On Monday evening, I met Jonathan Groff; he was charming and seemingly "normal," and I mostly remembered to pay attention and act like this was standard chit-chat.
The brief audience gave me an opportunity to ask a question I'd been saving, i.e., Which will be your next Sondheim protagonist?
And Groff gave the answer I had sort of anticipated: Georges Seurat. Here is what surprised me: Groff has a rather elaborate vision for his (hypothetical) Sunday in the Park revival. His co-star will be Lea Michele--because, like Georges and Dot, Groff and LM have a complex bond that has been broken and re-made and re-re-made over many years. (LM had an unrequited love for Groff, but unlike Dot, LM didn't really have "a shot." That's because Groff was, and is, gay.)
Additionally, Groff wants to take the production to Central Park--the site of his triumph in the musical Hair. I'm not sure a piece as delicate as Sunday can survive an outdoor production; I'd put it in a small indoor theater, where people can look and listen carefully. But I didn't say this. And I appreciate Groff's thinking: Seurat painted the same thing that Sondheim described, which is the same thing that concerns Central Park visitors in 2024. In other words: "La Grande Jatte" and Sunday are both about quotidian life. Love affairs, naughty children, nihilistic weirdos, disgruntled service-industry employees, frisky dogs: These are all a part of the fabric of 2024, just as they were a part of the fabric of 1886.
We'll see. I'd just like to nominate Micaela Diamond, if Lea Michele is unavailable.
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