Coming in 2027!

It's official! A brand new version of Stephen Sondheim's painterly masterpiece starring Jonathan Bailey is eyeing a 2027 staging at the Barbican. Direction is set to come from Marianne Elliott, whose recent Tony-winning Broadway run of the composer's Merrily We Roll Along is currently enjoying new life in cinemas. With a book by James Lapine with music and lyrics by Sondheim, Sunday in the Park imagines the life of the post-impressionist painter Georges Seurat, who worked in Paris in the late 19th century and popularised pointillism, as seen in his most famous work,A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

The Show

The musical premiered on Broadway in 1984 and has since become a rare favourite of Sondheim's oeuvre, with the original production winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, two Tony Awards, and an Olivier Award.

The Story

The show centres on the painter Georges Seurat as he creates his most famous painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Art and reality merge as the show delves into Seurat's obsessive imagination, while also offering up glimpses into the lives of the people he immortalised on his canvas.