Merrily We Roll Along

Merrily We Roll Along

About the Show Tickets Cast List Read Through

Rehearsals: Oct.15 Oct.22 Oct.29- Set Nov.5- Set + Costumes Nov.12

Nov. 13-14- Set Building Nov. 19- Costumes Nov. 26 - Makeup and Cue to Cue

Date of Performances
Matinees: Nov. 30, Dec. 1 at 10 a.m.
Evenings: Nov. 30, Dec. 1 and 2 at 7:30 p.m.

About the Show

The musical, Merrily We Roll Along, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, is about friendship, success and betrayal. It follows the career and inter-personal relationships of three main characters: Franklin Shepard, Charley Kringas and Mary Flynn – all young budding artists in their early 20s. Something along the way to their eventual ‘success’ goes terribly wrong: talent, friends and family are sacrificed for success and fame, leading to lives of empty luxury. It is a familiar story of New York vs. Hollywood; of naïve vs. experienced; of film vs. theatre; of crass commercialism vs. art.

What is distinctive about this show is its structure. Instead of a plot that goes logically from A-Z in order, this story uses reverse chronology – the action begins in 1976 and ends in 1957. Thus the characters are seen in three different decades with the songs and styles of these periods reflected in all their words and movements. The characters get better only as they get younger. The audience is witness to the change these characters experience, seeing them at first as jaded, cynical and conflicted.

“Gradually, as we pass back through time focusing on key events in their lives and careers, we see the exciting and ever hopeful young people so eager for a life in music and literature,” says Randy Zeagman, director of the musical. “The show is a challenge for our students in that they will be asked to portray middle-aged characters who gradually become younger.”

The songs are typical Sondheim: wonderfully tuneful and always poignant comments on the characters, their situations and on the times themselves. There is satire, humour and heartbreak.