Actress recalls the bumpy ride to Sondheim’s ‘Merrily We Roll Along’

When she was cast in the musical that would mark her Broadway debut in 1981, actress Ann Morrison, and many of her fellow actors, assumed the show might make her career.

“Merrily We Roll Along” was certainly a milestone, though not quite what everyone expected from a show created by two of musical theater’s legends – composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim and director Harold Prince.

The musical about three friends – a songwriter and his writing partner and their best friend – is told backward in time from adulthood to their college days. Based on a 1934 play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, the musical earned some critical praise for Sondheim’s brassy score, but audiences were confused by the storytelling in George Furth’s book and the staging by Prince. It ran for just two weeks on Broadway and marked the end of the long and fruitful collaboration between Prince and Sondheim, who brought “Company,” “Follies” and “Sweeney Todd” to Broadway together.

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For Morrison and others involved in the production, it was a lesson in how badly things can go wrong, despite the best talents involved.

“It was watching my musical theater gods fail. I don’t like the word fail, but it didn’t work right the way they would have liked it to,” Morrison recalled. “But it was empowering because they picked themselves up and moved forward. It’s about art and it’s not always going to work.”

Morrison is now sharing her stories and memories of that original production, the highs, the traumas and the backstage gossip in “Merrily From Center Stage,” a cabaret theater piece she will present in a workshop production Sept. 24 and 25 at the Players Centre’s new in-the-round configuration at the Crossings at Siesta Key shopping center.

She debuted this highly personal reflection in May at the popular Broadway supper club 54 Below, where she returned last month for two more performances attended by some of her old castmates and Sondheim and “Merrily” fans.

Morrison said she’s revising the show a bit “for people who don’t know ‘Merrily,’ to give them some context. I don’t want it to be a historical thing, so it’s a fine line, so I’m putting it back into workshop.”

Before the August performances in New York, Variety wrote that Morrison “re-inhabits the emotional rollercoaster of the whole ‘Merrily’ trip and whisks her audience back in time to 1981 so they can experience the hope and heartbreak for themselves.”

In the musical, Morrison played writer Mary Flynn, considered a fictional version of Sondheim’s closest friend and confidante, Mary Rodgers, the daughter of Richard Rodgers and the composer/lyricist of the enduring musical “Once Upon a Mattress.”

The musical has been revised numerous times over the years, and Sondheim wrote that he prefers a version that debuted in 1985 at the La Jolla Playhouse. A revival starring Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff and Lindsay Mendez is slated to open in November at off-Broadway’s New York Theatre Workshop, and director Richard Linklater is making a film version that will take 20 years to complete to accommodate the changing ages of the characters. The film will star Ben Platt, Beanie Feldstein and Blake Jenner.

Looking Back

Morrison and other cast members had a chance to share their memories of their experiences in the documentary film “The Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened,” directed by her castmate Lonny Price, but Morrison said a lot of her commentary was cut out after Price found footage of the performance and rehearsals that had long been thought to be lost.

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Morrison said she likes the idea of bringing a theatricality to the emotional memories she shares.

“Memory is an interesting thing. We all track it differently. We only remember our last time remembering. Time colors things. I’m telling the same story over and over, but I’m only really remembering the last time I told it.”

No one else could tell the story quite the way she does. With the help and support of her musical director and accompanist John Shirley, she shares her memories of her experiences, what she saw happening on stage and in rehearsals, firings, confessions, worries of fellow cast members, told through words and new arrangements of songs from “Merrily” that are heard in vastly different ways.

“I could lightly sing songs from the show with anecdotes, but I don’t see cabaret that way. I see it as a theater piece. People love that I allow myself to be vulnerable about an experience I had. That’s the appeal to a lot of people.”

‘Ann Morrison: Merrily From Center Stage’

Created by Ann Morrison. John Shirley, musical director. Presented 7:30 p.m. Sept. 24 and 2 p.m. Sept. 25 at the Players Centre for Performing Arts, Crossings at Siesta Key shopping center, 3501 S. Tamiami Trail, Suite 1130. Tickets are $25, $15 for students. 941-365-2494; theplayers.org

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Ann Morrison recalls a legendary Sondheim flop in cabaret show