Merrily We Roll Along (musical)

Merrily We Roll Along
Original Broadway poster for Sondheim-Furth musical
Music	Stephen Sondheim
Lyrics	Stephen Sondheim
Book	George Furth
Basis	Play Merrily We Roll Along by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart
Productions	1981 Broadway 1985 La Jolla 1994 Off-Broadway 2000 West End 2012 Encores 2013 West End revival
Awards	Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical

Merrily We Roll Along is a musical with a book by George Furth and lyrics and music by Stephen Sondheim. It is based on the 1934 play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart.

Furth and Sondheim retained the basic structure and overall theme of the play but updated it to encompass the period from 1957 to 1976. The story revolves around Franklin Shepard who, having once been a talented composer of Broadway musicals, has now abandoned his friends and his songwriting career to become a producer of Hollywood movies. Like the play, the musical begins at the height of his Hollywood fame and moves backwards in time, showing snapshots of the most important moments in Frank's life that shaped the man that he is today. The musical utilizes a chorus that sings reprises of the title song to transition the scenes.

The musical ran on Broadway for 52 previews and 16 performances in 1981 and marked the end of the Harold Prince-Sondheim collaborations until Bounce in 2003.

Prince's wife, Judy, had been "nagging" him to do a musical about teenagers, when he recalled the play Merrily We Roll Along. Sondheim said that since the play was about friendships, he wrote the songs to be interconnected. The original choreographer, Ron Field, wanted to work with Prince. The decision was made to cast teenagers, and to have tryouts in New York rather than out-of-town. The tryouts, beginning on October 8, 1981, had a poor reception, with audiences walking out. On October 21, 1981 The New York Times reported that the original leading man, James Weissenbach, had been replaced by Jim Walton and the Broadway opening had been postponed. Field was replaced with choreographer Larry Fuller. The opening was delayed a second time, from November 9 to November 16, 1981.

The Broadway production, directed by Prince and choreographed by Fuller, opened on November 16, 1981 at the Alvin Theatre. The show opened to mostly negative reviews. While the score was widely praised, critics and audiences alike felt that the book was problematic and the themes left a sour taste in their mouths. Hampered by the several critical reviews published prior to its official opening, as well as more negative ones published afterwards, it ran for only 16 performances and 52 previews. In his New York Times review Frank Rich wrote "As we all should probably have learned by now, to be a Stephen Sondheim fan is to have one's heart broken at regular intervals."Clive Barnes wrote, "Whatever you may have heard about it – go and see it for yourselves. It is far too good a musical to be judged by those twin kangaroo courts of word of mouth and critical consensus."