All tagged Yuki Shimoda

Remembering Pacific Overtures

Composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim, particularly when he was paired with director Harold Prince, moved and shaped musical through bold experiments that challenged audiences while unearthing new possibilities. The musicals that this duo together brought to the stage included Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd and Merrily We Roll Along. Each was innovative in its own way, redefining the Broadway musical as we knew it. There was one other show that they created during this decade (and change) which may have been the most challenging (for audiences), clever (by even Sondheim and Prince standards) and groundbreaking (for posterity) in terms of the possibilities it demonstrated. That musical was the short-lived 1976 Pacific Overtures, which would also employ book writer John Weidman as part of the collaboration.