Many individuals, some famous, some not, have impacted me along my journey. Stephen Sondheim had a great effect on my feelings about musical theatre, and on my career, from the moment I saw COMPANY in 1970. This was the first Broadway show I ever saw, and it ended up affecting everything.<\/p>\n
A decade later, I acted in my first Sondheim show, playing Bobby in COMPANY.<\/em> I went on to productions of A Little Night Music, Sunday In The Park With George, <\/em>and Into The Woods.<\/em><\/p>\n There were also three productions of SWEENEY TODD,<\/em> spread out over 25 years. (I first met Mr. Sondheim during our 1996 Goodspeed Opera House production, which was the first scaled-down version of the show ever attempted.)<\/p>\n In 2005, I joined a production of Sondheim\u2019s PASSION<\/em> at the Rose Theatre at Lincoln Center, directed by Lonny Price; I played Colonel Ricci and appeared with Patti Lupone<\/strong>, Michael Cerveris, <\/strong>and Audra McDonald<\/strong>. (I didn\u2019t realize when I accepted the offer that one of our performances was going to be LIVE-TELEVISED<\/strong><\/u>, something I came to find utterly terrifying.)<\/p>\n Following our final performance I attended the after-party at the Rose and, as I was chatting with our stage manager Dan DaSilva<\/strong>, I noticed Mr. Sondheim across the room. He saw me, made a beeline towards me, and said, \u201cI want to tell you: You were just terrific.\u201d<\/p>\n I can\u2019t fully express what his words have done for me in the ensuing nineteen years. It\u2019s a memory that\u2019s gotten me through countless disappointments. He had a great impact on me, and I mourn his absence from the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [aesop_image force_fullwidth=”off” lightbox=”off” captionposition=”left” captionsrc=”custom” align=”center” imgwidth=”100%” img=”https:\/\/performingartslegacy.org\/fitzpatrickallen\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/206\/2024\/09\/1995-STEPHEN-SONDHEIM-and-Allen-Goodspeed.jpg” panorama=”off”] Many individuals, some famous, some not, have impacted me along my journey. Stephen Sondheim had a great effect on my feelings about musical theatre, and on my career, from the moment I saw COMPANY in 1970. This was the first Broadway show I ever saw, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":218,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-highlight"],"metadata":{"_edit_last":["218"],"_wpac_members_redirect_to":[""],"_wpac_show_in_search":["0"],"_wpac_show_excerpt_in_search":["0"],"_wpac_nonmembers_redirect_to":[""],"ase_chapter_enable_timeline":["off"],"ase_map_component_start_point":["a:2:{s:3:\"lat\";d:29.76;s:3:\"lng\";d:-95.38;}"],"ase_mapbox_style":["openstreet"],"_edit_lock":["1725590443:218"]},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n