What's to Discuss? "Old Friends" is Terrific!

“Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends,” The Ahmanson, Los Angeles, Feb. 8 – Mar. 9, 2025

Feb. 16, 2025 | By Bruce R. Feldman

In Brief: Old Friends is both a thrilling tribute to a Broadway giant and an electrifying master class in musical theater composition, lyric writing, and performance. It’s also an evening of high-octane entertainment from stars Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga and a 16-member cast of exceptional singers, dancers, and comedians. Get your tickets now. This glorious show is here for only four weeks. It will sell out quickly.

Bernadette Peters andLea Salonga star in "Stephen Sondehim's Old Friends" (Photo: Matthew Murphy)

Steven Sondheim came of age as a Broadway heavy hitter in the late 1950s when he wrote punchy, smart, visceral lyrics for the decade’s signature hits, West Side Story and Gypsy.

On just these two shows, he labored alongside and absorbed the genius and technique of some of the theater’s greatest talents. Among these were brilliant composers Leonard Bernstein and Jule Styne, groundbreaking director and choreographer Jerome Robbins, powerhouse producer Harold Prince, venerated librettist Arthur Laurents, prominent designers Oliver Smith, Jean Rosenthal, and Jo Mielziner, and Old School headliners like Chita Rivera and Ethel Merman.

Sondheim was not yet 30 years old.

By the end of the Golden Age of the Broadway musical in the 1970s, he had composed lyrics and music for seven essential shows that live on today: A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (1962), Anyone Can Whistle (1964), Company (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), Pacific Overtures (1976), and Sweeney Todd (1979).

 "Everybody's Got to Have a Maid" (Photo: Matthew Murphy)

Sondheim, who died in 2021 at the age of 91, likely was the last of the great Broadway musical titans.

He was the main remaining link to a tradition that began in the 1920s with Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II, George and Ira Gershwin, and Irving Berlin. It was Hammerstein, the librettist and lyricist of Show Boat in 1927, who mentored the aspiring songwriter in the late 1940s and early 1950s, preparing him for his spectacular Broadway debut.

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In a career that spanned some 75 years, Sondheim also knew and saw the major works of those who followed those early pioneers, masters like Cole Porter, Jerry Herman, Jule Styne, Frank Loesser, Alan Lerner, Frederick Lowe, Buddy Adler, Jerry Ross, Cy Coleman, Lee Adams, Charles Strouse, John Kander, Fred Ebb, Sheldon Harnick, Jerry Bock, and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

One way or the other, Sondheim was there for all of it.

Though a major force by the end of the 1970s, he was still going strong in the 1980s and beyond with three more beloved musicals that have stood the test of time, Merrily We Roll Along (1981), Sunday In The Park With George (1984), Into The Woods (1987) and two others that resurface from time to time, Assassins (1991) and Passion (1994).

Lea Salonga sells the "Worst Pies in London" (Photo: Matthew Murphy)

It’s this legacy, this enduring body of remarkable work for the theater, that inspired the producer Cameron Mackintosh and directors Matthew Bourne and Julie McKenzie to craft the gratifying, crowd-pleasing Sondheim celebration that debuted last week at The Ahmanson in Los Angeles before a New York run.

Old Friends opens gently. We hear the famous mantra from Sunday in the Park With George – “Order. Design. Tension. Balance. Harmony.“ – concepts that Sondheim meant for his central character, the painter George, but surely also considered key to his own creative process.

Peters and Salonga enter, offer a few words of introduction, and soon are joined by the large, attractive ensemble for the Big Opening Number, a lively “Side By Side,” followed by a knock-it-out-of-the-park version of “Comedy Tonight.”

Five songs from Company follow. Beth Leavel and Gavin Lee pick their way through a terrific “Little Things You Do Together.” Joanna Riding and the ensemble finish with an animated, hilarious “Not Getting Married Today.”

Bernadette Peters and Jacob Dickey in a scene from "Into the Woods" (Photo: Matthew Murphy)

This last, with its multiple harmonies and overlapping lyrics reminds us once again that Sondheim composed some great ensemble work. Doubtless Bernstein was a major influence on him. That’s confirmed in the show’s second act with a gorgeously sung, dramatically intense rendition of the “Tonight Quintet.”

There are too many numbers – some 42 in total – in Old Friends to mention them all. You will have your own favorites (as well as a few tunes you wish the creators had included). A few that stood out for me are:

A suave Jason Pennycooke doing a sultry “Live Alone and Like It,” a little-known Sondheim ballad from the film Dick Tracy;

Beth Leavel pulling out the stops – and stopping the show – with a torrid “Ladies Who Lunch;”

Lee, Pennycooke, and Kyle Selig in a raucous “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid;”

Peters, Leavel, and Riding’s side-spitting antics in “You Gotta Get a Gimmick;”

Bonnie Langford’s resolute “I’m Still Here,” as memorable as any version you’ve heard or are likely to hear.

Beth Leavel, Bernadette Peters, Joanna Riding as three over-the-hill strippers in "You Gotta Get a Gimmick" (Photo: Matthew Murphy)

Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga are the rich icing on this delicious cake.

Though not a kid anymore, Peters can still muster her adorable vocal quaver and gamine charm to give us a terrific “Broadway Baby.” She turns soulful in “Losing My Mind,” and delivers a deeply knowing version of the Sondheim anthem “Send in the Clowns.” All wonderful.

Salonga is every bit her match. She’s in full Mrs. Lovett mode on “The Worst Pies in London” and “A Little Priest,” alongside Jeremy Secomb’s commanding Sweeney Todd. We can only hope that Salonga, who played the part in a Manila production a few years ago, will reprise the role here soon. She’s that terrific.

She’s equally astonishing as a fierce Momma Rose in “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” from Gypsy. I saw Ethel Merman in the original production and have waited some 60 years to hear another Momma Rose sing it as magnificently. Salonga does.

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Technical credits are all outstanding, in particular Matt Kinley’s simple yet very attractive set and Warren Letton’s opulent, three-dimensional lighting.

Jonathan Tunick’s original Broadway orchestrations still shine under the virtuosity of conductor AnnBritt duChateau and a crackerjack 16-piece onstage orchestra.

Run, do not walk, to get your tickets for this marvelous show. It’s a must-see!

“Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends,” Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, (213) 628-2772, www.centertheatregroup.org