Over three dozen of the greatest songs ever written for the musical theater stage, a cast of fifteen Broadway and West End vets headed by superstars Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga and backed by a fourteen-piece orchestra, and the most gorgeous of production designs add up to over two-and-a-half hours of musical theater bliss in Center Theatre Group’s pre-Broadway engagement of the smash West End revue Sondheim’s Old Friends.

 Not that there haven’t been Sondheim revues before this. (Side By Side By Sondheim and Putting It Together come immediately to mind.) But never before has there been one as comprehensive of the Sondheim oeuvre as Old Friends or spectacularly staged and performed as this one is.

 The brainchild of Sir Cameron Mackintosh (name a West End musical smash and chances are he produced it), Sondheim’s Old Friend doesn’t just serve up a collection of Steve’s Greatest Hits, its series of mini-musicals-within-a-musical give audiences the chance to re-experience Company, Into The Woods, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, and Follies in fully-staged segments running about ten-to-fifteen minutes each, with briefer forays into Sondheim’s lyrics-only hits (West Side Story, Gypsy) and tips of the hat to Merrily We Roll Along and A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum.

Bernadette Peters devotees will relish the chance to see the 3-time Tony winner bring to life roles she didn’t play in musicals she starred in on Broadway including Into The Woods’ Red Riding Hood and Gypsy’s Mazeppa, and seeing Peters revive Sunday’s Dot (a role she originated over 40 years ago) in the Act One finale “Sunday” is an absolute dream come true as are her scorching renditions of “Losing My Mind” and “Send In The Clowns.”

 And if you know Salonga primarily from her glorious soprano turn as Miss Saigon’s original Kim, get ready to be blown away by the deeper tones of Passion’s Fosca (“Loving You”), her comedic chops as Sweeney Todd’s Mrs. Lovett (opposite a commanding Jeremy Secomb), and who knew Salonga could belt to give Ethel Merman a run for her money as Madame Rose in “Everything’s Coming Up Roses”?

Sondheim’s Old Friends is just as generous with Peters and Salonga’s costars.

Jacob Dickey is a big-voiced, bare-chested hunk of a Wolf opposite Peters’ Red Riding Hood (“Hello, Little Girl”) and a powerhouse Bobby (“Being Alive”), Kevin Earley (in his return to L.A. theater after far too long away) is the dashingest of princes duetting “Agony” with boyish charmer Selig, who reprises his national-touring performance as West Side Story’s Tony in an explosive “Tonight Quartet” in which he joins voices with Broadway up-and-comers Dickey, Daniel Yearwood, Jasmine Forsberg, and Maria Wirries, all absolutely splendid.

Kate Jennings Grant trios “You Could Drive A Person Crazy” with Bonnie Langford (who returns to belt out a show-stopping “I’m Still Here”) and Joanna Riding (who does some high-velocity dazzling of her own in “Not Getting Married Today”), and returns to solo the delicious “The Boy From…” from the 1966 Broadway revue The Mad Show.

The divine Beth Leavel duets a wry “The Little Things You Do Together” opposite Mary Poppins’ star Gavin Lee and brings down the house with “The Ladies Who Lunch,” and Broadway queens will plotz at seeing and hearing Peters, Leavel, and Riding bumping and grinding to “You Gotta Get A Gimmick. (Lee later sings the living daylights out of a gender-switched “Could I Leave You?” from Follies, Jason Pennycooke aces a manic “Buddy’s Blues” from the same show, and Lee, Pennycook, and Selig are saucy as all get-out performing Forum’s “Everybody Ought To Have A Maid.”)

And all of the above numbers represent just a taste of Sondheim’s Old Friends multitude of pleasures, masterfully directed and staged by Matthew Bourne side by side with Julia McKenzie, with some high-kicking choreography by Stephen Mear.

Matt Kinley’s scenic design seems deceptively simple at first with its Encores-style upstage orchestra and what appears to be an almost bare stage, but looks can be deceiving as Kinley, costume designer Jill Parker, lighting designer Warren Letton, and projection designer George Reeve join creative forces to take us from deep Into The Woods to a memorable Weekend In The Country to the deepest, darkest heart of Sweeney Todd’s London to the storied tenements of Manhattan’s 1950s West Side, and more.

Add to this Mick Potter’s impeccable sound design and Stefan Musch’s wig, hair, and makeup designs and you’ve got a show that looks like the proverbial million bucks (and is probably costing its producers ten to twenty times that much).

The Sondheim Orchestra is masterfully conducted by music director Annbritt duChateau. Nikki Woollaston is associate director and Jo Morris is associate choreographer. Dance captain Paige Faure, Alexa Lopez, Greg Mills, Peter Neureuther are co-star alternates. David Lober is production stage manager and Michelle Blair and Anna Belle Gilbert are stage managers.

No matter how many Stephen Sondheim revues you’ve seen, the chance to experience a cast of this caliber sing songs of this caliber in a production of this caliber comes just about once in a lifetime. Simply and emphatically put, Sondheim’s Old Friends is an event not to be missed.

Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N Grand Ave, Los Angeles. Through March 9. Tuesdays through Fridays at 8:00. Saturdays at 2:00 and 8:00. Sundays at 1:00 and 6:30.
www.CenterTheatreGroup.org

–Steven Stanley
February 13, 2025
Photos: Matthew Murphy

Tags: Ahmanson Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Los Angeles Theater Review, Stephen Sondheim