Sondheim's Follies to be made into a movie

According to  Playbill, The musical Follies by Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman is being made  into a big-screen film.

Set within a decaying theatre, Follies centres on a reunion of former follies girls who reunite to relive their past,  rehashing old wounds and regrets. Sondheim's score,  made up of pastiche numbers paying homage to the great pop composers of the early 20th century, includes the tunes  "I'm Still Here," "Broadway Baby," and "Losing My Mind."

Dominic Cooke, who directed the excellent version at the National Theatre (the first fully staged major London production of Follies to present the original, one-act Broadway version of the show, won two 2018 Olivier Awards: Best Revival and Best Costumes) has started to adapt the show - .   But producer Rosie Alison, who is  working  with David Heyman (at Heyday Films) and Rose Garnett (head of BBC Films), stressed the movie is not based on the NT production. Saying  We’re going to translate it for the cinema,’ in the  hope Cooke can start filming in 2021.

Sondheim said Over the years, there have been many attempts to bring Follies to the screen, but not until Dominic Cooke’s brilliant production at the National Theatre of Great Britain did it seem like it could be a real movie. I’m more than delighted, I’m thrilled, that it’s finally going to happen.

In Cooke's NT production Four-time Olivier Award winner Imelda Staunton starred as Sally, opposite Olivier and Obie winner Janie Dee as Phyllis, three-time Olivier winner Philip Quast as Ben, Peter Forbes as Buddy, and two-time Olivier winner Tracie Bennett as Carlotta Campion. Joanna Riding and Alexander Hanson took over as Sally and Ben respectively when the production returned to the National for a 2019 remount. No word yet on casting for the movie but there are several plum roles and Ms Alison said they will be looking for ‘special talents’ from the US and UK.

Full casting announced for Follies return to National next February

Full casting has been announced for the returning National Theatre production of Follies, which starts previews  on 12th February and it runs in repertoire until 6th April, with further performances to be added.

Sondheim's classic musical was revived last year with direction by Dominic Cooke and a cast featuring Imelda Staunton, going on to win two Olivier Awards.

Joining the previously announced Joanna Riding, Alexander Hanson, Janie Dee and Peter Forbes will be  Julie Armstrong (Christine Donovan), Lindsay Atherton (Young Carlotta),Josephine Barstow (Heidi Schiller from mid-April until the end of the run), Rosanna Bates (Young Emily), Jeremy Batt (Young Theodore), Tracie Bennett (Carlotta Campion), Billy Boyle (Theodore Whitman), Kaye Brown(Ensemble), Janie Dee (Phyllis Rogers Stone), Anouska Eaton (Young Deedee), Liz Ewing (Ensemble), Vanessa Fisher (Young Stella), Caroline Fitzgerald (Sandra Crane), Geraldine Fitzgerald (Solange LaFitte), Peter Forbes(Buddy Plummer), Bruce Graham (Roscoe), Adrian Grove (Sam Deems), Alexander Hanson (Ben Stone), Alyn Hawke (Ensemble), Harry Hepple (Young Buddy), Aimee Hodnett (Young Sandra), Dawn Hope (Stella Deems), Liz Izen (Deedee West), Jasmine Kerr (Ensemble), Alison Langer (Young Heidi), Felicity Lott (Heidi Schiller from 22 February until mid-April), Sarah-Marie Maxwell (Young Solange), Ian McIntosh (Young Ben), Ian McLarnon(Ensemble), Claire Moore (Hattie Walker), Tom Partridge (Ensemble), Gary Raymond (Dimitri Weismann), Michael Remick (Ensemble), Rohan Richards (Kevin), Joanna Riding (Sally Durant Plummer), Lisa Ritchie (Young Hattie),Myra Sands (Emily Whitman), Gemma Sutton (Young Sally), Monica Swayne (Young Christine), Christine Tucker(Young Phyllis) and Liam Wrate (Chorus/Swing).

Buy tickets for Follies

Sondheim's Follies to return to National next February

As promised, the National Theatre's revival  of Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman's musical Follies is to return to the Olivier theatre in February 2019. The show which won the Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival this year starts previews from 14th February, with tickets on sale until March 26th and further dates to be announced. 

Set in 1971 New York, during a party on the stage of the Weismann Theatre which is due to be demolished. Thirty years after their final performance, the Follies girls gather to have a few drinks, sing a few songs and lie about themselves.Stephen Sondheim’s legendary musical includes such classics including  Broadway Baby, I’m Still Here and Losing My Mind. 

The revival of the musical, directed by Dominic Cooke (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom)) , opened in September 2017 with a stellar cast including Imelda Staunton, Janie Dee, Tracie Bennett, Peter Forbes and Philip Quast. It has been announced that Dee and Forbes will be returning with the show in 2019, but further casting is yet to be announced.

Public booking opens on Friday 18 May at  8.30am 

.

Sondheim's Follies to return to National next year

Speaking at the Critics' Circle Awards in London earlier this week, director Dominic Cooke confirmed that the National Theatre production of Stephen Sondheim's Follies will return next year.

 "We are going to bring Follies back. We think it'll be around this time next year but we aren't sure. We don't know who's going to be cast, everything is up for grabs. It'll be at the National, and the hope is that it'll go somewhere afterwards but at the moment we're focussing on the Olivier.It gives us the chance to go back and rework things, and rediscover things, and creatively that's a real privilege."

Follies opened at the National in September 2017 and closed at the start of 2018. The original production featured a cast of 37 including Imelda Staunton, Janie Dee, Tracie Bennett, Zizi Strallen, Philip Quast, Adam Rhys-Charles, Peter Forbes.

Tickets for Sondheim talking Follies at National later this month

Stephen Sondheim is to talk about Follies at a National Theatre platform in conversation with Jeremy Sams on 22nd  August at 6:00 pm in the Dorfman Theatre. To get tickets for the event, you have to enter the ballot, which  opened at noon today and closes on 12 noon Wednesday 16th  August. Winners will be notified by email

Follies runs at the National Theatre from 6 September until January 2018, with previews from 22 August and is directed by Dominic Cooke. The show stars Imelda Staunton, Janie Dee, Tracie Bennett, Alex Young and Zizi Strallen. Sondheim's other works include Sunday in the Park With George, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd and Company.

Other talks at the National Theatre about Follies include Janie Dee and Philip Quast on 14th September, Dominic Cooke on 18th  October and Josephine Barstow and Tracie Bennett on 18th  December.

National's Follies live cinema broadcast announced

London's National Theatre has announced plans for a live broadcast of its forthcoming revival of Stephen Sondheim's Follies in  international cinemas on November 16th .

Featuring a cast of 37 and an orchestra of 21, the production is directed by Dominic Cooke and includes  classic songs  Broadway Baby, I'm Still Here and Losing My Mind, Stephen Sondheim's legendary musical is staged for the first time at the NT. Tracie Bennett, Janie Dee and Imelda Staunton play the magnificent Follies in this  new production.

More details to follow.

Full casting for Follies at the National

Zizi Strallen will join Janie Dee and Imelda Staunton in the cast of Follies when it opens at the National Theatre on 6th  September, with previews from 22 August. She will play a younger version of Dee's character Phyllis in Stephen Sondheim's musical while Leisha Mollyneaux also joins the cast as a younger Stella, who will also played by Dawn Hope. Emily Langham will play a younger version of Tracie Bennett's character Carlotta.

The musical, which has a book by James Goldman, is set in '70s New York and follows the reunion of the Follie girls in a crumbling Broadway theatre which is scheduled for demolition.

The full cast also includes Julie Armstrong, Norma Attallah, Josephine Barstow , Jeremy Batt, Di Botcher, Billy Boyle, Anouska Eaton, Liz Ewing, Geraldine Fitzgerald , Peter Forbes, Emily Goodenough , Bruce Graham, Adrian Grove, Fred Haig , Aimee Hodnett, Liz Izen, Alison Langer, Emily Langham, Sarah-Marie Maxwell, Ian McLarnon, Gemma Page, Kate Parr, Philip Quast, Edwin Ray, Gary Raymond, Adam Rhys-Charles, Jordan Shaw, Barnaby Thompson, Christine Tucker, Michael Vinsen and Alex Young.

Directed by Dominic Cooke, the musical will feature an orchestra of 21 and includes songs such as "Losing My Mind", "I'm Still Here" and "Could I Leave You?".

Tracie Bennett joins Follies starring Philip Quast, Imelda Staunton and Janie Dee

Updated 17th March: Dawn Hope who is  playing Stella Deems, will lead a big show-stopping number called Who’s That Woman. Updated 23rd December: Tracie Bennett is to  play Carlotta Campion: the former showgirl and one-time movie star who has been to hell and back who sings Sondheim’s showstopper number I’m Still Here: which was originated by Yvonne De Carlo on Broadway and by Dolores Gray (followed by Eartha Kitt) in the 1987 London production produced by Cameron Mackintosh.

Bennett has received two Olivier Awards for Best Supporting Role in a Musical for her performances in the musicals She Loves Me and Hairspray with an addition nomination for her work in High Society. Bennett was also nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for Mrs Henderson Presents while her performance as Judy Garland in End of the Rainbow earned her an Olivier nomination for Best Actress in a Play and a Tony Award nomination in the same category when the production transferred to Broadway.

 

Updated 25th November: Peter Forbes will play Buddy Plummer who married to  Sally Durant played by Imelda Staunton.

Updated 12th October:It has just been announced that Philip Quast is to play Benjamin Stone  joining Imelda Staunton  as Sally Durant Plummer with Janie Dee as Phyllis Stone with  Josephine Barstow as Heidi in a London revival of Follies by Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman.

Olivier award wining Quast has a list of West End credits including  George Seurat  in Sondheim's Pulitzer Prize winning musical Sunday in the Park with George, Emile de Becque in South Pacific, Judge Turpin in a concert version of Sweeney Todd at London's Royal Festival Hall and Javert in Les Miserables. 

Directed by Dominic Cooke, the show will open in the Olivier Theatre at the National in August 2017. Dates still to be announced.

When former members of the Weismann Follies reunite on the eve of their theater's demolition, two couples remember their past and face the harsher realities of the present. In the crumbling glamour of the theater, The Shadows of their younger selves remind them of the complicated steps they've danced-both on the stage and throughout their lives. Containing classics including   "Broadway Baby," "I'm Still Here," "Too Many Mornings, "Could I Leave You?" and "Losing My Mind," Follies is an excellent representations of  the vaudeville days between the two World Wars.

The show was originally produced on Broadway by Harold Prince with orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick, opening in April 1971 starring Dorothy Collins, John McMartin, Gene Nelson, and Alexis Smith. It ran for 522 performances and received seven Tony Awards, including Best Original Score.

Imelda Staunton is set for a busy time in the West End and on Broadway as she is also appearing with Game of Thrones star, Conleth Hill, in a West End revival of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? at the Harold Pinter Theatre for a limited season from 22 February to 27 May 2017. She has also said there are plans for her to take her award winning performance of Momma Rose in  the Chichester and Savoy production of Gypsy to Broadway in 2018.

Meryl Streep Follies movie?

According to Baz in the  Daily Mail, Oscar-nominated Into the Woods star Meryl Streep could be playing another Sondheim role with director Rob Marshall wanting to adapt Follies for the big screen, with  Streep being lined up  for the role of 'Phyllis Rogers Stone' or 'Sally Durant Plummer'.

Marshall still needs book writer James Goldman's permission for the film rights to Follies so this is very early speculation. Marshall has also directed Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Nine, Memoirs of a Geisha, Chicago and the TV movie version of Annie.

Elaine Paige's Follies extends on Broadway

 Performances first began on Sunday, August 7th for James Goldman and Stephen Sondheim's Follies directed by Eric Schaeffer, and it is now set to extend for another three weeks until 22nd January 2012.

With a 28-piece orchestra, Follies has a cast of 41 and stars  Bernadette Peters as Sally Durant Plummer, Jan Maxwell as Phyllis Rogers Stone,Danny Burstein as Buddy Plummer,  Ron Raines as Benjamin Stone and Elaine Paige as Carlotta Campion.

Cast for Follies on Broadway starring Elaine Paige & Bernadette Peters

The final piece of casting is now complete with Don Correia starring as Theodore Whitman for the Broadway transfer of the Kennedy Center’s critically acclaimed new production of James Goldman Stephen Sondheim’s musical Follies.

He joins the previously announced Bernadette Peters as Sally Durant Plummer, Jan Maxwell as Phyllis Rogers Stone, Danny Burstein as Buddy Plummer, Ron Raines as Benjamin Stone and Elaine Paige as Carlotta Campion who are reprising their roles for the Broadway transfer.

The production also stars Christian Delcroix as Young Buddy, Rosalind Elias as Heidi Schiller, Colleen Fitzpatrick as Dee Dee West, Lora Lee Gayer as Young Sally, Michael Hayes as Roscoe, Florence Lacey as Sandra Crane, David Sabin as Dimitri Weismann, Kirsten Scott as Young Phyllis, Frederick Strother as Max Deems, Nick Verina as Young Ben, Susan Watson as Emily Whitman and Terri White as Stella Deems - all of whom are reprising their roles for Broadway.

New to the production are Tony Award nominee Jayne Houdyshell as Hattie Walker and Mary Beth Peil as Solange LaFitte.

Rounding off  the ensemble is Lawrence Alexander, Brandon Bieber, John Carroll, Mathew deGuzman, Sara Edwards, Leslie Donna Flesner, Jenifer Foote, Leah Horowitz, Suzanne Hylenski, Danielle Jordan, Joseph Kolinski, Amanda Kloots-Larsen, Brittany Marcin, Erin N. Moore, Pamela Otterson, Clifton Samuels, Kiira Schmidt, Brian Shepard, Jessica Sheridan Amos Wolff, Ashley Yeater.

The $7.3 million production recently played a six-week run in the Kennedy Center's Eisenhower Theater from 7th May to 19th June.

The Broadway transfer of Follies will open at the Marquis Theatre on 12th September following previews from 8th August for an open run that will initially book through to 30th December 2011.

Elaine Paige back in Follies on Broadway

The Kennedy Center's critically-acclaimed production of James Goldman and Stephen Sondheim's Follies is transferring to Broadway this summer playing a limited engagement at the Marquis Theatre with performances beginning on August 7^th and an opening night of September 12^th.

It has just been announced that Elaine Paige will reprise her role as Carlotta Campion and be joined by more cast members from the Kennedy Center production including Bernadette Peters, Jan Maxwell, Danny Burstein and Ron Raines. Other members of the Broadway company will be announced shortly.

Elaine Paige won an Olivier Award for creating the title role in Evita  in London’s West End where she also created the role of Grizabella in Cats and starred in Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Grease, Chess, Anything Goes, Sunset Boulevard , The King and I and The Drowsy Chaperone. She has also recently completed a concert tour and released a new CD entitled “Elaine Paige and Friends”.

Sondheim's Follies at Pleasance Theatre

Stephen Sondheim’s Follies is celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year, and there will be a fringe production of the show in London at the Pleasance Theatre in Islington. It will run there from 31st May until 11th June and is being produced by 2nd Company Productions who were responsible for the fortieth anniversary production of Company there last year.

The show features a number of Broadway standards including Losing My Mind, Broadway Baby, I’m Still Here, and Could I Leave You.

The large cast includes Maggie Robson (Sally Plummer), Sarah Shelton (Phyllis Stone), Angela Neal (Young Phyllis), David Anthony (Ben Stone), Daniel Norman (Young Ben), Ashley Knight (Buddy Plummer), Richard Chatwin (Young Buddy), Carola Stewart (Carlotta Campion) and Toni Green (Stella Deams).

Book tickets at www.pleasance.co.uk

Trevor Nunn to direct Sondheim's Follies at Haymarket

Trevor Nunn will begin his stint as artistic director of the Theatre Royal Haymarket in March by directing Sienna Miller in Terence Rattigan's Flare Path.

The rest of Nunn's Haymarket season is still to be announced but there is a strong rumour that over the 12 month period one of the productions will be Stephen Sondheim’s Follies.

As mentioned last year, Nunn will need to sign a major box-office name before he will get the green light for Follies as it will cost something in the region of £2 million.

Sondheim’s Follies opens at Rose & Crown on 21st October

Ye Olde Rose & Crown Theatre in Walthamstow are presenting Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman’s one act musical Follies from 21st October-12th November 2010.  Closest Tube Station: Walthamstow Central - Victoria Line. Closest Mainline Train: London Liverpool Street – Walthamstow Central.

The story is about a reunion of the past performers of the Weismann's Follies (a musical revue based on the Ziegfeld Follies) in a Broadway theatre scheduled for demolition.

It focuses on two couples, Buddy and Sally Plummer and Ben and Phyllis Stone, who are both deeply unhappy with their marriages. Buddy is having an affair with a girl on the road and Sally is in love with Ben: Ben is so self-absorbed that Phyllis feels emotionally abandoned. In the show several former showgirls perform their old numbers, sometimes accompanied by ghosts of their former selves.

Classic numbers include Broadway Baby, I'm Still Here, Too Many Mornings, Could I Leave You? and Losing My Mind.

The production will be directed by Tim McArthur with Aaron Clingham as Musical Director and will star Mark Hutchinson (Oklahoma, Me and My Girl, Blood Brothers) as Buddy, Frank Loman Ben, Maggie Robson Sally and Julie Ross as Phyllis

Two married couples made bitter through age find happiness by abandoning their dreams of youth in the dying theatre. Glittering showgirls mix with the eerie ghost of a forgotten era in this stunning musical extravaganza.

Book tickets on 0843 2892144 or visit  www.allstarproductions.co.uk