You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow at the Lyric Theatre

While this is true – we’ll love it when the Lyric Theatre gets its physical makeover from church to theatre, the title actually refers to the one-act Sondheim revue recently performed by the Lyric Opera at the Lyric Theatre.

The event was also the debut of Lyric Voices youth chorus, an ensemble of 13 10-14 year olds who performed an incredible Kaleidoscope of Sondheim Songs to kick off the evening. Many were from Into the Woods, and Vincenzo DiPasquale stood out with his performance of "Giants in the Sky," and his ability to memorize and speed-sing those difficult lyrics. All of the kids were adorable and impressive, and had incredible stage presence, especially considering they'd rehearsed only 10 times!

The revue opened with “I Remember,” from Sondheim’s one TV show (beautifully sung by Emily Heslenbrook), followed by a hysterical gem from Sondheim’s rarely performed Frogs (first performed in 1974 in Yale’s gymnasium pool) – “Invocation and Instructions to the Audience.” It moved quickly into several songs from Saturday Night, a musical written in the 50s that didn’t make it to Off-Broadway till 2000 (You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow was first produced in 1983, which is probably why the over-weighting – who knew then if Saturday Night would ever make it to the stage?). You can definitely hear the beginnings of Sondheim’s genius in some of these songs.

If you'd seen the recent production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, you’d have recognized one song from that show. But two additional revue numbers were written for Forum but didn’t make it: “Echo Song” and “There’s Something About a War.”

Sondheim’s favorite show, Pacific Overtures, was represented by two haunting songs: “Poems” and “Someone In A Tree” (and Annabelle Cotroneo was wonderful as the boy). Follies understandably gets short shrift, with only one song, a quartet, since it would be impossible to choose just one of the iconic solo numbers from that musical. The revue ends with one of my all-time favorite Sondheim songs – “Old Friends,” from Merrily We Roll Along (a misunderstood show that closed within weeks of opening in 1981). It was a truly enjoyable performance, start to finish, and I was happy to be able to share it with my friends Lindsay, John, Judy, and Erik.

While the Lyric Opera probably won't schedule an encore performance of this revue anytime soon, there are a lot of upcoming events scheduled for the Lyric Theatre. To get advance notice, click HERE and sign up for Lyric Theatre news.