Sondheim @ 90 Roundtable

The final episode in the 20-episode series! Join this fun Sondheim @ 90 Roundtable with host Michael Weber where the topic is "Sondheim Desert Island Playlist." This episode shares what songs are on the MUST HAVE "Desert Island Playlist" of former Sondheim @ 90 guests. Joining Michael with their personal choices are Roberta Duchak (award-winning music director; U.S. Music Supervisor for “Six: The Musical”), Peter Filichia (author & columnist; critic emeritus for Newark's “Star-Ledger” and News 12) and John Yap (founder of Jay Records which recently released the first complete recording of "Anyone Can Whistle").

Edited by Remington Cleve

Join us tonight for an encore with an all-new episode of Sondheim @ 90 Roundtable with Michael Weber! Weber is joined by the author of the soon to be released “The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia,” Rick Pender, to discuss this new work encompassing Sondheim’s career from past to present and looks to the future of what we can expect from one of our most prolific and admired composer and lyricist.

Edited by Remington Cleve

“Company," music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by George Furth, is the topic for tonight's final episode of "Sondheim @ 90 Roundtable." Joining Porchlight Artistic Director Michael Weber for a lively discussion on the award-winning musical, its development, its popularity and its recent revivals are Raúl Esparza (four-time Tony Award nominee, star of Broadway’s "Company," TV’s "Law & Order: SVU"), Robert Falls (Tony Award-winning artistic director at The Goodman Theatre) and Lonny Price (Porchlight Artistic Advisory board member, Broadway’s original "Charley Kringas,” in "Merrily We Roll Along," director of "Sweeney Todd," "Company" and "Sondheim! The Birthday Concert" with the New York Philharmonic).

Edited by Remington Cleve

Sondheim’s 1994 musical “Passion” is the focus of this week’s “Sondheim @ 90 Roundtable with Michael Weber.” “Passion” tells the story of a love triangle and is adapted from Ettore Scola's 1981 film “Passione d'Amore” and its source material, Iginio Ugo Tarchetti's 1869 novel "Fosca.” Weber’s guests this week, discussing what many consider Sondheim’s most personal work, are John Doyle (Tony Award-winning director; Artistic Director of Classic Stage Company), Judy Kuhn (multiple Tony, Olivier and Grammy Award nominee; "Passion" at the Kennedy Center Sondheim Festival) and Kathy Voytko, (Broadway's "The Frogs" and "Passion" at Chicago Shakespeare).

Edited by Remington Cleve

New episodes every Saturday at 7pm CT!

Sondheim's "Saturday Night" on "Sondheim @ 90 Roundtable!" "Saturday Night" has music and lyrics from a 24-year old Stephen Sondheim, and book, based on the play "Front Porch in Flatbush" by brothers Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein. Sondheim was to make his Broadway debut with "Saturday Night" during the 1954-55 season, but unforseen circumstances delayed its opening night in New York - for 45 years!

Hear about the stories behind this fascinating production and some of its modern iterations when Michael Weber is joined by his guests Frankie Leo Bennett (Porchlight's "In The Heights," Porchlight Revisits "1776"), Andréa Burns (selected by Sondheim to create the role of "Celeste" in the New York premiere at Off-Broadway Second Stage Theatre in 2000) and Nik Kmieck ("New Faces Sing Broadway 1941" and numerous Porchlight Revisits productions).

Edited by Remington Cleve

New episodes every Saturday at 7pm CT!

"Do I Hear a Waltz?" is the subject of this week’s Sondheim @ 90 Roundtable. Michael Weber is joined by Cheryl Coons (Director of the Music Theater Program at Chicago Dramatists), Anthony Crivello (Tony Award-winner for Broadway's Kiss of the Spider Woman, LA Ovation Award Nomination as "Renato Di Rossi" in "Do I Hear a Waltz?" at Pasadena Playhouse) and Kelli Harrington (Three-time Jeff Award-recipient who starred as "Leona Samish" in "Do I Hear a Waltz?" at The Music Theatre Company) to discuss this musical and its history, including Sondheim working with Richard Rodgers for his one and only time.

Edited by Remington Cleve

New episodes every Saturday at 7pm CT! Video premieres available on YouTube and Facebook.

Sondheim's politically charged "Assassins" is the focus of this episode of Sondheim @ 90 Roundtable. Michael Weber is joined by Anika Chapin (artistic associate and resident dramaturg at Goodspeed Musicals), Jermaine Hill (Jeff Award-winner, music direction, "Sophisticated Ladies') and Stef Tovar (Jeff Award-winning actor and instructor) to discuss this tour-de-force musical featuring Sondheim's signature blend of intelligently stunning lyrics and beautiful music with a story focusing on America's fascination with celebrity via the assassins and would-be assassins of American presidents.

Edited by Remington Cleve

New episodes every Saturday at 7pm CT! Video premieres available on YouTube and Facebook.

This episode of Sondheim @ 90 Roundtable has Victoria Bussert (director of music theatre at Baldwin-Wallace University, director of "The Frogs" at Pegasus Players), Christopher Pazdernik (Porchlight Music Theatre's casting & company manager, director of numerous Porchlight Revisits) and Christie Chiles Twillie (music director for Porchlight Revisits "Minnie's Boys" and a music director, piano conductor, sound designer and composer) discussing the musical send up of Greek comedy and satire "The Frogs." Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and "freely adapted" by Burt Shevelove, with host Michael Weber.

Loosely based on a comedy written in 405 B.C. by Aristophanes, "The Frogs" playfully explores the great challenges of human existence: confronting fears, understanding life and death and challenging the distractions that can prevent us from achieving our goals.

Edited by Remington Cleve

New episodes every Saturday at 7pm CT! Video premieres available on YouTube and Facebook.

It's more than comedy tonight in this week’s Sondheim @ 90 Roundtable, as Michael Weber is joined by Anika Chapin (Goodspeed Musicals artistic associate and a NYC-based dramaturg and writer), Ross Lehman ("A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" at the Goodman as well as Broadway's St. James Theatre) and Linda Madonia (music director for Porchlight Music Theatre's "A Funny Thing...," "A Chorus Line," "A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder") to discuss Sondheim's "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." Forum is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart inspired by the farces of the ancient Roman playwright Plautus (251–183 BC).

Join Porchlight Music Theatre for something familiar, something peculiar, something for everyone: Sondheim @ 90!

Edited by Daniel De León

New episodes every Saturday at 7pm CT! Video premieres available on YouTube and Facebook.

In this episode, Sondheim @ 90 Roundtable delves into Sondheim’s work inspired by the 1955 Ingmar Bergman’s “Smiles of a Summer Night” and involves the romantic lives of several couples – it’s "A Little Night Music!"

Joining Weber are Brianna Borger ("Into the Woods," "The King & I"), Nick Bowling (founding artistic director of TimeLine Theatre Company and director of the Chicago premiere of Porchlight Music Theatre’s Sondheim on Sondheim for which he won the Jeff Award) and Christie Chiles Twillie (music director, piano conductor, accompanist and vocal coach for musical theatre) to discuss the eventful weekend in the country that Sondheim created.

Edited by Daniel De León

New episodes every Saturday at 7pm CT!

Also available with video on YouTube and Facebook.

YouTube.com/PorchlightMusicTheatre