Sondheim 90th

[jducoeur]

Just a quick link, while I think of it. Kate and I just finished watching Take Me To the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration on YouTube.

If you haven't seen it yet, do so -- it's setting down a marker as the first contender for best art of the Covid Era. I have no clue when they started planning this, but it's surely been designed and filmed entirely in the past six weeks, and it's great. Mind, it's Zoom Art: just people singing in their own socially-distanced lives. But it is such a cast: singers and actors both great and small (mostly great) doing tributes to Sondheim's work -- over two hours of delightful music.

Mind, it's quirky stuff, and not all of it is stage-worthy. Some of the artists are past their prime, but it's still a wonderfully intimate chance for them to perform. Many are just quiet little bits (Mandy Patinkin out in his yard). But some are clever, and some are fabulously weird. And the best numbers -- well, the performance of The Ladies Who Lunch is worth the price of admission all on its own.

Worth watching on a big screen with good speakers, if you have YouTube set up to be able to do that. (Fortunately, I figured out how to connect my Roku to YouTube last week, so that we could watch the Hamilton Zoom-bombing on SGN, which is also worth checking out if you haven't done so already.)

It's a weird time, and the world has gone strange. But there is still great music in it, if you look around...

Comments

[lauradi7dw]

I started watching it on Sunday evening when the stream started. And then stopped. I was following people who were live-tweeting it, and fortunately was given the heads-up when it started again. I think the twitter experience enhanced it - someone pointed out during the MP segment that it was Sunday! in the Park! with Mandy! Someone else pointed out how much unlike the plot point from "Company" the Ladies who lunch bit was, but it was still terrific. I imagined some production person dropping off matching bathrobes to the three doorsteps.
That particular number was a clear display of what I'd been noticing all along - some people were singing in their theater stage voices (like Audra McDonald), while others were using their inside an apartment be kind to the neighbors voice.
If I had to choose one, I would pick the home movie of Iain Armitage as an even younger child than he is currently, sitting at a table quietly singing bits of "Finishing the hat" while drawing a hat.
I tried to donate to the charity (that I'd never heard of) during the show, but the site was so bogged down that my card didn't go through. This is a good reminder to try again.

[metahacker]

I watched it when YouTube told me about it, sent the link to less-web-savvy folks, then started rewatching it with J and S.

Now to track down a copy of Company...