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Sunday in the Park with George

October 19 – November 17, 2012 Thursdays – Saturdays 7:30 p.m.; Sundays 2:00 p.m.

Wednesday, Nov. 7, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, Nov. 3 & Nov. 17, 2:00 p.m. Tickets by phone or online: 952-563-8575 or btacmn.org

Inspired by the painting “A Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte - 1884” by Georges Seurat, Sunday in the Park with George is a deeply insightful and highly personal examination of life and the creation of art. Through a soaring score of memorable music this show explores the lasting impact on its creators and future generations.

“The art of making art is putting it together.” Stephen Sondheim, Sunday in the Park with George

“A Sunday on the Island of La Grand Jatte - 1884” was purchased in 1924 for the Art Institute of Chicago for $24,000. Based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), that’s equal to $316,000 in today’s dollars. The estimated value of the painting exceeds $100 million. In 1999, a smaller study of the painting sold for $35.2 million.

Book by JAMES LAPINE

Music by STEPHEN SONDHEIM

Lyrics by STEPHEN SONDHEIM

Putting It Together

Sunday in the Park with GeorgeAudience Guide

1800 W Old Shakopee RoadBloomington, MN 55431Sponsored by

Above: “A Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte - 1884” by Georges Seurat, 1884-1886, oil on canvas, 6.8 ft × 10.1 ft, Art Institute of Chicago

Sunday in the Park with George

October 19 – November 17, 2012 Thursdays – Saturdays 7:30 p.m.; Sundays 2:00 p.m.

Wednesday, Nov. 7, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, Nov. 3 & Nov. 17, 2:00 p.m. Tickets by phone or online: 952-563-8575 or btacmn.org

Inspired by the painting “A Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte - 1884” by Georges Seurat, Sunday in the Park with George is a deeply insightful and highly personal examination of life and the creation of art. Through a soaring score of memorable music this show explores the lasting impact on its creators and future generations.

“The art of making art is putting it together.” Stephen Sondheim, Sunday in the Park with George

“A Sunday on the Island of La Grand Jatte - 1884” was purchased in 1924 for the Art Institute of Chicago for $24,000. Based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), that’s equal to $316,000 in today’s dollars. The estimated value of the painting exceeds $100 million. In 1999, a smaller study of the painting sold for $35.2 million.

Book by JAMES LAPINE

Music by STEPHEN SONDHEIM

Lyrics by STEPHEN SONDHEIM

Putting It Together

Sunday in the Park with GeorgeAudience Guide

1800 W Old Shakopee RoadBloomington, MN 55431Sponsored by

Above: “A Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte - 1884” by Georges Seurat, 1884-1886, oil on canvas, 6.8 ft × 10.1 ft, Art Institute of Chicago

Comments from the Directors

Karen Weber, Director

If there is one question every human being is wired to ask themselves, it is this: “How will I be remembered?”

If there is one inherent drive in all human beings, it is the need to create. In this, we change the world for the better, know that we matter, and will be remembered. The universal need to matter fuels our life decisions and can consume us. In this pursuit, some fail to place priority on people and relationships, believing they can wait. We underestimate our need to connect with others, and realize too late our decreasing ability to connect to anything at all. The two artists named George in this show are a mirror to us all. In their dogged pursuit of artistic expression, the profound personal toll resonates deeply.

Love, in all its incarnations, and what we do to enrich the world is all we have in the end. That is our highest calling, and coincidently, is what propels our greatest joys.

Rob Goudy, Associate Director

I was introduced to the world of Stephen Sondheim by Wendy Lehr in a summer theater arts training class at Children’s Theatre Company when I was 14 years old. The big opening number for our final presentation was “It’s Hot Up Here” from Sunday in the Park with George. As

a particularly curious young actor, I tracked down a VHS tape of the original Broadway production and promptly wore it out. I was transfixed—especially with those sacred words: “White. A blank page or canvas. So many possibilities.”

Here I stand 18 years later on a different side of the stage and I am still in awe of the nature of possibility. With a little more life under my belt, however, I find other passages from the show equally compelling: “Stop worrying where you’re going; move on. If you can know where you’re going; you’ve gone. Just keep moving on…”

Embrace the magic of possibility and move on!

Anita Ruth, Music Director

Many theater lovers feel Stephen Sondheim’s musicals are the epitome of musical theater. His work allows us to hear something new and let it unfold. He doesn’t give you rehashings of something you’re familiar with. He asks us to prick up our ears and listen to how the words and music go so beautifully together; to listen to songs that tell us the innermost thoughts and feelings of the characters; and to listen to songs that tell you the story; and that is the most important thing of all.

GEORGES SEURAT AND POINTILLISM “Originality depends only on the character of the drawing and the vision peculiar to the artist.” - Georges Seurat

French artist Georges Seurat (1859-1891) came to artistic maturity following the peak of the now famous style known as Impressionism. Though short lived, Seurat’s career left an important and enduring legacy on the history of art. His mesmerizing work “A Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte - 1884” is now

one of the most widely recognized paintings of its time and an iconic example of the Pointillist style. While Seurat’s paintings evoke the Impressionists’ love of brilliant color, they reflect a commitment to solidity, permanence, and order—the opposite of a fleeting “impression.” Seurat’s canvasses are dense with systematic brush strokes (and in later works, tiny dots) designed to combine in the viewer’s eye to create colors more luminous than mixed pigments. Seurat’s body of work comprises a handful of very large canvasses that often took more than a year and countless preliminary studies to complete.

“Some say they see poetry in my paintings; I see only science.” - Georges Seurat

Welcome to BCT’s Sunday in the Park with George!

Bonnie Erickson, Performing Arts Director

On behalf of Bloomington Theatre and Art Center (BTAC), welcome to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Sunday in the Park with George, Stephen Sondheim’s highly acclaimed musical.

This audience guide is designed to convey what is unique and beautiful about this concept musical and enlighten you about what you will see and hear. In the future, we look forward to providing additional guides in print and online to help you get the most from your theater experience.

We bring you this show as part of a diverse theater season designed to provide audiences with extraordinary arts experiences that entertain, educate, and inspire. To accomplish that, we offer an engaging mix of productions that include the familiar as well as newer and more challenging shows. The opportunity to create Sunday in the Park with George has long been awaited by the artists involved with this production.

Thank you for joining us!

SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE SYNOPSIS As the audience enters the theater, the curtain is up and they see a white room. It could be a gallery, or a piece of fresh drawing paper, or maybe a canvas. The painter Georges Seurat enters and starts the play: “White. A blank page or canvas. So many possibilities.” The orchestra swells and the white walls fly away to reveal a beautifully balanced and perfectly pointillistic Parisian island in 1884. This is the subject of Seurat’s world-famous masterpiece “A Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte.”

Throughout Act I, we meet the artist and the characters that inspired his Sunday promenaders: a stuffy rival painter and his exacting wife, Seurat’s elegantly aging mother and her spunky nurse, a gruff boatman and his surprisingly talkative dog, flirtatious shop girls, dashing soldiers, and most importantly, Dot, Georges’ charming and vivacious mistress. As Georges struggles to perfect his groundbreaking new painting techniques, Dot discovers there may be more to life than playing the artist’s muse. She decides to depart for America with her newborn baby and newlywed husband, leaving Georges to finally finish his astonishing masterwork in perfect harmony.

Act II surges forward one hundred years to 1984 America, where we meet another artist named George in a similarly sticky situation. Divorced and battling the cocktail-party-driven modern art world, he looks to the past for insight. His grandmother Marie has the perfect link: a red notebook that connects her mother Dot to the now infamous Neo-impressionist Georges Seurat. Could 1984 George be descended from artistic greatness? When he travels to the now infamous Parisian island, George finds the divine inspiration to wipe the canvas clean, restart his life, and move on.

THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY

While part of the show is loosely based on true stories, overall the musical fictionalizes the life of Seurat. We don’t know if Seurat personally knew any of the people in his painting as he kept very few notes. In real life, he had two sons with his mistress—both who died in infancy—and she still lived with him upon his death. She never immigrated to America and she died at age 35.

(Photo courtesy of Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike)

Today: View of La Grande Jatte Island from Neuilly Bridge.

THINGS TO WATCH AND LISTEN FOR DURING SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE…

Sunday in the Park with George has been termed a “concept” musical (where the overarching metaphor is more important than the actual dialogue) versus a traditional musical. The story is told in a fragmented approach where the past and present overlap.

A conflict for many of us is how to balance life with work. So is the case for Georges Seurat struggling with how to balance life and art in Act I. The conflict is brought to resolution 100 years later by George, his great-grandson, in Act II. Both are on parallel journeys.

Sondheim describes the songs in this musical as “elements”, relating to the idea that they are artwork within the show. The intent is to punctuate and mirror the emotional content of the lyric as well as the physical action in the scene. You’ll notice many cases where Sondheim uses staccato passages—where each sound is short and distinct from the other sounds—to reflect Seurat’s use of small strokes of paint. Sondheim also uses dissonant chords to mirror the upset and chaos on stage. It finally gives way to beautiful, clear harmony when resolution is achieved.

The show contains a few new technical effects—be sure to watch the sketching of the dogs come to life through animation; see Georges’ progression as he creates the painting “A Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte - 1884” and experience the lights, color, and sounds of Act II George’s Chromolume #7 Light Installation as they surround you in the audience.

Progressive detail demonstrating Seurat’s Pointillist technique.

Comments from the Directors

Karen Weber, Director

If there is one question every human being is wired to ask themselves, it is this: “How will I be remembered?”

If there is one inherent drive in all human beings, it is the need to create. In this, we change the world for the better, know that we matter, and will be remembered. The universal need to matter fuels our life decisions and can consume us. In this pursuit, some fail to place priority on people and relationships, believing they can wait. We underestimate our need to connect with others, and realize too late our decreasing ability to connect to anything at all. The two artists named George in this show are a mirror to us all. In their dogged pursuit of artistic expression, the profound personal toll resonates deeply.

Love, in all its incarnations, and what we do to enrich the world is all we have in the end. That is our highest calling, and coincidently, is what propels our greatest joys.

Rob Goudy, Associate Director

I was introduced to the world of Stephen Sondheim by Wendy Lehr in a summer theater arts training class at Children’s Theatre Company when I was 14 years old. The big opening number for our final presentation was “It’s Hot Up Here” from Sunday in the Park with George. As

a particularly curious young actor, I tracked down a VHS tape of the original Broadway production and promptly wore it out. I was transfixed—especially with those sacred words: “White. A blank page or canvas. So many possibilities.”

Here I stand 18 years later on a different side of the stage and I am still in awe of the nature of possibility. With a little more life under my belt, however, I find other passages from the show equally compelling: “Stop worrying where you’re going; move on. If you can know where you’re going; you’ve gone. Just keep moving on…”

Embrace the magic of possibility and move on!

Anita Ruth, Music Director

Many theater lovers feel Stephen Sondheim’s musicals are the epitome of musical theater. His work allows us to hear something new and let it unfold. He doesn’t give you rehashings of something you’re familiar with. He asks us to prick up our ears and listen to how the words and music go so beautifully together; to listen to songs that tell us the innermost thoughts and feelings of the characters; and to listen to songs that tell you the story; and that is the most important thing of all.

GEORGES SEURAT AND POINTILLISM “Originality depends only on the character of the drawing and the vision peculiar to the artist.” - Georges Seurat

French artist Georges Seurat (1859-1891) came to artistic maturity following the peak of the now famous style known as Impressionism. Though short lived, Seurat’s career left an important and enduring legacy on the history of art. His mesmerizing work “A Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte - 1884” is now

one of the most widely recognized paintings of its time and an iconic example of the Pointillist style. While Seurat’s paintings evoke the Impressionists’ love of brilliant color, they reflect a commitment to solidity, permanence, and order—the opposite of a fleeting “impression.” Seurat’s canvasses are dense with systematic brush strokes (and in later works, tiny dots) designed to combine in the viewer’s eye to create colors more luminous than mixed pigments. Seurat’s body of work comprises a handful of very large canvasses that often took more than a year and countless preliminary studies to complete.

“Some say they see poetry in my paintings; I see only science.” - Georges Seurat

Welcome to BCT’s Sunday in the Park with George!

Bonnie Erickson, Performing Arts Director

On behalf of Bloomington Theatre and Art Center (BTAC), welcome to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Sunday in the Park with George, Stephen Sondheim’s highly acclaimed musical.

This audience guide is designed to convey what is unique and beautiful about this concept musical and enlighten you about what you will see and hear. In the future, we look forward to providing additional guides in print and online to help you get the most from your theater experience.

We bring you this show as part of a diverse theater season designed to provide audiences with extraordinary arts experiences that entertain, educate, and inspire. To accomplish that, we offer an engaging mix of productions that include the familiar as well as newer and more challenging shows. The opportunity to create Sunday in the Park with George has long been awaited by the artists involved with this production.

Thank you for joining us!

SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE SYNOPSIS As the audience enters the theater, the curtain is up and they see a white room. It could be a gallery, or a piece of fresh drawing paper, or maybe a canvas. The painter Georges Seurat enters and starts the play: “White. A blank page or canvas. So many possibilities.” The orchestra swells and the white walls fly away to reveal a beautifully balanced and perfectly pointillistic Parisian island in 1884. This is the subject of Seurat’s world-famous masterpiece “A Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte.”

Throughout Act I, we meet the artist and the characters that inspired his Sunday promenaders: a stuffy rival painter and his exacting wife, Seurat’s elegantly aging mother and her spunky nurse, a gruff boatman and his surprisingly talkative dog, flirtatious shop girls, dashing soldiers, and most importantly, Dot, Georges’ charming and vivacious mistress. As Georges struggles to perfect his groundbreaking new painting techniques, Dot discovers there may be more to life than playing the artist’s muse. She decides to depart for America with her newborn baby and newlywed husband, leaving Georges to finally finish his astonishing masterwork in perfect harmony.

Act II surges forward one hundred years to 1984 America, where we meet another artist named George in a similarly sticky situation. Divorced and battling the cocktail-party-driven modern art world, he looks to the past for insight. His grandmother Marie has the perfect link: a red notebook that connects her mother Dot to the now infamous Neo-impressionist Georges Seurat. Could 1984 George be descended from artistic greatness? When he travels to the now infamous Parisian island, George finds the divine inspiration to wipe the canvas clean, restart his life, and move on.

THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY

While part of the show is loosely based on true stories, overall the musical fictionalizes the life of Seurat. We don’t know if Seurat personally knew any of the people in his painting as he kept very few notes. In real life, he had two sons with his mistress—both who died in infancy—and she still lived with him upon his death. She never immigrated to America and she died at age 35.

(Photo courtesy of Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike)

Today: View of La Grande Jatte Island from Neuilly Bridge.

THINGS TO WATCH AND LISTEN FOR DURING SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE…

Sunday in the Park with George has been termed a “concept” musical (where the overarching metaphor is more important than the actual dialogue) versus a traditional musical. The story is told in a fragmented approach where the past and present overlap.

A conflict for many of us is how to balance life with work. So is the case for Georges Seurat struggling with how to balance life and art in Act I. The conflict is brought to resolution 100 years later by George, his great-grandson, in Act II. Both are on parallel journeys.

Sondheim describes the songs in this musical as “elements”, relating to the idea that they are artwork within the show. The intent is to punctuate and mirror the emotional content of the lyric as well as the physical action in the scene. You’ll notice many cases where Sondheim uses staccato passages—where each sound is short and distinct from the other sounds—to reflect Seurat’s use of small strokes of paint. Sondheim also uses dissonant chords to mirror the upset and chaos on stage. It finally gives way to beautiful, clear harmony when resolution is achieved.

The show contains a few new technical effects—be sure to watch the sketching of the dogs come to life through animation; see Georges’ progression as he creates the painting “A Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte - 1884” and experience the lights, color, and sounds of Act II George’s Chromolume #7 Light Installation as they surround you in the audience.

Progressive detail demonstrating Seurat’s Pointillist technique.

putting it together - btacmn.orgbtacmn.org/2perform/at_theaters/schneider/images/swg-audience... ·...

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