death by sondheim

I owe a large, massive, huge, site-consuming, tremendous, long, big-ass report of the 12 hours I spent at Wall to Wall Sondheim with Cheryl and Ginny on Saturday - not only because I know a lot of people who come here are also Sondheim fans but because things like this need to be recorded. Events like this must be put down. People must know. When you go to things like this - when you are part of things like this - when your memory is lucky enough to hold a thin shadow of the essence of something like this - it must be told.

This is the event I talked about here, which Arjuna made me aware of in one breathless voice mail. Arjuna couldn't come in from Cali, but I called him several times throughout to gush. More than 100 of the best performers in the world...12 hours of Sondheim. TWELVE HOURS.

Yes, all 12 hours. We were part of the crowd that made it impossible for everyone else to get in, we were Sondheim hogs, yes, yes, yes, guilty as charged. Sorry, those of you who lined up three times around the city block and couldn't take our seats because we wouldn't vacate them. I bought a subscription to get us priority admission and we still waited over an hour in the chilly morning, completely oblivious that we had forgotten to bring food and soon would be trapped in the theater under the threat that if we got up we could not get back in, because even the line for members was 150 people long. Look, I'm 25 and got into musical theater too late to have seen all these shows in their original incarnations - I claim being vitally deprived as my reasoning for moving about three millimeters to my left and right over a course of twelve hours.

Twelve hours. Have you ever tried to go 12 hours without food? Even if it's for Sondheim, by the 11th hour (ha ha ) we were really questioning our loyalty. Ginny had a doughnut which we split half of three ways once, and then half of three ways again, at the four and eight hour marks, as a feast of a celebration we had made it that far. Cheryl brought water, which we doled out very sparingly because the effort of bowling through our aisle to get to the bathroom was not worth it. I did not have my glasses, and so squinted most of the time. I had a wedding the night before and had only slept 3 hours - I think I did nod off during a couple of the numbers, particularly the one that was like Sondheim on the Prairie. When the show ended we staggered out and took a huge swig of cool night air, then stumbled into a deli so we could buy food to devour on our way to a diner, where we could order more substantial food. We were faint and weak and battered by the amazingness that had just taken place before our eyes. One of us got very ill on the way home.

But was it worth it? Every last food-deprived, gonna-eat-my-hand, numb-butt, hot-theater, my-neighbor-is-starting-to-smell, I'm-starting-to-smell, hey-wait-we-all-smell-now, bright-lighted, guilt-tripped minute.

Angela Lansbury doing "A Little Priest." Neil Patrick Harris on "Finishing the Hat." Michael Cerveris on EVERYTHING. Judy Kuhn reprising Passion. Jason Danieley reprising "Agony." Donna Murphy: "Losing my Mind." And the genius who thought to put Joss Whedon, Frank Rich, Andrew Lippa and Stephen Sondheim on a stage together and make them talk. I want to kiss these people. All of them. Long and wet.

More soon, that's a promise.