Saturday Night Tickets

Stephen Sondheim’s first ever musical, the long delayed Saturday Night, is making its way to the Arts Theatre in March 2009, only 12 years after it originally premiered in 1997. The musical was originally due to premiere in the 1950s. It stars Helena Blackman and has already treaded the boards at the Jermyn Street Theatre earlier in the year.

Saturday Night finds its routes in the Epstein Brothers’ play by the name of Front Porch in Flatbush, which is why the two writers stayed on to write the book of Sondheim’s production. It is set in the world of 1929 at a time when the Wall Street Crash is just around the corner and the world of high society is an envious one with many caught up in its glitz and glamour. Our story is focussed on a group of five friends who make a decision to hit the town and find a way of changing their ‘single’ status. The five-some land in the Big Apple where the temptations are aplenty. Helene is a glamorous heiress, in line for a fortune, but she has some secrets burning under her skin. At the same time New York also holds Gene, a man who is about to cause himself a lot of trouble by creating some secrets of his own. To tempt the world of high society to him, he disguises himself as a millionaire.

Saturday Night is a story that belongs to the twentieth century. Set in 1929 with an original play written in 1951 and a musical based on it due to premiere in the same decade. It them premiered in 1997 in London and has spawned productions since. The delay of around forty years was due to the death of the show’s 1950s producer, which brought the production to a standstill. At that time Sondheim was still in his 20s, meaning he was in his 60s by the time the production finally found an audience at the Bridewell Theatre. Sondheim himself gave permission for the production following performances in London and Birmingham

Tom Littler directs this production with the help of Tom Attwood’s music direction. It features a cast that includes How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? star Helena Blackman as well as Charlie Cameron, Joanna Hickman and David Ricardo-Pearce. It is sure to be a great production that has already stirred up echoes of acclaim from the press during its run at the Jermyn Street Theatre.

Saturday Night is at the Arts Theatre from Wednesday 25th March 2009 to Saturday 11th April 2009.