USC School Of Dramatic Arts offers musical theater aficionados the rare opportunity to see Stephen Sondheim’s musical masterpiece Sunday In The Park With George fully staged, fully orchestrated, exquisitely designed, and most importantly of all, superbly performed by a stellar student cast.

Inspired by the brief life of French post-Impressionist painter Georges Seurat (1859-1891), Sunday In The Park With George first gives us several days in The Life Of A Young Artist as George (Tyler Joseph Ellis) struggles with both the creative process and his conflicted relationship with girlfriend/model Dot (Liz Buzbee), a fictional character wittily named after the dots of color that define his pointillist style of painting.

Act Two, set in 1984, has Dot’s great-grandson George (Ellis) dealing with his own struggles to find inspiration and create art as his 98-year-old grandmother, Dot’s daughter Marie (Buzbee), offers pearls of wisdom to her confidence-challenged grandson.

From the moment Georges Seurat first appears on the Bing Theatre stage and scenic designer Mallory Gabbard’s white-paneled set begins to reveal, bit by bit, piece by piece, the park that will serve as the backdrop of Seurat’s chef-d’oeuvre “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,” and when it becomes clear that Ellis and Buzbee are two charismatic, vocally blessed actors who can hold their own against the best of pros, audiences can rest assured that they are in masterful hands.

It’s equally clear that if Georges Seurat was a genius at making innovative art, his genius came at a price expressed in Dot’s angry, frustrated “Sunday In The Park With George,” George’s painting-obsessed “Color And Light” and “Finishing The Hat,” and the aching heartbreak of the couple’s “We Do Not Belong Together,” numbers which Ellis and Buzbee perform with vocal prowess to match their acting chops.

Along the way to the breathtakingly beautiful “Sunday” that brings Act One to a close, book writer James Lapine introduces us not only to Artist and Model but to the men and women soon to be immortalized on canvas: snooty self-described art connoisseurs Jules and Yvonne (Reese Dawkins and Christina Braa) and their bratty child Louise (Emma Kantor), curmudgeonly Old Lady (Piper Kingston) and her much put upon Nurse (Shelby Corley), churlish Boatman (Luke Matthew Simon), quirky German couple France and Frieda (Harrison Poe and Mikaela Barocio), opinionated Americans Mr. and Mrs. (Benjamin Cross and Corley),

 a pair of comely young lasses both named Celeste (Brittney Quach and Emerson Taylor), the handsome Soldiers who make their hearts flutter (Michael Kaczkowski and a matching cardboard cutout), and good-natured baker Louis (Diego Dela Rosa), along with Hornplayer/Man With Bicycle (Austin Dalgeish) and Woman With Baby Carriage (Antonieta Vivas).

And since one role and one century is not enough, the entire cast returns post-intermission to celebrate the 1984 opening of George 2.0’s art installation “Chromolume #7,” chief among them glamorous art critic Blair Daniels (Kingston), George’s best bud Dennis (Poe), brassy composer Naomi Eisen (Braa), and most significantly the aforementioned Marie, whose short-term memory may be failing but whose remembrances of things past remains crystal clear.

Under Kelly Ward’s inspired direction, Ellis follows Sondheim star turns as Company’s Bobby and Evita’s Che with his most commanding work to date, and so gifted is the USC junior that his crystal-clear vocals seem as effortless as his pair of Georges are richly, deeply, distinctly drawn.

An incandescent, revelatory Buzbee aces her most major roles to date, as lover-victim-survivor Dot and as the age-dulled but still emotionally-sharp Marie, and when Ellis and Buzbee join voices in “We Do Not Belong Together” and “Move On,” expect chills.

Supporting performances are so uniformly excellent that to single anyone out would be unfair to the rest, but the caustic “No Life” gives Dawkins and Braa a particular chance to shine as does “Beautiful” for Kingston and an Act Two George-and-Dennis heart-to-heart for Poe.

Gabbard’s scenic design rivals L.A.’s professional best (having us see through George’s canvas to observe the artist at work is an inspired touch), and projection designer Derek Christiansen not only brings George Seurat’s canvases to life, he manages quite miraculously to fill a stage with at least half-a-dozen talking Georges in Act Two’s “Putting It Together” and to make modern George’s Chomolume a spectacular stunner.

Edina Hiser’s gorgeous costumes, Pablo Santiago’s vibrant lighting, and Dominic Torquato’s crystal-clear sound design earn cheers as well, as does musical director Parmer Fuller and his Broadway-caliber pit orchestra.

Sophia Pesetti is stage manager.

Unlike the frequently (and dare I say overly) revived Sweeney Todd, Into The Woods, Assassins, and Funny/Forum, regional theaters seem unwilling to take a chance on Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday In The Park With George, all the more reason not to miss USC School Of Dramatic Arts’ latest. It’s not just great student theater. It’s L.A. musical theater at its finest.

Bing Theatre, 3500 Watts Way, Los Angeles.
https://dramaticarts.usc.edu/

–Steven Stanley
March 29, 2019
Photos: Nicholas Gingold/Capture Imaging

Tags: George Seurat, James Lapine, Los Angeles Theater Review, Stephen Sondheim, USC School Of Dramatic Arts