It’s just another Saturday night
Before there was ever Andrew Lloyd Weber or Tim Rice, there was Stephen Sondheim.
Described by the New York Times once as “the greatest and perhaps best-known artist working in musical theatre,” the multiple-award-winning composer created some amazing works: Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, Into The Woods — and Marry Me A Little.
The two-person musical is the final production of the season for B.C. Living Arts (BCLA).
Starring Sheanna James and Frederick Robert, it’s the story of two apartment-dwellers, one unit directly above the other, on a Saturday night.
Throughout the evening, they start fantasizing about relationships, said BCLA artistic director Alan Corbishley.
Their separate apartments become one, they interact, confront emotional conflicts, dream and fantasize, all to some Sondheim’s music that was originally written for other shows but never used.
The set list includes music written for Follies, A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum, Saturday Night and A Little Night Music.
Together the songs take the audience from the beginning of Saturday Night through to the realization, courtesy of songs originally destined for Follies, that It Wasn’t Meant to Happen.
Or has it?
That’s the beauty of the script, Corbishley said.
It leaves you wondering.
Sondheim’s romantic comedy “tells a story within the songs,” Corbishley said, “and there’s this big journey and arc and you have some realizations.”
It’s an evening with two solitary characters wondering about love lost and found, about yearning for a way out of loneliness through charming music, joy, heartache, pain and humour.
James is known to theatre fans in Kamloops, having performed with Western Canada and Project
X theatres.
It may be the first time Kamloopsians have seen Robert, a singer most often found performing opera.
Corbishley met the Vancouver singer a few years ago at the Calgary Opera — Robert was just 18 at the time — and they performed Cossi Fan Tutte together in Vancouver in 2006.
Marry Me A Little is at the Black Box Theatre in the Old Main Building of Thompson Rivers University.
Show times are Friday, May 18, and Saturday, May 19, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, May 20, at 2 p.m.
Tickets are $22 for BCLA members, $25 for the public and at the Kamloops Live Box Office, 250-374-5483, kamloopslive.ca.
COMMENTS
Let's keep comments:
We ask that all participants own their words by logging in with their Facebook account. It's a simple process that will take seconds and helps keep our comments free of trolls, cranks, and “drive-by” commenters.
We reserve the right to remove comments from anyone using screen names, pseudonyms or false identities. Please see our FAQ if you have questions or concerns about using Facebook to comment.