Stephen Sondheim

Road Show

About this Album

“A boisterous picaresque about two brothers flimflamming their way from the Yukon to Boca Raton at the turn of the twentieth century.” —New York

Nonesuch Records and PS Classics released the original cast recording of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s Road Show—from 2008's Public Theater production—on June 30, 2009. The play was directed by John Doyle, the score conducted by Mary-Mitchell Campbell and orchestrated by Jonathan Tunick. Recorded in New York City in 2009, Road Show features Alexander Gemignani (Addison Mizner), Michael Cerveris (Wilson Mizner), Claybourne Elder (Hollis Bessemer), Alma Cuervo (Mama Mizner), and William Parry (Papa Mizner) and was produced by Tommy Krasker. Nonesuch released the cast recording of an earlier incarnation of Road Show—Bounce, also created by Sondheim and Weidman—in 2004.

Spanning 40 years, from the Alaskan Gold Rush to the Florida real estate boom in the 1930s, Road Show is the story of two brothers whose quest for the American dream turns into a test of morality and judgment that changes their lives in unexpected ways. Director John Doyle (Sweeney Todd and Company on Broadway), acclaimed for re-imagining Sondheim’s works, joins Weidman and Sondheim in exploring two of America’s great issues: capitalism and crooks.

John Weidman (book) also wrote the book for Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures and Assassins. He co-authored, with Timothy Crouse, the new book for Lincoln Center Theater’s revival of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes. Additionally, he wrote the book for Big and co-created Contact with Susan Stroman. His musical Happiness, written with Michael Korie and Scott Frankel and directed by Susan Stroman, opened at Lincoln Center Theater in the spring of 2009.