Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along notoriously flopped on Broadway when it premiered in 1981, closing after just 16 performances. The experience was so fraught, it broke up the collaboration between the composer/lyricist and director/producer Harold Prince. One of the actors, Lonny Price, made a documentary about it.
These days, it's generally considered that the musical was sound, though structurally ambitious – it traversed the lives of its three protagonists in reverse, charting their dreams and their failure to realise them in life – but that Prince's production failed to give the audience a clear sense of the central conceit.
Local Sondheim specialists Watch This, behind our 5-star favourite 2015 production of Company, are turning their hands to Merrily We Roll Along for their fourth production. Sara Grenfell will direct, with musical direction by Cameron Thomas and a cast lead by Lyall Brooks, Nicole Melloy, Nelson Gardner, Sophie Weiss, Cristina D'Agostino.