Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Get whisked away to a weekend in the country where infinite possibilities of new romances and second chances bring endless surprises when the Randolph College for the Performing Arts brings Stephen Sondheim's beguiling masterpiece A Little Night Music to Toronto's Randolph Theatre this August. A Little Night Music is directed by Thom Allison and features music direction by Stephen Woodjetts and choreography by Robert Allan.
Director Thom Allison, who played the role of Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm in the Shaw Festival's 2008 production, says, "A Little Night Music is about three families who are tied together for better AND for worse, but not necessarily forever.Through several coincidences, they are all given the chance to right some relationship wrongs and find their way to their proper partners. While I don't really believe in 'coincidence'", there is something deliciously inevitable about the way this show unfolds. To paraphrase an Antoine de Saint-Exupery quote, it is not until the characters find the person who is looking at the world with the same view that things come together."
Allison continues, "A Little Night Music features one of Sondheim's most lush and romantic, yet playful scores. Sondheim challenged himself to create a score entirely in waltz time, so every bar except a few in the song 'Miller's Son' is in some variation of 3/4 time."
With music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Hugh Wheeler, A Little Night Music is inspired by Ingmar Bergman's film Smiles of a Summer Night. Set in 1900 Sweden, the musical explores the tangled web of affairs centered around an actress, the men who love her, and the women who love them.
A Little Night Music opened on Broadway on February 25, 1973 and played 601 performances and 12 previews. It won four Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical. It features the song "Send in the Clowns", which - thanks to recordings by Judy Collins, Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand -- became a popular radio hit, and has since been recorded by hundreds of performers in a wide variety of arrangements.
Director Thom Allison studied in the acting program at Ryerson, before launching his professional career in the Young Company of the Stratford Festival. He appeared in the original Canadian companies of Miss Saigon, The Who's Tommy and Rent. Thom was seen on Broadway in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. His Stratford Festival credits include Romeo and Juliet; The Threepenny Opera; The King and I; Pericles; King Henry VIII; Macbeth; Hello, Dolly; and Into The Woods. At the Shaw Festival, he appeared in A Little Night Music; Follies: In Concert; Wonderful Town; His Girl Friday; Guys and Dolls; and the critically acclaimed Ragtime. He has been nominated for most major Canadian acting awards: 2 Dora awards, 2 Bettys, a Jessie, an Ovation, a Sterling for Drowsy Chaperone, Outrageous, respectively; and he is the recipient of 2 Tyrone Guthrie awards.
A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC
DIRECTED BY THOM ALLISON
ON STAGE AT RANDOLPH THEATRE
August 2-4 and 9-11 at 8 p.m. and August 4 and 11 at 2 p.m.
Randolph Theatre, 736 Bathurst Street, Toronto
Tickets: $22 at ticketmaster.ca / 1-855-985-5000
The cast features students in their final year of the Randolph College for the Performing Arts professional training program.
2018-07-30
Toronto: Randolph College presents "A Little Night Music" directed by Thom Allison August 2-11