That last song proved to be almost a meditation on our lives during the first year of the COVID crisis. Sondheim’s words perfectly summed up the uncertainty of the time. It was during the pandemic that Errico had the inspiration to do a different album of Sondheim’s songs. One that celebrated the city that she and the composer both lived in: New York City. That album, Sondheim in the City, gets released on Friday and starting today Errico begins a a five-night stand at Birdland Jazz Club in New York in a show entitled A Manhattan Valentine.

Last week I spoke with Errico about her passion for Sondheim’s work, her various collaborations with him over the years and what she learned most from her time with him. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview (which is chockfull of wonderful stories and observations about Sondheim and herself), please go here.

When did the desire to do a second collection of his material start bubbling up within you? 

I think I always knew that I was going to spend much of my life turning to him. I don’t know that I was wanting to record [another album] until the pandemic happened and I turned to him yet again in another crisis. Sondheim Sublime is a very inward record. It’s a lyrical record. I was going through a hard time in my own life. I just keep turning to Sondheim. I think that he is probably the greatest source for me of wisdom and courage. Sondheim worked with me on the creation of that. He had ideas for it. He knew what I was working through. He knew what I was feeling about his work. He was a little embarrassed by the word sublime, because I think he felt it was so spiritual and maybe corny. I think he said it was camp. 

Now the pandemic happened. We lived through that. Maybe we’re coming out of this terrifying time. I was thinking about New York City. I was thinking about how everybody was leaving New York during the pandemic. I was thinking I want to recommit to New York City; it gave me everything. When Sondheim died, the ideas of New York were so rich in my head. When he passed I worried for New York. I thought about his New York. He made New York for me. And for so many of us, he defines it. And he’s a great poet himself of New York. I felt like everything is there again in Sondheim for another chapter of my life. 

There are going to be people who are going to be surprised by some of the material on this album, because I don’t think many people have heard Dawn or Nice Town, But. For those who don’t know, Nice Town, But came from one of his earliest works in the 1950s called Climb High that never got finished. Oddly, he didn’t write about that song in his Collected Lyrics books. What was your process of discovering other songs that maybe the world doesn’t know that would fit the story and the narrative you have in this album? 

Nice Town, But, you’re going to have to wait for the vinyl. That’s not going to come out on the 16th. We’re going to have 14 songs. That is a coda of juvenilia of his youth. That is not going to come out just yet, but I’m thrilled that I’m going to be singing it live at Birdland. It’s a brilliant piece of his youth and it is meant to just be a humorous and energetic finale to all the thoughts that I put into the more classic songs.

But I open with an unusual song which is on the first release, Dawn, which was [for] an unproduced film [Singing Out Loud]. It’s a wonderful song that nobody knows and I’m super excited for people to hear it. I hope that it acts [on the album] as a new beginning of a New York waking up. What is New York at dawn? It’s quiet, but it still hums with life and promise. 

I hope that that means there’s a whole lot of material that we still haven’t heard that we will get to hear, either from you or from other people throughout the years ahead.

There’s more things. I put some cut music on here as well. Music cut from musicals. Jazz fans always love the alternate take. Like Chet Baker did this or Charlie Parker did this one that they didn’t put on the record. I have the same obsession with cut songs and there’s some beautiful cut music from Follies that I included here: Can That Boy Foxtrot? We’ve heard it, but it’s not the most common song. And It Wasn’t Meant to Happen, which I think is a masterpiece.

I think in his Collected Lyrics Sondheim said that was his attempt to do a Cole Porter true pathos song.

I believe he rewrote it in his head when he wrote Send in the Clowns. I believe that it has the same meter, a meditative regret. And it’s about denial. Send in the clowns. I’ll be fine. It wasn’t meant to happen. I’m good. But she’s there. And in the song, just as with Send in the Clowns, don’t bother. They’re here. You can really hear the other person is in the room.

What was the process for you in approaching songs that the world has heard multiple times?

Songs like Being Alive, that’s a young person’s song. I have spent my whole life as an ingenue, singing from a young person’s perspective. And in a way I’ve been gradually beating the ingenue out of myself. So I guess I was thinking about what that song is saying. Maybe when I was younger I was thinking, somebody hold me, I want happiness. I would probably have thought, I want that connection. But I think now I realize she’s not asking for happiness. She’s asking for a kind of pain. Someone to force her to feel alive through the kind of armor of sophistication and familiarity that we put on.

There are a lot of people who have a stereotype of New Yorkers being neurotic. Sondheim himself is quoted as saying, “I prefer neurotic people. I like to hear the rumblings beneath the surface.” You’ve created a New York centric album. Do you think there’s a part of Sondheim in the City that celebrates these neurotic people that Sondheim was talking about?

Oh, yes. I think there’s a kind of jaunty, upbeat quality to my record, because I don’t think it’s a sour and cynical world. Actually, I think if you look closely at Sondheim, there’s a kind of ecstatic pleasure in New York; the rhythm of things. I think Another Hundred People is an ecstatic song. Even Everybody Says Don’t. Sure, all these people are blocking you, but step over them. He’s more than satiric and malicious. I say, ecstatic. I think he was excited by the possibilities.

Once you stop trying to make life makes sense in the literal or linear simple way. Because once you’re allowed to be nuts a lot of problems vanish, a lot of humor and love and complication and emotion and style and laughing and nightlife, so much becomes possible. I guess that’s a middle-aged person speaking justifying ourselves.

Do you think there are reasons, other than the fact that Stephen Sondheim has passed, that his work is being embraced so vociferously and voraciously as it is now?

Because it never gets boring. It’s relentlessly interesting. There’s no bottom. It’s so smart and there’s so much love in it as well. And it’s never dated. There’s so many layers. Maybe we need him more now than we used to. Maybe we understand that his talents and his gifts had some difficulties. At a time that wanted something more cheery or simple or commercial – the British wave and everything that annoyed him – he was looking in the mind. Not everybody wants to do that. And I think now we’re really not afraid.

In the liner notes you talk about going to Sondheim’s house when it was on the market after his death. Was that the first time you’d been there?

Yes. Actually, I feel like I’ve been there because I saw that wonderful interview with [composer] Adam Guettel. When I walked in the room, I was so overwhelmed. Oh, my God, there’s the chair. I was so nervous. I didn’t take pictures. I just stood there like, wow.

What has your process of performing Sondheim taught you about who you are as a person and who you are as an artist?

I felt encouraged by him to be a female kind of intellectual person. He encouraged me over a long period of time. I can’t pretend we were intimately close friends. More like a very dedicated, almost a daughter figure. I’ve honored him. My thinking about him so much and applying his stuff for my own personal survival. I find him funny and sexy. And I love going to the shows, even if I’m not in them.

The emails between us were empowering, funny, educational, challenging. He says he hates self-deprecation. That was my most unpleasant quality, he said. So I don’t do it anymore. I don’t think I’ve been self-deprecating today. I try not to. I used to be throwing myself under the bus here and there and he didn’t like that. He said it’s the least attractive quality in all people. He liked to lift you up. He said, Melissa, you’re a lot of things. You’re an actress and a big band singer or a girl singer, like in that old tradition. Keep exploring that. 

We’re trying to learn about ourselves through a master’s music and be respectful and explore it and honor him at the same time as learn. This is me finding myself mid-life. Just don’t press too much. Just be. 

To watch the full interview with Melissa Errico, please go here.

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The day I saw Lansbury in Sweeney Todd was a day I discovered my form of religion – the music and words of Stephen Sondheim.

My Aunt Ruth and I started going to musicals together in 1977. When Sweeney Todd was announced as part of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera season for 1981, I got us tickets. I was thrilled by what I experienced on stage. My aunt wanted to leave. I went to the box office to purchase tickets to see it a second time.

That second performance proved to be the last performance of the US tour and Angela Lansbury’s last performance as Mrs. Lovett – the fiendishly plotting baker who’s passion for the demon barber of Fleet Street lead them both down very dark paths.

In 2014 when Lansbury came to Los Angeles with the production of Blithe Spirit that earned her a fifth Tony Award, I had a chance to speak with this legendary actress. I knew then this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So in addition to asking her about Noël Coward’s play, I had to ask her about something that happened at that final Sweeney Todd performance.

As a practical joke played on Lansbury and George Hearn (who played the title character), someone in the crew put an enormous amount of flour inside the dough Mrs. Lovett kneads and pounds during A Little Priest. The flour when flying all over Lansbury and Hearn. They broke character so openly and for so long that the orchestra had to vamp while they regained their composure.

Apropos of something Jessica Fletcher might have asked, I simply said to her, “Whodunit? Did you ever figure it out?”

“Absolutely not. We did not. We were shocked,” she said. “It was funny. We knew it was our last show. We taped the show. We knew it was in the can, as they say, which was a vast relief and a great pleasure knowing it would be seen again. At the time it really was a shocker. Yes of course we were all covered in flour – at least I was. I never stopped fiddling around with dough. That’s part of the training of the job to deal with the dough. It was real dough. It wasn’t make believe. It’s lovely. Laughter in the theatre is one of the great tonics for actors and certainly Mrs. Lovett was a funny character and I got a tremendous response playing that role which was really quite wonderful.”

Over the years I had the privilege of seeing her in A Little Night Music on Broadway, Oscar and the Pink Lady at the Geffen Playhouse, in a tribute to Stephen Sondheim at the Hollywood Bowl. (If you want to hear 17,500 people gasp all at once, ask anyone who saw Lansbury get tripped up by a cable while making her way on stage to perform!)

There was also the time when Sondheim and Frank Rich had an on-stage discussion at UCLA’s Royce Hall. Lansbury and I were both trying to get backstage to greet Sondheim after it was ove. Neither of us was on the guest list and both thought we would be. The young man given the power of guardian of the door had no idea who Angela Lansbury was.

I politely told him about the many shows of Sondheim’s that she had been in (Anyone Can Whistle, Gypsy, Sweeney Todd and A Little Night Music.) He finally relented and allowed her to go backstage.

While I didn’t get let in that night, I will always have the memory of helping the woman who cemented – in no uncertain terms – my passion for all things Sondheim get an opportunity to see him.

During our interview I asked Lansbury if she ever imagined she’d end up with the career she did – particularly when the studio she was under contract to, MGM, was putting her in mostly matronly roles.

“I didn’t have a clue at that time. In fact, I was at a very low ebb in my self-esteem. I can assure you by the time I left Hollywood, except for The Manchurian Candidate and the first three movies, I had no reputation except as an also-ran. It was very discouraging. I knew that my future was probably in the theater and I had to pack up and go back to Broadway. That was a great decision I made, thank God.”

Thank you, Angela Lansbury for all the many hours of joy you gave us all – whether on stage or the twelve seasons you entertained us in Murder, She Wrote. Always had a fondness for you, I did.

Photo: Angela Lansbury in Sweeney Todd (Photo by Martha Swope/Courtesy New York Public Library Archive)

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“Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a nothing day
And suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?”

Foster’s joyful personality and abundant talent will be on full display when New York City Center begins streaming Bring Me to Light on Wednesday, April 28th at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT. The show will remain available for streaming on demand through May 31st.

Bring Me to Light will celebrate City Center and look forward to our collective return to that wonderful shared experience of sitting in a theater together.

Foster is a two-time Tony Award winner for her performances in Thoroughly Modern Millie and the 2011 revival of the Cole Porter musical Anything Goes. She is scheduled to appear in a revival of The Music Man with Hugh Jackman next year. (That show is undergoing some upheaval with the recent revelations about producer Scott Rudin that forced him to step away from the production.)

She appeared in New York City Center’s Encores! productions of The Wild Party (the Andrew Lippa version) and Anyone Can Whistle.

Joining Foster for this show are other alumni from City Center’s Encores! series:

Raúl Esparza, who hasn’t appeared in a Broadway show since 2012’s Leap of Faith and appeared in the 2019 Encores! production of Road Show; Joaquina Kalukango, seen on Broadway in The Color Purple and who also appeared in The Wild Party at Encores!; Tony Award-winner Kelli O’Hara who appeared in the 2015 revival of The King and I and Wren Rivera, a trans performer and one of Foster’s students at Ball University, will all be joining.

Bring Me to Light is directed by Leigh Silverman who directed Foster in the New York City Center Encores! production of the musical Violet that transferred to Broadway. Jeanine Tesori, composer of Thoroughly Modern Millie and Violet (and one of my favorite musicals Caroline, or Change), serves as the Creative Producer for the show.

Michael Rafter, who was Music Director for Violet and Thoroughly Modern Millie (and who happens to be Tesori’s husband), plays piano and serves as MD for this show. He is joined by guitarist Matt Hinkley (who played guitars in the orchestra for Violet).

Here’s some additional trivia for you: Bring Me to Light is also the name of a song from Violet.

What can you expect from this hour-long show? Songs from the musicals Anyone Can Whistle, Camelot, Oklahoma!, South Pacific, Violet and The Wild Party.

Tickets are $35 and allow for unlimited streaming through May 31st. Deluxe packages, priced at $135 and above, are available that include bonus content including behind-the-scenes footage of the making of the show.

After the turbulence of the pandemic, Bring Me to Light is going to make it clear to us that we’re gonna make it after all.

Photo: Sutton Foster in Bring Me to Light (Photo by Christopher Duggan/Courtesy New York City Center)

Lyrics to Love Is All Around by Sonny Curtis.

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The Bernstein class is up first at 11:30 AM EDT/8:30 AM PDT. The class is lead by Harvey Granat who is a cabaret performer and producer who teaches about the Great American Songbook.

Granat will be joined by author and filmmaker Jamie Bernstein who is also the composer’s daughter. Together they will explore all aspects of Bernstein’s composing life from his musicals (including On the Town and Wonderful Town) through his film scores (On the Waterfront) and other works.

Joining them will be husband-and-wife cabaret performers Eric Comstock and Barbara Fasano. The cost of this class is $42 and registration is required in advance.

The Sondheim class takes place from 1:30 PM – 3:30 PM EDT/10:30 AM – 12:30 PM PDT. This class is lead by Louis Rosen who is composer and lyricist who has been teaching Music Appreciation and other classes at the 92Y for over thirty years.

The focus of this class will be Sondheim’s 1964 musical Anyone Can Whistle. The show ran for only 12 previews and 9 performances at the Majestic Theatre in New York. Arthur Laurents (Gypsy, West Side Story) wrote the book and directed the musical. Herbert Ross, who would later be best known as a film director (The Turning Point), was the choreographer and the sole recipient of a Tony Award nomination for Anyone Can Whistle.

Amongst the songs to come from this show are “Everybody Says Don’t,” “There Won’t Be Trumpets,” “With So Little To Be Sure Of” and the title song.

This is Rosen’s final class of his two-year series exploring Sondheim’s work. The cost of this class is $50 and registration is required in advance.

Photo: Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein in rehearsal for West Side Story. (Photo by Friedman-Abeles courtesy of the New York Public Library Archives)

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