Singer Liz Callaway, an original cast member of Stephen Sondheim’s legendary musical, Merrily We Roll Along, tonight returns to Feinstein’s/54 Below in New York with a program honoring Sondheim, who died last November.
Performed nightly through March 26, with the final show also livestreamed, the program, “To Steve with Love.” pays homage to Sondheim, who she says “changed the course” of her life. She saw his musical, Company, on Broadway in 1970, and made her own Broadway debut in 1981 in Merrily, now being made into a film by Richard Linklater.
In an interview before her Feinstein’s/54 Below concerts, Callaway said she and Sondheim regularly corresponded by email over the years, the last time six months before his death.
She said one of the biggest challenges of putting her program together was “trying to do an evening that is a celebration (combined with) my personal experiences in 75 minutes—it’s basically impossible.”
She said she is “looking forward to sharing his music with people who have been mourning his loss—we can experience his music together. That is my goal, to celebrate him.”
She admitted her personal favorites of his songs, “in no order,” are the opening number of Company; “Move On” from Sunday in the Park with George; “Our Time” from Merrily; “Someone in a Tree” from Pacific Overtures; while she said the fifth song “depends on the day. This would be my desert island disc.”
She said Sondheim’s legacy is that he “changed musical theater. He let people know there are many different ways to tell a story. He was original, courageous, an incredible teacher and mentor. He cared deeply about education.”
She also said he created a “treasure trove of songs, (writing) for all ages, about all different human conditions.
“He was a genius—it’s unthinkable that he’s not with us right now,” she concluded.
