD, but I clicked on Joe Nocera’s Sondheim appreciation coincidentally, because I like Nocera’s reporting. Until I read the article, I had not heard of “Evening Primrose“, the musical… although the short story it was based on gave me nightmares for a week when I was seven or eight. And, astonishingly, the collection that includes that story is still in print and available through Amazon…
Bhall35
My partner and I saw this at the Museum of Television and Radio a few years ago, Sondheim nerds that we are. There is a very good recording on (PS Classics, I think), with Neil Patrick Harris quite ably singing the Anthony Perkins part.
His new book of annotated lyrics “Finishing the Hat” is also sitting on our coffee table. I haven’t been able to read enough of it yet. Maybe now’s the time to cozy up with it.
Bhall35
Of course, the recording info is at the link. I’ll take my answer off the air. Goodnight.
Brad Hanon
The album with “Evening Primrose” on it also has “The Frogs”, one of my favorites. It’s uneven, but it has the “Hymn to Dionysus”, my favorite nerdy drinking song.
Jack
Since it’s an open thread, and since “in print” was mentioned, if you have a Kindle or Kindle software on your computer (I don’t have the Kindle hardware, but I have the software, which is free), check out the Kindle books that are free. Despite all the stupid copyright laws of the past few decades, there’s a lot of great stuff that is now public domain, such as the Alan Quatermain books and “Little Fuzzy” by H. Beam Piper (which I just re-read, for SF it holds up amazingly well despite being written so long ago).
Given the tough times many are experiencing, free books are a good way to distract yourself; I know they have been for me!!!!
Garbo
This proves my theory that Sondheim should write the music for Aaron Sorkin’s eventual Broadway show. Just imagine this being sung in a moving hallway shot!
meander
Sondheim was on Fresh Air the other day talking about his new book. Quite a few great stories, like how “Send in the Clowns” came to be written and how he tuned the lyrics to fit the singer.
The double-CD recording of “Side by Side by Sondheim” has one song from Evening Primrose, the haunting “I Remember”. Side by Side is my favorite collections of Sondheim recordings because the musical accompaniment is a pair of pianos, which gives it a low key, homey feel.
Speaking of Neil Patrick Harris, he plays Tobias in a fantastic concert performance of Sweeney Todd that is on DVD.
roseyv
Pre Peters/Patinkin concept CD, you couldn’t get a copy of Evening Primrose (a recording of the score, I mean) unless you were actually given one by Sondheim himself. A former collaborator of mine (I write musicals, yes, shut up) had one and it was the talk of our little social circle. Also, I was at the Birthday Concert. Symphony Space had overpromoted it in a really stupid way — they shilled this thing like mad to the general public, despite the fact that there were almost no tickets left after the subscribers all claimed theirs. They made us wait in the freezing cold for HOURS before letting the few plebes at the very front of the line in, and then kept wheedling us to leave, so someone else on the three-block long line would have a chance to come inside. And then the real program didn’t even start until after like, two hours of warmup, during which they kept begging us literally every fifteen minutes to leave (and by “us” of course, I mean the non-subscribers). I know it wasn’t his fault, but Symphony Space’s bad judgment really kind of turned me off Sondheim for a while.
Josh
Sondheim’s new book is utterly sublime. But if you haven’t heard of Evening Primrose, A.L., there’s a number of books on Sondheim’s career that’d interest you as well, notably Craig Zadan’s classic Sondheim & Co..