Barbara Cook, Vanessa Williams, Michael Arden & Leslie Kritzer to Star in Sondheim on Sondheim

Barbara Cook, Vanessa Williams, Michael Arden and Leslie Kritzer will topline the new musical Sondheim on Sondheim, to be presented at Roundabout Theatre Company's Studio 54. The original tuner, conceived and directed by James Lapine and featuring music and lyrics by living legend Sondheim, begins previews March 12, 2010, with opening set for April 22. The limited engagement plays through June 13, 2010. Additional casting will be announced shortly.

Sondheim on Sondheim is billed as an intimate portrait of the famed composer in his own words and music. Using exclusive interview footage, audiences will get an inside look at Sondheim’s personal life and artistic process. An ensemble cast will perform brand-new arrangements of over two dozen Sondheim tunes, ranging from the beloved to the obscure. The productions aims to be a look inside the life and mind of an ordinary New Yorker…with an extraordinary talent.

Sondheim is the composer and lyricist behind Passion, Assassins, Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George, Merrily We Roll Along, Sweeney Todd, Pacific Overtures, The Frogs, A Little Night Music, Follies, Company, Anyone Can Whistle and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Additionally, he has penned lyrics for Candide, West Side Story, Gypsy and Do I Hear a Waltz? Among his numerous awards are six Tony Awards for Best Score and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Sunday in the Park with George.

Tony Award winner Lapine has collaborated with Sondheim on Into the Woods, Passion and Merrily We Roll Along. His Broadway credits include The Diary of Anne Frank, Golden Child, Dirty Blonde, Amour, Impromptu, Life with Mikey, Earthly Possessions and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

Cook returns to the Broadway musical stage after a 37-year hiatus. The acclaimed actress won the 1958 Tony Award for her portrayal of Marian in The Music Man. Additional credits include Candide and She Loves Me. Her various concerts include Barbara Cook at Carnegie Hall and A Concert for the Theatre. She has been called on of the greatest interpreters Sondheim's compositions, and received a Tony Award nomination for Best Theatrical Event for her solo, limited engagement concert Mostly Sondheim in 2002.

Grammy Award winner Williams returns to Broadway after her 2002 Tony Award nominated performance in Sondheim's Into the Woods. She made her Broadway debut in 1994 in Kiss of the Spider Woman, following the release of her solo hit albums The Right Stuff, The Comfort Zone and The Sweetest Days. Her various credits as a television and film actress include Another You, Eraser, Hoodlum, Dance with Me, Light it Up, Shaft and her current gig on the hit series Ugly Betty.

Arden's Broadway credits include Big River and The Times They are a Changin'. Off-Broadway and regional appearences include Bare, Swimming in the Shallows, It's Only Live, JUNO, Pippin, Ace and Harold and Maude. On television, he has been seen on Bones, The Closer, Kings and Grey's Anatomy.

Kritzer has been seen on Broadway in A Catered Affair, Legally Blonde and Hairspray. Off-Broadway credits include Rooms, On the Town, The Great American Trailer Park Musical, Bat Boy and Godspell. She notably channeled Patti LuPone in her acclaimed Joe's Pub run of Leslie Kritzer is Patti LuPone at Les Mouches.

Roundabout Theatre Company has a long relationship with Stephen Sondheim, having produced five Tony Award nominated revivals including Company (1995) and Follies (2001), and the Tony Award winning Assassins (2004), Pacific Overtures (2004) and Sunday in the Park with George (2008). Sondheim on Sondheim marks the fourth Sondheim musical produced by Roundabout at Studio 54. In 2009 Roundabout presented a one-night only gala concert reading of A Little Night Music starring Natasha Richardson, Victor Garber and Vanessa Redgrave.

Sondheim on Sondheim’s design team includes Beowulf Boritt (sets), Susan Hilferty (costumes), Ken Billington (lights), Dan Moses Schreier (sound), Peter Flaherty (projections), David Loud (musical Director).