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NEW YORK - The ladies in red brought down the house.
Six Broadway divas, spanning several generations of musical theatre, pretty much tore up Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall on Monday night as the New York Philharmonic and a bevy of Broadway stars celebrated the upcoming 80th birthday of Stephen Sondheim, composer of "Sweeney Todd, "Company" and "A Little Night Music," among other shows.
Sondheim's birthday isn't until March 22, but no matter. Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone, Donna Murphy, Marin Mazzie, Audra McDonald and especially Elaine Stritch - the youngest 85-year-old performer in town - started the festivities early.
Each was dressed in bright red during a special second-act segment that had all six women on stage at the same time.
And each demonstrated why she is star, most spectacularly Stritch, who doesn't just sing a song, she lives it. Which is why "I'm Still Here," Sondheim's ferocious hymn of survival from "Follies," got the cheering audience on its feet.
And it was Stritch who led the applause for LuPone's acerbic version of "The Ladies Who Lunch," Stritch's signature song from "Company." Both women hugged when LuPone finished the number.
It's hard to believe that it is more than 25 years since Peters opened on Broadway in "Sunday in the Park With George." Yet there she was, looking and sounding as if it were 1984 all over again.
In Act 1, she and Mandy Patinkin, her "Sunday" co-star, performed a heartfelt version of "Move On," a song that neatly encapsulates the Sondheim philosophy of being true to one's artistic self.
And for Sondheim, that meant never repeating himself in terms of subject matter, a point made by Jonathan Tunick, the composer's most prominent orchestrator, who spoke during the concert. Just think of the scores Sondheim wrote during the 1970s, his most productive decade. "Company." "Follies." "A Little Night Music." "Pacific Overtures." "Sweeney Todd."
The evening's host was the eminently unflappable David Hyde Pierce, who provided just enough laughs to hold the program together as he smoothly introduced and identified performers.
At the end of the evening, a genuinely overcome Sondheim climbed on stage, which had been decorated with a red ribbon and bow, and told the cheering audience, "First, you're young. Then you're middle-aged. Then you're wonderful. This was wonderful."
For emotional impact, it was hard to beat the show's finale when scores of cast members from shows currently on Broadway marched down the aisles and onto the stage while singing "Sunday," the closing number from "Sunday in the Park With George."
The concert, to be repeated Tuesday, will be broadcast on public television's "Great Performances" during its 2010-11 season.
And the birthday celebrations aren't over: The Roundabout Theatre Company will honour Sondheim on March 22 and New York City Center has its own gala on April 26.
