A Musical Tribute to Broadway Legend – Stephen Sondheim

May 3, 2025 by Two Sues On the Aisle

By Two Sues on the Aisle, Susie Rosenbluth and Sue Weston

Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends is a musical tribute to Stephen Joshua Sondheim (1930 – 2021), a prolific American composer and lyricist who left his mark on Broadway theater. It will have a limited run at the Manhattan Theater Club at The Samuel Friedman Theater.

The show drips with star power and talent, featuring performances by Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga. This dynamic duo is joined by an accomplished cast delivering an amalgam of the best of Sondheim. Segments of his works are spliced together, showing the greatness of his words and music. Old Friends is a series of performances paying homage to Sondheim.

Old Friends begins with an introduction jointly delivered by Peters and Salonga, then segues to “Comedy Tonight” from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (the first show he wrote both the music and lyrics in 1962). The show is a progression of songs from Sondheim’s vast repertoire presented in a concert-esque format. The audience is guided from one song to the next, with elaborate staging, captivating sets, and great performances without any apparent order or narrative.

The show stars Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga, with a talented 17-member cast, who danced and sang over 40 songs, a tribute that included a video performance by Sondheim himself. For Peters, at 77, this is her seventh Sondheim show. Salonga, a musical theater legend whose amazing voice shapes the show, is in her first Broadway Sondheim performance. Old Friends revolves around the pair bringing life to the show.

A Nice Jewish Boy

Jewish by birth, Sondheim grew up in the San Remo apartment building on Central Park West. An interview with Sondheim is included in ‘Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk About Being Jewish,’ a collection of intimate conversations with sixty-one prominent Jews. Sondheim said, “I grew up thinking the Jews were the world, everybody was just Jewish. I think Jews are smarter than any other race.” Sondheim was secular. “We celebrated Christmas by buying things at Saks. You know what I mean by a West Side Jew.” When asked how he would characterize his Jewish identification, “It’s very deep,” he answers, “It’s the fact that so many of the people I admire in the arts are Jewish. And art is as close to a religion as I have.”

Born into a wealthy family in New York that ran a dressmaking company. His father left him and his mother when Sondheim was 10 years old. He found mentorship and a father figure in lyricist and family friend, Oscar Hammerstein II, with whom he collaborated to write the lyrics for a musical Bernstein was planning based on “Romeo and Juliet,” which became “West Side Story.” In 1959, he wrote the lyrics to the musical Gypsy. In 1962, Sondheim wrote the music and lyrics for “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”. Between 1970 and 1981, Sondheim collaborated with producer/director Harold Prince on six musicals, including “Company” (1970), followed by “Follies” (1971), “A Little Night Music” (1973), and “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” (1979). His last show, “Here We Are” (2023), written with playwright David Ives based on the movies of Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel, opened without Sondheim, who had died in November 2021 at the age of 91.

He will be remembered as the most influential and inspiring musical theatre creator of his generation.

An Amazing Talent

Sondheim was a talented lyricist and composer, and for a show to celebrate 50 years of his music and lyrics is a tall order that Old Friends approaches using a revue format lasting 2 hours and 35 minutes. It left us wanting to learn more about the man behind the music, who reimagined the Broadway stage. Meryle Secrest’s biography Stephen Sondheim: A Life portrays him as an isolated, emotionally neglected child; was theater his emotional outlet? The lyrics from Send in the Clowns from A Little Night Music give a glimpse of the depth of his past – Don’t you love a farce; my fault, I fear/ I thought that you’d want what I want – sorry my dear/ But where are the clowns – send in the clowns/ Don’t bother, they’re here.

Our Thoughts

Old Friends was picture-perfect in execution, combining incredible staging, lights, costumes, and performances to showcase Sondheim’s works without exploring the man behind the music.

For theater enthusiasts, the performance can be a walk down memory lane, each song bringing back memories of the full musical. For others, not as conversant with the works of Sondheim, it was more difficult to follow the flow of songs selected from fourteen shows. We would have liked to see more structure to the performance.

Old Friends was a fitting tribute, performed by a cast who revered Sondheim’s works and whose performances would have made him proud.

Come for the Performers & Leave with Memories

Old Friends delivers riveting performances, which the audience acknowledged with almost nonstop applause. Just as it’s impossible to imagine Old Friends without Petters and Salonga, it’s impossible to imagine Broadway musicals without Sondheim.

Relying on Sondheim’s lyrics rather than narration, Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends remembers Broadway shows of the past, telling stories through song, and showcasing some of Sondheim’s finest moments.