Show History

History

Inspiration


The title, You're Gonna Love Tomorrow, comes from the title of a song in one of Sondheim s most famous musicals, Follies. The show, You're Gonna Love Tomorrow, was meant to be a revue of Sondheim's work, featuring songs that showed his most romantic, most openhearted side, making this the least "cold" of the various Sondheim compilations.

Productions


The original production of You're Gonna Love Tomorrow was created for the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. It played two standing-room-only concerts at the Sotheby auction hall on March 3, 1983, with an original cast that included George Hearn (Sweeney Todd) , Cris Groenendaal (Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Passion), Liz Callaway (Merrily We Roll Along, Miss Saigon), Judy Kaye (What about Luv?, The Phantom of the Opera), Bob Gunton (Evita, Sweeney Todd) and Victoria Mallory (A Little Night Music, Follies).

Cultural Influence

  • An original concert recording of You're Gonna Love Tomorrow was released by RCA Victor under the title, A Stephen Sondheim Evening.
  • The musical, Follies, from which the revue's title song, "You're Gonna Love Tomorrow," originated, is one of Sondheim s most prominent. It has a book by James Goldman and was originally directed by Harold Prince and Michael Bennett. It was nominated for eleven Tony Awards, winning seven.
  • Stephen Sondheim is a master of the American musical theatre. He is the winner of an Academy Award, eight Tony Awards (more than any other composer), eight Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award.

Trivia

  • Seven of the featured songs made their New York premieres when You're Gonna Love Tomorrow debuted, including two from The Frogs, the show Sondheim wrote in 1975 to be "staged" in the Yale University swimming pool.
  • You're Gonna Love Tomorrow is one of five licensed Sondheim revues originally produced between 1976 (Side by Side by Sondheim) and 2010 (Sondheim on Sondheim).
  • In both performances at Sotheby's, the evening ended with a surprise visit, Angela Lansbury (Sweeney Todd, Anyone Can Whistle) came on stage to sing "Send in the Clowns," accompanied by Sondheim himself.

  • You're Gonna Love Tomorrow was originally staged as a concert organized by The Whitney Museum in 1983 in Stephen Sondheim's honor – the same year that he was elected to the American Institute of Arts and Letters.