James Lapine to release book about creating Sunday In The Park With George musical

Photo credit: Matthew Murphy

A new book detailing three-time Tony Award winner James Lapine’s creative process on Sunday In The Park With George is to be released on 13 April 2021.

Titled Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created ‘Sunday in the Park with George’, the book will examine the two-year process of how the pair turned Georges Seurat's most famous piece of artwork, Sunday on the Island of La Grand Jatte, into a hit Broadway musical.

The text will include conversations between Lapine, Sondheim and members of the 1984 original company, notably Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters, who created the roles of George and Dot respectively. There will also be photographs, sketches, script notes and sheet music included.

The original production earned itself 10 Tony award nominations and received the 1985 Pulitizer Prize for Drama. It then went on to gain a further 9 Tony nominations for its 2008 Broadway revival, starring Daniel Evans and Jenna Russell.

The most recent production, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford, began with a concert staging at City Center in New York and will transfer to London in 2021 (having been postponed from this year due to the current pandemic).

The book can be pre-ordered here.