Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created “Sunday in the Park with George”
By James Lapine
Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374200091
Hardcover/e-Book
$40.00
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 9780374200091
416 Pages

Review by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON, Mass. — The world is on fire right now: Texas has nearly outlawed abortion access. The women and girls of Afghanistan are being systematically stripped of their human rights as the world watches. There is still a pandemic and not nearly enough people are getting vaccinated. People in Louisiana don’t have electric power. The West Coast is experiencing a severe drought. The people of Haiti are still recovering from a devastating earthquake on August 14. But, we’re still expected to behave like everything is okay. Things aren’t okay. 

I made a promise to post a book review in exchange for a copy of Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created “Sunday in the Park with George.”  It was difficult to read this book. It isn’t the book’s fault that extenuating circumstances made focus of any kind difficult. August was a difficult month. The book itself is great. 

Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created “Sunday in the Park with George” is a book by writer and director James Lapine on the genesis and exegesis of creating the famous musical with Stephen Sondheim about the paining “Un dimanche après-midi à l’Ile de la Grande Jatte” by Georges Seurat.  Continue reading →