Joining two-time Tony Award winner Bernadette Peters and Tony Award winner Lea Salonga in Cameron Mackintosh’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends will be Jasmine Forsberg, Kate Jennings Grant, David Harris, Bonnie Langford, Tony Award winner Beth Leavel, two-time Tony Award nominee Gavin Lee, Ryan McCartan, multiple Olivier Award nominee Jason Pennycooke, two-time Olivier Award winner Joanna Riding, Jeremy Secomb, Maria Wirries, and Daniel Yearwood. The company will also include Kevin Earley, Paige Faure, Alexa Lopez, and Peter Neureuther. The final co-star will be announced soon.
Cameron Mackintosh said today, “It was Steve’s idea to do a third revue of his work but sadly he died before we had pieced it all together. I always wanted this one to be driven by his greatest melodies. To celebrate his great life and legacy I wanted to put on an all-star gala in London but first I had to finish the hat. Miraculously, in only a few days all the shows, songs, and fun we had enjoyed together fell onto the page in sequence (undoubtedly nudged from above by Steve) and the running order has hardly changed since. The gala was wonderful but more importantly, proved that the material wasn’t just a concert, but the great big Broadway show Steve wanted it to be. For our West End season, Matthew Bourne and I put together an all-star ensemble of old friends, led by Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga, around whom we wove the material as if in a play. I am thrilled that nearly half of our rapturously received London old friends are able to join our brilliant new American friends to bring this show to Broadway. It's an added delight that I am reunited with Lynne Meadow and MTC, with whom Steve and I did our second revue, Putting it Together, starring the incomparable Julie Andrews. For all of us working on this show it is our love letter and thank you to Steve – a musical genius but also an old friend whose brilliant work and memory will last forever.”
Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles presents the North American premiere of Old Friends at the Ahmanson Theatre from February 8 through March 9, 2025 in advance of the Broadway premiere. “Sales for Old Friends have been so great that it has become the anchor of our season,” said Douglas C. Baker, Producing Director of Center Theatre Group. “For many performances, we have had to open up the Ahmanson Theatre to full capacity due to Center Theatre Group’s subscription for the 2024/25 season outpacing expectations. Single tickets go on sale on November 20th.”
Old Friends is a great big Broadway show born out of Cameron Mackintosh and Stephen Sondheim’s lifetime of friendship and collaboration. The two of them came up with the idea during the pandemic, drawing on the many shows that they had done together in collaboration with their good friend Julia McKenzie. Once theatres reopened in London and New York in the fall of 2021, Mackintosh was able to visit Sondheim again and this new show remained something they continued to discuss; but, sadly, shortly after, Sondheim passed away in November 2021. It fell to Mackintosh to pick up where he and Sondheim left off, collating their notes, and structuring the show that would initially become a spectacular star-studded gala at the Sondheim Theatre in London’s West End in May 2022 to celebrate Sondheim’s life and work, and also raise funds for the newly formed Stephen Sondheim Foundation. The gala won Best Theatre Event at the 2023 WhatsOnStage Awards and was subsequently broadcast on TV by the BBC.
Mackintosh, who both produced and devised the evening, directed by his long-time collaborator Matthew Bourne, was encouraged by how brilliantly the material held together. They decided to rework the show for a run at the Gielgud Theatre from September 2023 with an all-star ensemble cast headed by legendary Broadway stars Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga, alongside a dazzling array of West End co-stars drawn from many of Mackintosh’s old friends who had been featured in his productions. The Old Friends company performed some of the greatest songs ever written for musical theatre by one of theatre’s greatest geniuses. Old Friends at the Gielgud became an instant legend and an unforgettable evening that earned a bevy of five-star raves and was hailed by The Times as “unmissable musical theatre.”
Manhattan Theatre Club, in association with CMI and Daryl Roth, presents Cameron Mackintosh’s Production of Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends. Directed by Matthew Bourne, side by side with Julia McKenzie, with choreography by Stephen Mear. Musical supervision is by Alfonso Casado Trigo and Stephen Brooker, musical arrangements by Stephen Metcalfe, and conducted by Annbritt duChateau. Set design by Matt Kinley, projection design by George Reeve, costume design by Jill Parker, lighting design by Warren Letton and sound design by Mick Potter. Casting is by Tara Rubin Casting. Production Stage Manager is David Lober.