Broadway is heading into fall with casting news, long-awaited arrivals and one New York tradition celebrating a milestone of its own. Krysta Rodriguez is joining A Few Good Men, Galileo has added some formidable Broadway talent, The Fantasticks has finally assembled the company that will bring the legendary musical to Broadway, and the Broadway Flea Market & Grand Auction is turning 40. Off-Broadway, a new musical takes on the complicated world of teenage mental health, while out of town Signature Theatre offers a fresh look at Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along.

The Broadway production of Aaron Sorkin’s A Few Good Men continues to assemble an impressive company around the previously announced Bradley Whitford, who will play Col. Nathan R. Jessep, and Tom Blyth as Lt. Daniel Kaffee.

Rehearsal photo by Michaelah Reynolds

Joining them are Krysta Rodriguez, Stephanie Berry, Nick Blaemire, Michael Braugher, Christopher Gurr, Billy Eugene Jones, Collin Kelly-Sordelet, Shunté Lofton, Michael Oberholtzer, Lavel Schley, Thom Sesma, Daniel Velez and John Zdrojeski. Brendan Evan Behm, Alex Ekker, Drew Elhamalawy, Miles Fowler, Quentin Nguyen-duy and Stephen Michael Spencer complete the company as Marine and military personnel.

Rodriguez is an especially welcome addition. From Spring Awakening and The Addams Family to First Date and Into the Woods, she has repeatedly proved herself an actress capable of bringing intelligence and individuality to roles that could easily disappear in lesser hands. Pairing her with Whitford and Blyth makes this revival increasingly interesting.

Broadway’s upcoming musical Galileo has added Javier Muñoz, Bradley Dean and Jordon Lee Garcia, who will make his Broadway debut, to the company led by Raúl Esparza, Jeremy Kushnier and Joy Woods.

There is also an intriguing development in the title role. Michael Park will alternate with Esparza as Galileo at select performances. Park brings considerable stage credentials of his own, alongside his television work in Stranger Things, making this far more than conventional understudy casting.

With Esparza at its center and Muñoz, Dean and Park now joining the company, Galileo is quietly assembling the kind of cast that makes a new musical worth watching closely.

One of the theatre community’s most beloved annual rituals returns on Sunday, September 27, when the Broadway Flea Market & Grand Auction celebrates its 40th anniversary.

Produced by and benefiting Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, the sprawling outdoor event will once again take over West 44th and West 45th Streets, Shubert Alley and Times Square from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m., with the live auction beginning at 5 p.m.For Broadway fans, the Flea Market remains something wonderfully peculiar to New York: part treasure hunt, part reunion, part theatrical yard sale and part fundraiser. Forty years later, it is still one of the rare places where a piece of Broadway history might be sitting on a table waiting for someone to discover it.

It seems almost impossible. The Fantasticks is the longest-running musical in history, yet it has never actually played Broadway. That changes this fall.

Second Stage Theater has announced the complete company for the Broadway premiere, directed and choreographed by Tony Award winner Christopher Gattelli. Zane Phillips, making his Broadway debut, will play El Gallo, joined by Maxim Chlumecky as Matt, Nathan Levy as Lewis, Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer as Mildred Hucklebee, Ruthie Ann Miles as Bessie Mae Bellomy, David Patrick Kelly as Henry, Kevin del Aguila as Mortimer and Ahmad Simmons as The Mute.

The new interpretation makes a significant change to the familiar story, centering two boys and their two mothers, while retaining Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt’s tale of young love, parental interference, separation and reconciliation.

With its book and lyrics by Tom Jones and music by Harvey Schmidt, The Fantasticks has spent decades living just outside Broadway mythology while becoming one of the most enduring musicals ever written. Its score gave us “Try to Remember,” “Soon It’s Gonna Rain” and “They Were You,” songs that long ago escaped the boundaries of the original production.

Previews begin October 22 at the Hayes Theater, with opening night set for November 16. The engagement is scheduled for 15 weeks.

After all these years, The Fantasticks is finally moving a few blocks uptown.

KOTA Productions will present the world premiere of Sound Mind from September 17–20 at Urban Stages, timed to Suicide Prevention Awareness Month.

Featuring music and lyrics by Ray Andersen, known to younger audiences as mr. RAY, and a book and lyrics by Sheryl Berk, the musical follows a group of teenagers inside an inpatient mental health facility. Over 12 weeks, the characters confront depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, social phobia and other struggles while music becomes another language for experiences they have difficulty expressing.

Andersen’s score blends pop, hip-hop and rock with ballads, while the project itself grew from his experience watching a close family member spend time in a similar treatment facility. Andersen also has an unusual musical résumé, having performed with artists including Meat Loaf, Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi before building a career creating music for children.

An original cast album is scheduled for release in October.

There is always a danger when theatre tackles subjects this delicate that message overwhelms character. Sound Mind is attempting something more difficult: allowing teenagers to speak from inside those experiences rather than reducing them to diagnoses. That distinction will ultimately determine whether the musical succeeds.

Signature Theatre has released its first look at its new production of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Merrily We Roll Along, returning the musical to the Signature stage after a 20-year absence.

Jason Gotay, Jake Loewenthal and Melanie Field lead the company, with Matthew Gardiner directing and Jonathan Tunick’s orchestrations accompanying one of Sondheim’s most fascinating scores.

Told backward across 20 years, Merrily begins with friendships damaged by success, compromise and disappointment, then gradually strips away the cynicism until we finally meet the hopeful young people those adults once were. That reverse structure remains the show’s great cruelty: we already know what these people will lose while watching them discover everything they believe they are going to have.

The company also includes Kerstin Anderson as Beth Spencer, Maria Rizzo as Gussie Carnegie, James Whalen as Joe Josephson and Neal Gaensehals as Frank Jr., with an ensemble featuring Joel Ashur, Ben Beckley, Lindsay Nicole Chambers, Eric Easter, Jonah Ho’okano, Stephen Russell Murray, Beatrice Owens, Sarah Anne Sillers and Alondra Trinidad-Colon.

Its score contains “Good Thing Going,” “Not a Day Goes By” and, of course, “Our Time”—a song whose optimism becomes more devastating precisely because we know what happens next.

Between major Broadway castings, an Off-Broadway classic finally crossing onto Broadway, a 40-year theatre tradition and Sondheim once again asking us to look at who we were before life intervened, September is beginning to look very much like New York theatre has returned from summer vacation.

Broadway will go dark for a moment on Tuesday, September 8 at 6:45 p.m., when the marquees of all 41 Broadway theatres dim simultaneously in memory of 13 artists and industry figures whose work helped shape the theatre—and, in several cases, American culture far beyond it.

The September Broadway in Memoriam tribute will honor Tim Curry, Clive Davis, Gina Ferrall, Josh Grisetti, Jeff Hamlin, Glen Hansard, Louise Lasser, Anna Louizos, Seth Marquette, Dolly Parton, Anne Russell, James Walsh and Harold Wheeler.

There is something particularly moving about the Broadway tradition of dimming the lights. Theatre is built on illumination—the marquee, the footlights, the spotlight—and so Broadway marks loss by taking that light away. For a few moments, Times Square becomes noticeably darker, acknowledging that someone who contributed to its brilliance is no longer here.

This September’s list crosses nearly every corner of the industry. Tim Curry, forever associated with his indelible Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Show, was also a three-time Tony Award nominee whose Broadway career included Amadeus, My Favorite Year and Spamalot. Dolly Parton, whose songs, personality and unmistakable generosity made her one of America’s most beloved entertainers, also left her mark on Broadway through 9 to 5: The Musical and the theatrical projects that followed.

Clive Davis, Nancy Pelosi

Clive Davis, one of the towering figures of the recording industry, spent decades influencing the music that ultimately found its way onto stages as well as records. Glen Hansard, whose music helped give Once its singular heartbeat, became part of Broadway history when the intimate musical defied conventional Broadway expectations and captured the 2012 Tony Award for Best Musical.

Broadway will also remember the extraordinary orchestrator, composer, conductor and musical director Harold Wheeler, whose career stretched across decades and included work on The Wiz, Dreamgirls, The Full Monty, Hairspray and countless other productions. Wheeler’s contribution was often the kind audiences feel without necessarily knowing whose hand created it—the musical architecture beneath some of Broadway’s most memorable nights.

Anna Louizos and Ken Billington in The Producers Exhibit Photo credit Rebecca J Michelson

Theatre designer Anna Louizos gave physical form to stories through a career that included scenic and costume work and multiple Tony nominations.

Louise Lasser Photo Magda Katz

Louise Lasser, best known to much of America through television and film, also had roots on the New York stage. Gina Ferrall, Jeff Hamlin, Seth Marquette, Anne Russell and James Walsh will likewise be remembered for lives and careers connected to the Broadway community.

Josh Grisetti

For T2C, the inclusion of Josh Grisetti carries particular weight. Grisetti, who died at only 44, possessed the kind of talent that made an audience look twice: an actor with comic precision, musical intelligence and an individuality that could not be manufactured. His work ranged from the stage to television and film, but those who saw him in the theatre understood exactly what Broadway has lost.

The September ceremony is part of the relatively new Broadway in Memoriam initiative, established last year to create a more consistent and inclusive way of honoring members of the theatrical community. Rather than allowing recognition to depend upon sporadic individual marquee dimmings, the quarterly tradition gathers multiple members of the Broadway family into a shared remembrance.

The ceremony now takes place four times annually, on the second Tuesday of September, December, March and June, with all 41 Broadway theatres participating simultaneously. The committee can also designate a separate dimming for an individual whose contribution to Broadway is considered profoundly significant.

Members of the Broadway community may submit creative professionals who have worked on Broadway, as well as career professionals who devoted their lives to the industry, for future consideration. The next submission deadline is November 17, for the December 8, 2026 dimming. Information and submissions are available through Broadway in Memoriam.

Broadway is an unusual place. Shows disappear. Sets are struck. Costumes are packed away. Dressing rooms are emptied and another name eventually goes above the theatre door. An industry devoted to creating moments that vanish every night has always had a complicated relationship with permanence.

That is why September 8 matters.

At 6:45 p.m., Broadway will briefly extinguish the lights that ordinarily announce who is playing, what is opening and what audiences should see next.

For that moment, the darkness will say something else entirely:

We remember who was here.

Personal eVTOL aircraft and human-carrying multicopters are turning the long-standing idea of individual electric flight into a real, increasingly sophisticated category of aviation.

For generations, personal flight has occupied an unusual place in the public imagination. It has always seemed technically possible, yet conventional aircraft require airports, hangars, runways, specialized operating knowledge, and substantial infrastructure. Electric vertical takeoff and landing technology is beginning to change that equation. The emerging class of compact eVTOL aircraft, multicopters, and personal aerial vehicles suggests a future in which flying could become accessible to far more people.

The appeal is immediate. A vehicle rises vertically under electric power, carries its occupant above the ground, travels through open air, and descends without requiring a conventional runway. That basic capability represents a substantial change in the physical requirements traditionally associated with aviation.

Personal eVTOL machines are particularly interesting because electrification allows designers to reconsider the architecture of an aircraft. Instead of relying exclusively on one large combustion engine and a relatively small number of major propulsion components, many designs distribute propulsion among multiple electrically driven rotors.

That approach has produced aircraft that can look dramatically different from airplanes and helicopters. Some resemble oversized multicopter drones with a central cockpit or seat. Others incorporate enclosed cabins, wings, tilting propulsion systems, or combinations of vertical-lift and forward-flight technology.

The familiar consumer drone provides an easy conceptual introduction. Modern drones demonstrated that computers, sensors, electric motors, batteries, and automated stabilization could work together to keep a multirotor aircraft controllable. Scaling that principle sufficiently to transport a person is considerably more demanding, but the technological lineage is recognizable.

From Flying Drones to Human Flight

The phrase personal drone captures the excitement surrounding these machines, although an aircraft capable of carrying a human belongs to a much more consequential engineering and regulatory environment than a recreational drone.

Human-carrying aircraft need substantially greater levels of structural integrity, propulsion capability, energy storage, control authority, redundancy, and operational reliability. Every additional kilogram affects the energy required to lift the aircraft, which makes weight management one of the central challenges confronting electric aviation.

Batteries remain particularly important. Electric motors can deliver impressive power from relatively compact packages, while batteries still carry far less usable energy per unit of mass than conventional aviation fuels. Engineers therefore have to make careful decisions about range, payload, reserve energy, aircraft weight, rotor configuration, and performance.

This helps explain why some of the most compelling personal eVTOL concepts emphasize relatively short flights rather than attempting to duplicate the range of conventional airplanes. Short recreational flights, local transportation, operations across large properties, and carefully defined point-to-point journeys represent more realistic applications for many compact electric aircraft.

Distributed electric propulsion adds another dimension. Multiple motors and rotors can give designers considerable flexibility over the way lift is generated and controlled. Sophisticated flight-control software can continuously adjust individual motors to maintain the aircraft’s intended attitude and trajectory.

Automation may ultimately become one of the category’s most important developments. Traditional aircraft place significant responsibility on the pilot, requiring extensive training because operating an aircraft involves considerably more than steering toward a destination. Some emerging personal aircraft aim to move portions of that workload into computerized flight-control systems.

A highly automated aircraft can potentially translate relatively simple commands into a much more complicated series of adjustments performed continuously by onboard computers. The occupant indicates the desired movement while the control system manages stabilization and propulsion responses.

That does not eliminate the seriousness of aviation. Weather, airspace, obstacles, battery condition, mechanical integrity, emergency procedures, communications, navigation, and other aircraft remain fundamental considerations whenever people leave the ground.

The New Meaning of Personal Mobility

The broader promise of eVTOL technology becomes clearer when these vehicles are considered as transportation rather than technological curiosities.

Cars transformed personal mobility partly because they allowed individuals to determine when and where they traveled within an extensive road network. Personal aircraft have never achieved comparable accessibility because aviation requires another layer of infrastructure and expertise.

Vertical flight addresses one part of that limitation. Removing the runway can dramatically reduce the amount of land needed for departure and arrival, although safe operating areas, separation distances, charging facilities, maintenance arrangements, and appropriate airspace remain necessary.

Electric propulsion can address other aspects of the experience. Electric motors contain fewer moving components than many combustion propulsion systems and offer characteristics that are highly attractive for distributed propulsion. Electricity also creates opportunities for charging infrastructure that differ considerably from traditional aviation fueling.

Noise will be another decisive factor. An aircraft may be technologically capable of operating near populated areas while still being unsuitable if repeated flights create unacceptable sound levels. Rotor diameter, rotational speed, blade geometry, number of rotors, operating altitude, and flight profile can all influence the acoustic character of an eVTOL.

The best personal aircraft will consequently be judged by considerably more than whether they can fly. Practical machines will need to combine safety, manageable noise, useful endurance, sensible charging times, durability, serviceability, intuitive controls, and realistic operating costs.

Storage matters too. A personal aircraft becomes considerably more compelling if ownership does not require the logistical footprint associated with a conventional airplane. Designers pursuing compact dimensions, simplified charging, transportable configurations, and manageable maintenance are addressing some of the less glamorous issues that ultimately determine whether a technology fits everyday life.

Why Safety Will Define the Category

The enthusiasm surrounding personal eVTOL flight deserves to be matched by serious attention to safety.

A malfunctioning automobile can often be brought to a stop at the side of a road. An aircraft cannot rely on the same option while airborne. Consequently, redundancy and fault management are central considerations for any machine intended to carry people.

Multiple electric propulsion units create interesting possibilities in this area. Depending on the aircraft’s architecture, losing one component does not necessarily have to mean losing all propulsion. The actual safety consequences depend on the specific design, control system, remaining thrust capability, altitude, operating conditions, and certification standards.

Battery management is equally important. Cells must operate within appropriate electrical and thermal limits, and aircraft designers have to consider containment, monitoring, isolation, charging behavior, degradation, and emergency scenarios.

Software introduces another layer. When computers play a central role in maintaining stability, the reliability of sensors, processors, control logic, power distribution, communications, and their backup systems becomes critical.

Some aircraft may incorporate additional emergency systems appropriate to their architecture. The objective across the industry is straightforward, foreseeable failures should be anticipated and addressed before an aircraft carries people routinely.

This is why the path from an impressive prototype to a mature consumer aircraft is lengthy. Demonstrating controlled flight is an important engineering achievement. Producing repeatable, maintainable, regulated human transportation at meaningful scale demands substantially more development.

A Garage Full of Aircraft

The most intriguing vision is a genuinely personal aircraft, something purchased and operated with a degree of independence that earlier generations associated primarily with automobiles, motorcycles, boats, and recreational vehicles.

Such a future would create an entirely new ownership ecosystem. Charging equipment, replacement batteries or battery servicing, inspections, software updates, insurance, pilot education, maintenance networks, landing facilities, and airspace services would become parts of the ownership experience.

Dealerships could eventually look different as well. Electric aviation may create opportunities for specialized mobility centers where aircraft are demonstrated, serviced, charged, inspected, and supported. Owners would need technicians familiar with high-voltage electrical systems, composite structures, avionics, propulsion motors, batteries, and flight-control software.

Digital infrastructure would become equally important. Personal aviation at significant scale cannot simply consist of thousands of people independently choosing arbitrary paths through busy airspace. Navigation systems, geofencing, traffic awareness, identification, automated routing, weather information, and coordination with existing aviation systems could become increasingly sophisticated.

The result may therefore be more structured than the popular image of unrestricted flying suggests. Greater automation could make flight easier while simultaneously making operations more disciplined, with aircraft software helping occupants remain within permitted areas and appropriate operating conditions.

There is also likely to be considerable diversity within the market. A lightweight recreational multicopter intended for controlled environments has different requirements from an enclosed commuter aircraft designed to travel meaningful distances between dedicated landing locations.

That distinction matters when discussing whether everyone should eventually own one. Personal eVTOL aviation will probably develop through multiple categories rather than through a single universal flying vehicle.

Some people may own compact aircraft directly. Others may belong to flying clubs or fractional ownership programs. More capable eVTOL aircraft may operate as professionally managed transportation services. Recreational machines could occupy another segment entirely.

Making Flight More Accessible

What makes this technological movement culturally significant is its effort to simplify an activity that historically demanded substantial commitment.

Learning to fly a conventional aircraft is rewarding, but it requires training and continuing responsibility. Aircraft ownership similarly involves storage, maintenance, inspections, operating expenses, and regulatory obligations.

Automation has the potential to reduce some of that complexity for appropriate categories of aircraft. A future personal flying machine could monitor its own systems before departure, calculate whether sufficient energy is available, identify restricted airspace, evaluate operating parameters, assist with navigation, and continuously stabilize itself during flight.

The occupant’s experience could therefore become more focused on destination selection and supervisory control, depending on how regulations and technology evolve.

There will still be limits. Aircraft cannot safely ignore wind, visibility, precipitation, obstacles, weight restrictions, battery reserves, maintenance requirements, or airspace rules simply because their controls are easy to operate.

Responsible accessibility is therefore the more compelling objective. The breakthrough will come when personal flight becomes simpler without treating aviation as trivial.

That philosophy could produce an appealing new form of recreation. Flying above approved open areas in a compact electric aircraft could become an experience comparable in accessibility to other specialized outdoor activities, provided that the aircraft, location, regulation, and operator qualifications are appropriate.

It could also prove useful beyond recreation. Large farms, private estates, remote facilities, industrial sites, islands, and regions separated by difficult terrain present circumstances in which vertical electric aircraft may eventually offer practical advantages.

The Road to an eVTOL Future

Cost will inevitably determine how broadly personal eVTOL aircraft spread.

Early vehicles in technologically demanding categories tend to be expensive because production volumes are small and development costs are substantial. Aviation adds rigorous engineering, testing, quality control, maintenance, and regulatory requirements that cannot simply be removed in pursuit of a lower retail price.

Scale can nevertheless change economics. Improvements in batteries, motors, power electronics, manufacturing, sensors, computing, and composite structures can gradually influence what manufacturers are able to build and at what cost.

The automotive industry’s investment in electrification is relevant because electric aircraft can benefit indirectly from advances in adjacent technologies. Better cells, thermal-management systems, semiconductors, electric motors, manufacturing techniques, and charging technology can eventually influence aviation development.

Aircraft requirements remain different from those of cars, particularly because mass and reliability carry distinct consequences in flight. Technologies therefore need to be engineered specifically for aviation rather than transferred without modification.

Regulation will evolve alongside the machines. Governments and aviation authorities have the difficult responsibility of enabling innovation while protecting occupants, people on the ground, existing air traffic, and surrounding communities.

That process can appear slow beside the pace of prototype development, yet durable public confidence will depend on credible standards. A personal aircraft category that earns a strong safety record has a far greater chance of becoming culturally accepted.

Infrastructure will follow demand. Dedicated landing areas, charging points, maintenance facilities, training centers, and digitally coordinated routes could appear first in locations where operations are easiest to manage.

Cities present the greatest prize and some of the greatest complications. Dense populations create strong demand for faster transportation, while simultaneously increasing concerns involving noise, safety, privacy, airspace congestion, and suitable landing locations.

Less congested environments may consequently provide an important proving ground. Recreational areas and carefully controlled private sites can allow the technology and operating culture to mature before far greater numbers of aircraft appear in complex metropolitan airspace.

The long-term success of personal eVTOL aviation will depend on thousands of practical details being resolved well. Battery longevity has to be predictable. Maintenance must be accessible. Controls must communicate clearly. Emergency procedures must work. Owners need appropriate training. Regulators need confidence in the machines. Communities need confidence in the way they are operated.

When those elements converge, the concept stops looking like an oversized drone experiment and begins looking like a legitimate transportation category.

That is what makes today’s human-carrying electric aircraft so compelling. Their importance is greater than the novelty of seeing a multicopter lift a passenger from the ground. They represent an attempt to redesign personal aviation around electric propulsion, automation, vertical takeoff, compact architecture, and simpler interaction between humans and flying machines.

We may still be some distance from neighborhoods filled with privately owned aircraft, and widespread adoption will require careful regulation and proven safety. Yet the direction is increasingly tangible. Personal eVTOL development is giving engineers, regulators, manufacturers, and future owners a practical framework for considering what individualized electric aviation could become.

The dream behind these machines is ultimately quite straightforward. Build aircraft that are safe enough, quiet enough, intelligent enough, useful enough, and affordable enough that personal flight can reach people who would never have considered owning a traditional aircraft. If the industry can achieve those standards, having an electric flying vehicle available for an appropriate journey may eventually feel considerably less extraordinary than it does today.

What began as one of the most intriguing theatrical reunions of 2027 has now lost both of its stars.

Jonathan Bailey has withdrawn from the upcoming West End revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Sunday in the Park With George, following **Ariana Grande’s departure from the production last month. The two Wicked stars had been set to reunite onstage, with Bailey playing Georges Seurat and Grande taking on the dual roles of Dot and Marie.

Bailey described the Sondheim musical as a passion project, but acknowledged that the relationship between George and Dot lies at the center of the work and expressed his support for the actors who will ultimately inherit the roles.

“After much consideration, I have decided to step back from Sunday in the Park with George,” Bailey announced, adding that Grande remains one of his “dearest friends.”

His departure fundamentally changes what had made this revival such an event. Bailey and Grande weren’t simply two stars attached to a Sondheim musical; audiences had already invested in their chemistry as Fiyero and Glinda in Wicked. Seeing them tackle George and Dot—two artists bound together by love, ambition and the painful cost of creation—promised an entirely different examination of that connection.

Grande withdrew last month after announcing that she was stepping back from public visibility following the conclusion of her Eternal Sunshine tour in London. Her decision followed intense online discussion surrounding her appearance after the release of the music video for “Petal.”

The production, however, is not disappearing. Empire Street Productions confirmed that the revival remains scheduled for the Barbican Centre in London next summer, with Marianne Elliott directing. Producers say casting discussions are underway and that the creative team is now reshaping the production around a new company while maintaining the artistic ambitions of Sondheim and Lapine’s musical.

That is no small undertaking. Sunday in the Park With George is unusually dependent upon the chemistry between its two central performers. George and Dot are not conventional romantic leads. Their relationship is frustrating, intimate, selfish, loving and ultimately unfinished. The musical asks what an artist sacrifices in order to create—and what happens to the people who discover that they are competing with the work itself.

Replacing one half of that equation would have changed the production. Replacing both effectively creates a different production altogether.

It also leaves the Barbican revival with a fascinating casting problem. Grande and Bailey brought enormous international attention before a note had been sung. Their replacements will inevitably face comparisons to a pairing audiences never actually got to see.

Yet there is something appropriately Sondheim about what happens next. Sunday in the Park With George is, after all, a musical about making art when the picture refuses to come together the way you imagined.

As Sondheim wrote: “White. A blank page or canvas.” For Marianne Elliott and her creative team, that is essentially what they have again. Now they have to fill it.

I can generate a wordless image for this right now—which style should I use: empty Broadway-style stage with two abandoned spotlights, Seurat-inspired Paris park, or unfinished canvas and theatre lights?