Meryl Streep, Patti LuPone mark Sondheim's birthday

W42ST Daily 4/25/2020

Tomorrow, a stellar lineup including Laura Benanti, Melissa Errico, Sutton Foster, Josh Groban, Jake Gyllenhaal, Neil Patrick Harris, Patti LuPone, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Audra McDonald, Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Ben Platt, Randy Rainbow, and Meryl Streep will welcome the world into their living rooms to celebrate the legacy of Stephen Sondheim on his 90th birthday.

To mark the occasion, and to keep our musical theater skills laser sharp while we wait for Broadway to reopen, reader Kathleen Spinelli has created this Sondheim quiz. Happy birthday, maestro! (The answers are at the bottom of this email – no peeking!)

1. Sondheim won the 1998 Tony Award for Best Original Score for Into the Woods. What megahit beat it for Best Musical that year?

2. Complete this lyric from West Side Story: “Our mothers all are junkies, Our fathers all are drunks …”

3. “You must meet my wife,” sings Fredrick in A Little Night Music. And speaking of meter (ahem), what musically unites all the songs in this show?

4. In Assassins, Charlie Guiteau says: “The Lord’s my employer” – and what is He now?

5. Sondheim’s ‘Sooner or Later’ won the 1991 Academy Award for Original Song. Who performed it at the Oscars?

6. What is Sweeney Todd’s real name?

7. Complete this lyric from Company: “A matinee, a Pinter play …”

8. In Merrily We Roll Along, what historical viewing brings Frank, Charley and Mary to the rooftop of their tenement?

9. In Gypsy, Louise learns You Gotta Get a Gimmick from three strippers. Name them and their gimmicks.

10. During act one of Sunday in the Park with George, the Seraut paintings Bathers at Asnières and A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte are recreated on stage. Which two museums currently house these masterpieces?

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NEW YORK STORIES
Patrick J Hamilton knows a thing or two about making working from home work. He had to rethink his 485-square-foot Hell’s Kitchen studio apartment when a career change turned his living space into live/work space. Find out how he did it at w42st.com. Oh, and it’s Saturday, by the way. In case you weren’t sure.

DO THESE THINGS
Morning yoga
Get out of bed, stretch … doesn’t that feel better? Class starts at 11am, and it’s free. What are you waiting for? Register here.

Meditate
Our beautiful friends at Ameliora have teamed up with 212 Fitness to offer free 15-minute guided meditation sessions. Today’s starts at 1pm. Find out more here.

Go to a gala
It’s the Met Opera’s gala tonight – bougie! More than 40 artists will live stream from their homes. It’s live from 1pm. Start watching here.

Shake your booty
What do I miss most about my old life? This has to be one of the things. Zumba at Alvin Ailey is a high-energy, sweaty, can’t-stop-smiling blast. Doing it for free, virtually, is the next best thing. Tune in and dance at 6pm.

Get poetic
When some of us are struggling to put our complex emotions into words right now, we can rely on our greatest wordsmiths to do it for us. The Universe in Verse event has moved online, but will celebrate the natural world in all its wonder, virtually, with readings of Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Pablo Neruda and many others, read by a cast including Rosanne Cash, Patti Smith, Elizabeth Gilbert, and Neil Gaiman. Find out more.

Party with GLAAD
OK, Pride is cancelled. So, for now, this will have to do. Artists including Melissa Etheridge, Kathy Griffin, Kesha, Sharon Stone, and Michelle Visage perform in a fundraiser tomorrow night for LGBTQ advocacy. Find out more.

NAME GAME
What’s your name, and what three items are in your indispensable quarantine kit?

I’ll go first. Hey everyone, my name’s Ruth, and I couldn’t live without Clorox wipes, Knob Creek bourbon, and my electric toothbrush. How about you?

QUIZ ANSWERS
1. The Phantom of the Opera.
2.“Golly Moses, natcherly we’re punks!”
3. All are in ¾ time.
4 “My lawyer.”
5. Madonna.
6. Benjamin Barker.
7. “Perhaps a piece of Mahler’s.”
8. Sputnik.
9. Mazeppa/trumpet, Electra/lights up, Tessie Tura/ballerina.
10. The National Gallery, London, and Art Institute, Chicago.

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