The canvas for London’s Sunday in the Park With George revival has officially gone blank. An announced production at London’s Barbican Centre next summer, to be led by screen Wicked co-stars Ariana Grande and Jonathan Bailey, is now uncertain following the departure of both of its banner stars. Grande pulled out of the revival last month, to take more personal, non-public time for herself. And now, Bailey has pulled out as well, as shared on the Olivier-winning actor’s Instagram stories (which only remain published for 24 hours).
In the statement, Bailey does not share reasons for the departure, stating simply that he made the decision “[a]fter much consideration[.]”
The revival’s producers, Empire Street Productions, posted their own statement on Instagram stories, sharing that they still expect the production to go forward as announced.
“Work on the production continues,” reads the unsigned statement. “Casting discussions are actively under way, and the creative team is reshaping the production around a new company while preserving the ambition and artistic integrity of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine‘s musical.”
The Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, featuring a book by James Lapine and a score by Stephen Sondheim, centers on French painter Georges Seurat as he’s completing his most famous work, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, and struggling to juggle the responsibilities a romantic relationship and the life of being an artist. The musical debuted on Broadway in 1984, Sondheim’s first outing after the end of his professional relationship with director Harold Prince. The work has become a classic of both the musical theatre and Sondheim canons, getting Broadway revivals in 2008 and 2017.
This revival would have not only reunited Bailey with Grande after co-starring as, respectively, Fiyero and Glinda in the two-part screen version of Wicked, but also Bailey with director Marianne Elliott. Tony and Olivier winner Elliott previously directed Bailey in the 2018 London revival of Sondheim’s Company, in which Bailey played the (not) “Getting Married Today” Jamie to Olivier-winning effect. That production, which changed the gender of several of its characters, transferred to Broadway in 2021 sans Bailey.
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