Nominated for 4 Tony Awards including Best Revival of a Musical, the first Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s Tony Award-winning masterpiece A Little Night Music, directed by Tony Award®-winner Trevor Nunn, based on Ingmar Bergman's film Smiles of a Summer Night, is set in a weekend country house in turn of the century Sweden, bringing together surprising liaisons, long simmering passions and a taste of love's endless possibilities. Now starring Tony®, Grammy® & Golden Globe® Award winner Bernadette Peters and Tony® & Emmy ®Award winner Elaine Stritch. Casting after November 7 is TBD.
Half-light can be forgiving—to the aging, to the vain, to the furtive philanderer—but in Trevor Nunn’s stunning, twilit, devastatingly good new production of A Little Night Music, it’s as punishing as the equatorial sun. Even at intermission, Nunn withholds full illumination, dimming the house lights to a low smolder. He’s clearly trying to induce an exquisitely heartbreaking case of seasonal affective disorder in his audience, and, fiendishly, he succeeds. “Perpetual sunset,” the chorus sings, “is rather an unsettling thing.” So is this beautiful re-Bergmanized revival of Hugh Wheeler and Stephen Sondheim’s elegiac sex farce (based on Smiles of a Summer Night), with its restored Nordic tilt, its bracing draughts of carnal realpolitik, and its ghostly blue ache of some-requited love. “It’s the latitude,” says the jaded ex-jade Madame Armfeldt (Angela Lansbury), explaining the madness of Scandinavians to her granddaughter (Keaton Whittaker). “A winter when the sun never rises, a summer when the sun never sets, are more than enough to addle the brain of any man.”
What a difference a diva makes. Bernadette Peters steps into the six-month-old revival of 'A Little Night Music' with a transfixing performance, playing it as if she realizes her character's onstage billing -- 'the one and only Desiree Armfeldt' -- is cliched hyperbole. By figuratively rolling her eyes at the hype, Peters gives us a rich, warm and comedically human Desiree, which reaches full impact when she pierces the facade with a nakedly honest, tears-on-cheek 'Send in the Clowns.'
1973 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
1974 | US Tour |
National Tour US Tour |
1975 | West End |
London Production West End |
1977 | College/University (US) |
Northwestern University Production College/University (US) |
1981 | Off-Off-Broadway |
Off-Off-Broadway Revival Off-Off-Broadway |
1985 | Off-Broadway |
Equity Library Theatre Revival Off-Broadway |
1989 | West End |
London Revival West End |
1990 | Off-Broadway |
New York City Opera Revival Off-Broadway |
1991 | Off-Broadway |
Return Engagement [NYCO Revival] Off-Broadway |
1995 | West End |
Royal National Theatre Production West End |
2002 | Regional (US) |
Sondheim Festival Production Regional (US) |
2003 | Off-Broadway |
New York City Opera Production Off-Broadway |
2009 | West End |
West End Transfer West End |
2009 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Broadway |
2020 | Los Angeles |
Knot Free Productions Production Los Angeles |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2010 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical | Angela Lansbury |
2009 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Actress in a Musical (tie) | Catherine Zeta-Jones |
2009 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical | Angela Lansbury |
2009 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Musical | A Little Night Music |
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