Over the next three months, a handful of Madison-area theater companies will pull off the equivalent of a big, jazzy kickline when they produce four Sondheim musicals all in a row.

It’s a creative choice these companies hope will mean more butts in seats for each production from February through May, as well as a celebration of a composer widely credited with changing American musical theater.

“I think we’ll be able to build buzz at each show,” said Sarah Marty, the co-founder and producing artistic director of Four Seasons Theatre. “It’s a way for folks who like musical theater to discover other companies they haven’t necessarily attended before.”

Four Seasons’ production of “Company,” Stephen Sondheim’s 1970 musical comedy about the stresses, joys and impossibilities of married life, opens this week in the Overture Center Playhouse.

“Company” will be followed by “A Little Night Music” at University Opera (March 14-16), “Marry Me A Little” produced by Music Theatre of Madison (April 24-26) and “Merrily We Roll Along” at Middleton Players Theatre (May 9-18).

Though the Pulitzer- and Tony-winning composer died in November 2021, Madison’s spring of Sondheim was not intended as a posthumous tribute.

“The genesis of it was organic,” said Thomas Kasdorf, who is involved in three out of the four productions. “It happened in conversations with Sarah and David (Ronis, of University Opera) about, ‘What if we helped each other cross-promote?’”

Kasdorf is directing “Company,” vocal coaching “Night Music” and both directing and music directing “Merrily.”

“In the world right now, fraught with political turmoil and everything that’s going on, to really be able to focus in on relationships — that’s something universal,” he said.

First comes ‘Company’

Arguably the first Sondheim musical to break the mold, “Company” centers Bobby (played at Four Seasons by Chaz Ingraham), a 35-year-old single guy dating around in late 1960s New York.

Bobby is surrounded by his married friends — five couples in various stages of engagement, marriage and divorce for whom he serves as a confidant, buddy, romantic temptation and vicarious bachelor. The show is structured like a series of comic vignettes, as Bobby wrestles with when and how to commit to another person.

Revivals of “Company” have cast actors who played their own instruments (2006) and switched Bobby (male) to Bobbie (female, 2019). A national tour of the “Bobbie” revival went out in 2023-24, which meant Four Seasons had to wait to get the rights even to the earlier script.  

Marty, who directs “Company,” said the gender-swapped, updated-to-now version didn’t land right for her.

“So many people are not getting married today,” she said. Four Seasons is keeping the time period but playing a 2021 re-orchestration of the score, with 14 musicians on the Playhouse stage.

“I really love working on Sondheim productions (because) it’s challenging,” Marty said. “He weaves little motives throughout. … The fun part is uncovering all the intersections, the web of how each character is related to another character, and how that shows up in the music and the words and the text.”

‘A Little Night Music’ 

“A Little Night Music,” featuring a vocal quintet, is University Opera’s choice, running March 14-16 in Shannon Hall. With a story by Hugh Wheeler, the 1973 “Little Night Music” was inspired by an Ingmar Bergman film about an aging actress, Desiree (Madison Barrett), and what happens when her married lovers converge at her mother’s estate for a very dramatic “weekend in the country.”

The cast features students and alumni performing in a larger theater with fly space to move sets in and out — space the University of Wisconsin-Madison opera performers don’t have in Music Hall.

“It’s a bigger show than some that we do,” said David Ronis, director of University Opera, who directed “Sweeney Todd” at the opera in 2023. “We look at our students and we say, ‘What pieces work for these voice types?’ and then, ‘What about our educational mission?’”

The score of “Little Night Music” has operatic crossover. Four Seasons produced the musical in 2012, and Madison Opera put it up in 2019.

“Having classically trained singers, I mean — well, the music is great no matter what,” Ronis said. “But if the voices are that much more beautiful, I really like it a lot.”

‘Marry Me A Little’

In late April, Music Theatre of Madison will produce the second of five (!) total Sondheim revues. “Marry Me A Little,” a two-hander staged at The Bur Oak on Madison’s east side, was written in 1980 and features songs cut from earlier Sondheim shows, like “Follies” and “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.”

Music Theatre of Madison (MTM) tends to choose under-the-radar, edgy musicals, like “Murder Ballad” and “Who’s Your Baghdaddy?” This is only the company’s second Sondheim show since its founding in 2006. (The first was “Assassins,” in 2007.)

MTM artistic director Meghan Randolph said they chose “Marry Me A Little” in part because of the story. Two lonely single people, played by Abby Nichols and Amanda Rodriguez, can hear each other in their separate apartments but struggle to connect.

“It’s artist-focused,” Randolph said. “I knew we had to get two really strong actors who could keep the momentum going.”

“Marry Me” is rarely produced, though usually cast with a man and a woman. Director Emily Glick opened up MTM’s auditions to all genders and intends to let the story play out in shades of romantic interest and friendship.

‘Merrily We Roll Along’

Finally, Middleton Players Theatre is planning a whole summer of Sondheim, starting with “Merrily We Roll Along” May 9-18 in the Middleton PAC black box theater.

Once a notorious Sondheim flop, this 1981 musical made its way back into regular repertoire thanks in part to a starry 2023 revival featuring Daniel Radcliffe. (Locally, Capital City Theatre produced “Merrily” in 2022 with students from its Find Your Light program.)

“If, you know, Daniel Radcliffe helps put more butts in the seats, I’m very happy,” said Kasdorf, MPT’s artistic director. “This show has always had a cult following within the theater community.”

One reason “Merrily” struggled when it opened is because of the story structure, which is told in reverse over two decades. The show opens on a party hosted by Frank, a successful Hollywood producer. His second marriage is failing and his relationships with his two oldest friends — Mary, who silently loves him, and his former creative partner Charlie — have fallen apart.

Middleton Players produced the revue “Sondheim on Sondheim” in 2023, “Sweeney Todd” in 2018 and “Sunday in the Park with George” in 2016. The company will follow up this latest production with even more Sondheim: “Into the Woods,” full of warped fairy tales, in July, and Sondheim’s only non-musical play, “Getting Away with Murder,” in August.

A range of Sondheim

Though not all casting has been announced, Kasdorf confirmed that several local actors will appear in more than one Sondheim show this year.

For example, Kate Jajewski will play Amy in “Company” and Mary in “Merrily.” Her husband, Dan Jajewski, is Paul in “Company” and understudying Sam Taylor in “Merrily.” Taylor is also in both shows.

“I just think how wonderful this is for actors to be able to work on this kind of repertoire,” Kasdorf said, “and to have the exposure for audiences to a vividly different range of Sondheim.”

Tickets for the first three shows (not including “Merrily”) are available now. Each company uses a different ticketing platform, so there are no packages.

“In the Madison area, we’re very reliant on individual donors and business sponsorships to be able to produce art,” Marty said. “At a time where the arts are under an immense amount of pressure … it’s even more important that we think together about how to share and leverage the limited resources that we do have.”