History
The center opened in December 2007 and is reported to be the first American theater named after playwright Stephen Sondheim. To celebrate the opening of the theater, West enlisted the talents of Broadway performers who had been original cast members from Stephen Sondheim musicals including Liz Callaway, Len Cariou and Richard Kind. They performed the Sondheim Center’s premiere production, A Little Sondheim Music, an original musical revue of the composer’s greatest hits. Sondheim granted the center grand rights to all of his works. Joining the all-star Broadway actors were the Encore Players touring company and an 18-piece orchestra.
In January 2008, Sondheim Center produced A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum with Richard Kind. In Feb. 2008, a new work called "Edges" was produced for one weekend. To close their spring season, Randal K. West directed a completely new vision of Godspell. It starred Ryan Gaffney as Jesus, Mason Davis and Judas, and Stephen Mark Crisp as an apostle singing "All Good Gifts" and "Beautiful City".
Since Randal K. West departure as head of the Stephen Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts, he has began producing works within the building under the company name of Way Off Broadway Inc. He had produced new works like "Open Heart", "Banjo Boy" and a reworked version of "Snoopy" as well as classics like "Annie" "Joseph..." "South Pacific".
Read more about this topic: Stephen Sondheim Center For The Performing Arts
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of.”
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)
“The history of reform is always identical; it is the comparison of the idea with the fact. Our modes of living are not agreeable to our imagination. We suspect they are unworthy. We arraign our daily employments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)