PUTTING IT TOGETHER How Stephen Sondheim and I Created SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE

Narrator Adam Grupper is impressive as he portrays writer-director James Lapine in this mixed bag of an audiobook--part oral history, part memoir, and part description of how a musical gets written and produced. The musical? Stephen Sondheim and Lapine's Tony Award-winning SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE (1984). Lapine interviewed 40 people connected with the show, and Alyssa Bresnahan, Eva Kaminsky, T. Ryder Smith, and Graham Winton provide the voices for those interviewed, expressing their conflicting memories, personal anecdotes, and varying points of view. Len Cariou portrays a raspy-voiced Sondheim. He's sometimes cantankerous, but sometimes you can hear the smile in his voice. This is a valuable addition to Broadway theater history in the words of the people who lived it. The documentary-like format makes it a perfect fit for audio. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine [Published: SEPTEMBER 2021]