The Music Theatre International
Study Guide For
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by James Lapine
Lyrics © 1984 by Revelation Music Publishing Corp. and Rilting Music, Inc.
Study Guide Text © 1993 MTI Enterprises, Inc.
Table Of Contents
About Sunday In The Park With George.......................3
The Characters in Sunday In The Park With George
.............5
Plot Synopsis
.............................................
7
Themes and Topics to Explore
(Questions and Assignments)
.....................................13
The Visual Artist
........................................13
The Artist in Society
......................................14
Impressionism
..........................................15
Modern Art
............................................15
The Artist and Interpersonal Relationships
......................16
The Painting
...........................................17
Family Trees
...........................................17
Sunday in the Park with George as a
Theatrical Metaphor for Seurat’s Masterpiece
...................18
Sunday in the Park with George as a Metaphor for the Struggles
of Contemporary Broadway Authors and Composers
.............18
Sunday in the Park with George as a Musical Theatre Work
............19
The Musical Theatre Elements of Sunday in the Park with George
........20
Create Your Own Musical
..................................21
Critical Analysis
........................................21
Appendix
...............................................22
About the Creation of Sunday in the Park with George
................22
About the Creators
.......................................22
Impressionism
..........................................24
Seurat
................................................25
Resources
...............................................27
2 The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George
The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George 3
About S
UNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE
In his paintings more than a hundred years ago, Georges Seurat challenged his
audience to experience the art of painting from a new perspective. In their musical
Sunday in the Park with George, which opened on May 2, 1984 at the Booth Theatre in
New York, composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim and librettist James Lapine created an
equally challenging concept for their audience.
Sunday in the Park with George, which is a show about a visual artist created by theatre
artists, is a theatrical reconstruction/fantasy of the work of Georges Seurat. Among the
issues the show addresses are the nature of the creative process, the limitations placed
on interpersonal relationships by artistic commitments, and the danger of artists
responding to fads rather than respecting their own impulses. The show examines the
creation of a single painting, Seurat’s masterpiece, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island
of La Grande Jatte.” This huge work, which is composed entirely of thousands of tiny
dots in red, blue, yellow and their complements, took the artist two years to complete.
Considered one of the world’s greatest paintings, it has hung for many years in the
Art Institute of Chicago. It depicts a crowd of bourgeois 19th-century Parisians who
represent all ages and stations in life as well as a wide variety of relationships. The
artist has portrayed them in a park in shimmering color and light under parasols,
bustles and high hats.
The musical Sunday in the Park with George, which is entirely fictitious, used Seurat’s
life as its inspiration. The first act begins with a blank canvas and ends with a
remarkable recreation of his masterpiece. During this act, which takes place on the
island in 1884, we see the authors’ vision of how Seurat created his painting and share
their conjectures about who the Parisians strolling through the island park on the
Seine might have been. We follow the troubled relationship between George and his
mistress Dot, watching it unravel as George explores a new art form, pointillism. His
exploration reaches its zenith as he creates his painting of a typical Sunday in the life
of his characters. At the end of the act we see the finished painting.
In Act II the authors examine how Seurat’s painting has impacted future generations
and how art, like love, can reverberate through time. We are in New York in 1984. The
painter’s great-grandson, a modern day conceptual artist and multi-media sculptor
also named George, is in a state of creative bankruptcy. Although he is a consummate
salesman of his own work, the process of making art has lost its meaning for him. His
faltering artistic vision and confidence are restored after a visit to La Grande Jatte
where the impressionistic setting that inspired his great-grandfather’s work has been
4 The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George
replaced by cubist architecture. George, the contemporary artist, is encouraged by the
spirit of his great-grandmother Dot to stop worrying about what others think and
“just keep moving on.” By connecting with his own past, he is able to find a direction
for his future.
The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George 5
The Characters in SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH
GEORGE
ACT I
GEORGE - An artist
DOT - His mistress
AN OLD LADY - George’s mother
HER NURSE
JULES - An artist
YVONNE - Jules’ wife
A BOATMAN
CELESTE #1 - A shop girl
CELESTE #2 - Another shop girl
LOUISE - The little daughter of Jules and Yvonne
FRANZ - The coachman to Jules and Yvonne
FRIEDA - The cook to Jule and Yvonne
A SOLDIER
MR. & MRS.- An American couple
LOUIS - A baker
A WOMAN WITH BABY CARRIAGE, A MAN WITH BICYCLE, A HORNPLAYER,
A BOY BATHING IN THE RIVER, A YOUNG MAN SITTING ON THE BANK,
A MAN LYING ON THE BANK
ACT II
GEORGE - An artist
MARIE - His grandmother
DENNIS - A technician
BOB GREENBERG - The museum director
NAOMI EISEN - A composer
HARRIET PAWLING - A patron of the arts
BILLY WEBSTER - Harriet Pawling’s friend
6 The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George
BLAIR DANIELS - An art critic
ELAINE - George’s former wife.
A PHOTOGRAPHER, A MUSEUM ASSISTANT, A VISITING CURATOR, ARTISTS,
THE MUSEUM’S PUBLICIST, A WAITRESS
The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George 7
Plot Synopsis
ACT I
George, a tall artist with a dark beard who wears a soft felt hat, enters an empty white
space which is framed around the edges. He sits at an easel with a drawing pad and
box of chalk. He turns to the audience and says, “White. A blank page or canvas. The
challenge: bring order to the whole through design. Composition. Balance. Light. And
harmony.” As he speaks, the scene is transformed into a grassy-green expanse of park.
The sun rises as the cut-out form of a couple appears.
Dot, a young woman who is in love with George, enters in 19th century dress. George
turns her profile towards the audience and begins to sketch her. She fidgets and
complains about being uncomfortable holding her pose and asks why they had to get
up so early. George replies that they had to catch the light and she moans. She
obviously wants him to pay attention to her and he is absorbed only in his painting.
When George erases a tree from his pad, it disappears from the stage. We realize that
he is creating the picture we see onstage on his pad.
An old woman and her nurse appear. The old woman is unhappy that her favorite
tree has disappeared from the park. The nurse tells her that the structure they see in
the distance is the tallest structure in the world, a tower (the Eiffel Tower) which is
being built for an International Exposition.
Dot tells George he is the topic of gossip because he has been seen drawing monkeys
at the zoo. She sings “Sunday in the Park with George,” expressing her restlessness at
being a model and her discontent with their relationship. However, she acknowledges
his great skill as a painter. He ignores her words, giving her orders as if she were an
inanimate object.
George observes the old lady and her nurse; several young boys on a riverbank; and
Franz, a servant who stops to speak to the nurse. He extends his right arm and frames
them into a frozen image. Jules, another artist, and his wife Yvonne enter and view
George’s composition. They sing “No Life,” a song which is highly critical of George’s
concept for his painting. As they finish the characters in the “painting” come back to
life and leave the stage. Jules and Yvonne exchange idle chatter with George and
avoid commenting on his work. They leave and Dot expresses her disdain for them.
George says that Jules is a fine painter. George sends Dot off. She reminds him they
have plans to go to the Follies. He attempts to draw the old lady’s picture and we
learn that she is his mother. She says he must draw her another day and does not
appear to recognize him.
8 The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George
George and Dot are in his studio. Dot is musing over the fact George paints all night
while she would rather dream. George is working on the huge canvas that will
become “A Sunday Afternoon on the Grand Jatte.” He sings “Color and Light” lost in
his world of order, design, composition, tone, form, symmetry, and balance. Dot
comments that none of her clothes seem to fit her correctly and wishes that her
features and body were more appealing. She longs to be in the Follies. George
continues to commune with the characters in his painting and to pay little attention to
Dot. He becomes aware of her waiting for him only when he smells her perfume in
the air. He wonders what she sees when she gazes in the mirror. She wonders what he
sees in the painting. They engage each other’s attention and agree that they could
look at each other forever. The rare moment of connection passes as George refuses to
go to the Follies with Dot because he must finish painting a hat. She stalks out.
On another Sunday in the park, George sketches a boatman who stands near a cut-out
of a black dog. The old lady and the nurse have been joined by two girls named
Celeste #1 and Celeste #2. As George talks with the boatman, Dot passes through the
scene with Louis the Baker. The women onstage gossip about the fact that Dot has
obviously taken up with another man because she is pregnant and needs someone
with an income to care for her. Jules and Yvonne appear and Yvonne joins the women
in the song “Gossip.” They gossip about George’s affairs with other women and his
peculiar behavior. The Boatman responds by calling the gossiping women Sunday
hypocrites. Jules says that there is talk of including George’s paintings in an
important group show. He and Yvonne both say “never.”
Dot enters and sits down to study her reading lesson. The Boatman speaks gruffly to
Louise, who is Jules and Yovonne’s little girl. George corrects him. Enraged, the
boatman leaves. George proceeds to sketch the dog.
George speaks to Dot, who has moved out of his studio. He says it has “been quiet
there.” Louis appears with a treat he has baked for Dot. George steps away quickly.
Dot and Louis leave. George sits down and resumes painting the dog. George sings
“The Day Off” in the dog’s voice expressing the dog’s point of view of a Sunday in
the park. The Nurse, Franz, Frieda, the boatman, the soldiers, the two girls named
Celeste, Yovonne, Louis, Jules and Louis join in the song. The two girls named Celeste
begin fishing. They soon attract the attention of two soldiers, one of whom is a cutout.
Franz, the servant and Frieda, the cook, sit on the grass. The little girl pesters them
and they send her away, insisting it is Sunday and they are not working. Jules and
George discuss George’s work. Jules tells George to forget experimentation and to
spend his time meeting prospective buyers and enjoying life instead. The boatmen
tells George that artists can’t really know the people they paint. He accuses George of
painting what is true with one eye and what suits him with the other.
The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George 9
Dot enters and sings “Everybody Loves Louis,” explaining that she has found a good
man. Louis is not what she had in mind, but she is choosing him. George has George.
She and Louis need each other. Mr. and Mrs., two American tourists, appear with
pastries. They decide they hate France and only want to go home. However, they
want to take a pastry chef with them.
George sits at his easel, painting and reflecting on Dot’s decision to leave him. He
sings “Finishing The Hat” realizing that he can never completely give himself over to
a relationship without having his art get in the way. Yet he yearns for someone who
could understand his obsession.
Dot comes to ask George for the painting of her powdering herself. She says that she
is expecting their baby in two months and plans to marry Louis. Jules and Yvonne
arrive. As George and Jules look at George’s work, Yvonne and Dot, who have always
had little use for one another, converse about their respective situations. George
attempts to excite Jules about his revolutionary use of color. He has painted in red and
blue, yet the eye perceives violet. His colors are mixed by the eye, not the palette.
Jules accuses him of trying to be a scientist instead of a painter. Jules says he knows
George wants to be included in the next group show. He says he will have to consider
that possibility.
In his disappointment that Jules has not immediately seen the merit in his work,
George forgets about Dot’s waiting in the next room for him until she reappears. She
tells him that she and Louis are going to America. He says she will not like it there
and returns to his painting. She is outraged at his lack of a caring response to the
news of her plan to leave France. They sing “We Do Not Belong Together.” She
implores him to ask her not to go. He cannot do that on her terms. She says she must
move on. She leaves him standing alone in a spotlight.
George draws the old lady in the park. She now seems loving and warm towards him.
They share memories, but they are not the same memories. They each see their shared
past differently. They sing “Beautiful” in which she longs for all the things that are
disappearing from the landscape of her life and he tries to revise the existing world on
his canvas.
The soldier and Celeste #2 enter. They are joined by Mr. and Mrs. He carries a huge
steamer trunk. She carries an armload of famous paintings. They are followed by
Louis and Dot, who carries her baby, Marie. Dot brings Marie to George. She again
asks for the painting he did of her. He says he has repainted it with another model. He
refuses to look at his child, saying Marie now belongs to Louis. Dot starts to leave,
unable to speak. George says he is sorry. Dot and Louis exit.
10 The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George
George’s mother says she has worried about him all his life because he was “always
in some other place—seeing something no one else could see.” He says he has a new
woman in his life now and she says no matter who the woman in his life may be, she
is always the same woman. She urges him to “connect, George. Connect.”
Jules and Frieda the cook appear. They are looking for a spot in the park where they
can share a moment of stolen passion.
The two girls named Celeste and the soldier appear. Yvonne, who is searching for her
daughter Louise interrupts a rendezvous between Franz and the nurse. Louise reports
that she discovered her father, Jules, and Frieda together. Yvonne accuses Jules of
being unfaithful with Frieda. A fight ensues between Jules, Yvonne, Franz, and
Frieda. Jules fires Franz and Frieda. Everyone else gets involved in fighting in the
middle of the stage. George and the old lady watch.
George says “order” and the everyone begins to take positions on stage at his direction.
He has ultimate power over them. As he says “design...tension...balance...harmony,”
they create the picture we know as “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande
Jatte.” George adjusts trees, cut-outs, and people on the stage/canvas to create a
perfect picture. The company sings “Sunday” describing the world inside the picture.
George rushes about making small adjustments. On the final chord, the completed
canvas flies in painted on a scrim. The lights go down slowly as the image of the
characters fades behind the painting with George standing in front.
ACT TWO
We return to the entire company on stage in the painting as we left them. They sing
“It’s Hot Up Here,” a tense review of the miseries they are each experiencing frozen in
position on a canvas. They leave the stage one by one, exchanging their reactions to
George’s sudden death.
The lights change and we are in a different world. It is 1984 and we have travelled to
the auditorium in the museum where George’s painting now hangs. George, a
contemporary artist, enters pushing Marie, his grandmother, in a wheel chair. Dennis,
George’s technical assistant, pushes in a control console.
George, the artist of 1984, is an inventor-sculptor. An immense white machine rolls on
which is his post-modern invention, Chromolume # 7. George explains that he has
been commissioned to do this work in commemoration of Georges Seurat’s painting
“A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.” George and his grandmother
review the history of Georges Seurat. Then the Chromolume # 7 is activated. Music
swells. Brilliant shafts of strobe light appear. Colors fill the stage creating a pointillist
The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George 11
effect. The machine begins to produce images from the painting when it suddenly
explodes. George explains that there is an electrical problem. “No electricity, no art.”
Marie and George resume their narration as the Chromolume resumes. Marie reveals
that she believes Seurat is her real father. She displays the small red book that Dot used
to write in as proof. The Chromolume sends lasers bursting through the audience.
The painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” flies in. We are
at the museum reception honoring George.
The guests include Bob Greenberg, the museum director; Naomi Eisen, a composer;
Harriet Pawling, a patron of the arts; Billy Webster, Naomi’s friend; Charles
Redmond, a visiting curator; Alex, an artist; Betty, another artist; Lee Randolph, the
museum’s publicist; and Blair Daniels, an art critic. They argue among themselves
about the validity of the Chromolume as art. George networks with the crowd,
singing “Putting It Together.” He appears to excel at the part of being an artist that his
great-grandfather did very poorly. He is an expert at the “art of making art.” As he
moves from one group to another, he replaces himself with a cut-out likeness.
George’s former wife Elaine appears at Marie’s side. Marie tells some of the guests that
she and George plan a trip to France where he will do a presentation on La Grande
Jatte with the Chromolume. The art critic, Blair Daniels, begins to lecture George
about his lack of originality and failure to move beyond the Chromolume concept.
Blair and Marie talk about the Seurat painting. Marie informs Blair that the shape
commonly thought to be a baby carriage is actually Louis’ waffle iron. Marie tells
Elaine that there are only two things in life that are worthwhile to leave behind:
children and art. Elaine tells George that she thinks Marie is tiring and will take her to
the hotel. They embrace fondly. Marie, alone in front of the painting sings “Children
and Art.” George joins her and she continues stressing the importance of family.
Elaine wheels Marie off. George stares at the painting and repeats the old lady’s
words from Act l, “connect George. Connect.”
George and Dennis are on the Island of Grande Jatte. It is now covered with high rise
buildings. The tree where the old lady loved to sit is all that remains of the old
landscape. As they discuss the installation of the Chromolume, Dennis says that he is
quitting his work with George because he wants to do something new. George says
that he too needs that in his life. He wants to create art that he cares about.
We learn that Marie has died. George has brought her red book with him. Dennis
leaves and George begins to read the notes in the back of the book. He sings “Lesson
#8.” “See George remember how George used to be. Stretching his vision in every
12 The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George
direction. See George attempting to see a connection. When all he can see is maybe a
tree—the family tree.” He continues reading “George is aground. George has
outgrown what he can do.” Dot appears.
Dot says George is reading her book. She speaks to him as if he were her lover,
George. She thanks him for all he tried to teach her and asks him about his work. He
tells her he has nothing to say in his work and she tells him that he has to stop
blocking himself and “Move On.” Suddenly Dot and George are singing together,
completing the love song that they were never able to finish in Act I. She gives George
of 1984 the power of his great-grandfather to explore his own vision.
The old lady appears and asks George if the island is what he expected. He replies
that the air is rich and full of light. The old lady leaves and George begins to recite his
great-grandfather George’s words, “Order. Design. Tension. Composition. Balance.
and Light.” Dot helps him to read the word “harmony.” The characters from the
original painting stroll in among the new buildings that represent the present. They
stroll off. Dot leaves as a blank white canvas descends. George says “White. A blank
page or canvas. His favorite. . . so many possibilities.”
The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George 13
Themes and Topics to Explore
Our study guide includes a wide-ranging list of themes and topics which are
suggested by issues raised in Sunday in the Park with George. Avenues for exploring
each theme and topic are suggested in the form of Questions - designed to prompt in-
class discussions before and after viewing or reading the shows, and Assignments -
designed to be researched and written out of class.
The Visual Artist
Q
UESTIONS/DISCUSSION IDEAS
• Composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim has said, “I care a lot about art and
the artist. The major thing I wanted to do in the show was to enable
anyone who is not an artist to understand what hard work art is. “ Do you
think the authors of Sunday in the Park with George accomplished this goal?
• What elements of craft does a visual artist have in common with a
musician or dramatist? How is a painting different from a play or musical
composition? How is a painting the same as a play or musical composition?
• How has the plight of the artist changed between Georges Seurat’s day and
his great-grandson’s time? How has it stayed the same? Seurat is
portrayed as a poor artist who would have a hard time supporting a
family. How do contemporary visual artists make their living? If you
wanted to be a painter today, how would you support yourself?
• Seurat is depicted as attempting to forge a technique which was viewed
with suspicion and provoked anger from his contemporaries. Why do you
think his experimentation produced this response?
• Why are artists sometimes ignored in their own time and then greatly
admired in later eras?
• George, the artist in 1984, works with other collaborators in creating his art
while Georges Seurat is very much a loner. Do you think Georges Seurat
could have been an effective collaborator?
• What contemporary art forms in the visual and performing arts are
collaborative? What do you think the advantages of collaboration might
be? The drawbacks?
• George’s mother says she has always been concerned because he seems to
be in “some other place seeing something no one else can see.” Is this a
state common to all artists?
14 The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George
A
SSIGNMENTS/RESEARCH AND WRITING PROJECTS
• Pick an artist from any period in art history. Learn about his or her life.
Look at pictures of his or her paintings. Select a painting you particularly
like. Learn everything about the painting that you can.
• George, the artist in 1984, in Act II builds up his public image “dot by dot”
with persistent self-publicizing to guarantee the support of patrons for his
expensive compositions. How does this compare to the situation of George
the artist in Act I? How does it impact George in 1984?
• Compare the negative response to Seurat’s work when it was introduced to a
similar response received by another innovation at any point in art history.
• How does George, the artist in 1984, reawaken and stretch his artistic
vision in Act II?
• In the musical, the character of the boatman argues with Seurat, Dot is
constantly protesting his using her for a model, and other characters voice
similar complaints. What is the relationship between an artist and his
models? Does he care about them or see them as fodder for his
compositions? How do artists in other art forms use other people in a
similar way?
• George is called to task by an art critic in Act II for repeating himself. To
what degree do art critics impact the careers of contemporary artists? Was
this also true in the time of Georges Seurat?
The Artist in Society
Q
UESTIONS/DISCUSSION IDEAS
• Is being an artist as important and respected a job as being a lawyer or
physician? Should it be?
• Seurat chronicled the life of middle-class people in his work. In the days before
photography, how else could a visual sense of a way of life be recorded?
• Georges Seurat was criticized for painting the common people by his
fellow artists? Why do you think this was the case?
• Is depicting the social truth of a society in order to preserve it a
responsibility of the artist in today’s world?
• What can a work of art tell us about a society that a film or videotape cannot?
• Does the role of social recorder and commentator remain a valid role for an
artist? Is playing such a role an artist’s responsibility or should art be
merely decorative?
The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George 15
ASSIGNMENTS/RESEARCH AND WRITING PROJECTS
• In recent years there has been much controversy about the role of the
National Endowment for the Arts making judgments about the suitability
of art for public funding. Research these controversies and discuss whether
you think such judgments constitute censorship. If so, is this right or
wrong? How do you think Seurat would have reacted to such censorship?
• Should the government support the arts? Why? Why not?
• Explore the history of artists who have used their art as a forum for social
comment. Choose one of these artists and research their lives. Did they pay
a price for their social comment?
• Explore a contemporary artist or photographer who comments on our
society through their art.
• If all the visual artists were to disappear overnight from our society, how
would the society be impacted? How would you personally be impacted?
Would your answers also apply to the sudden disappearance of all theatre
artists? Dance artists? Musical artists?
• The museum director in Act II speaks of building a high-rise apartment
house over the museum to make money. Is this kind of activity really
happening? How are museums supported in America? Are they in trouble?
Impressionism
A
SSIGNMENTS/REASEARCH AND
WRITING PROJECTS
• Research Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Alfred
Sisley, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Jean Baptiste Armand Guillaumin,
Berthe Morisot, Paul Gauguin or Mary Cassatt. Describe their
contributions to impressionism as a form. How did their lives or artistic
vision differ from or complement Seurat? Does this artist’s life story or any
portion of it suggest a dramatic work, musical theatre piece, or film?
Describe a work that could be created from this artist’s life.
• Research the history of impressionism. Where did Seurat fit into this
movement? How was he received by his fellow impressionists?
Modern Art
Q
UESTIONS/DISCUSSION IDEAS
• What is modern art?
• What type of artist is George, the artist of 1984, in Act II? Do you consider
him to be an artist on the same terms that his great-grandfather George
was? Why or why not?
16 The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George
ASSIGNMENTS/RESEARCH AND WRITING PROJECTS
• Explore some recent movements in modern art. Report on them, describing
how they are taking the form forward in time.
• Explore the life of a modern artist whose work interests you. Has their
work been easily accepted?
• Can you find actual parallels to the Chromolume concept in the modern art
of the early 1980’s?
• George’s aged mother describes the Eiffel Tower which she watches being
built as an ugly representative of the fast-arriving modern age in design.
George replies that “All things are beautiful, mother. Pretty is what
changes. What the eye arranges is beautiful.” What does he mean?
The Artist and Interpersonal Relationships
Q
UESTIONS/DISCUSSION IDEAS
• What is the meaning of the fact that Seurat appears almost oblivious of the
two people closest to him, his mother and Dot?
• Seurat had a problem giving emotional support to others because of his
involvement with his work. Do you think the problem of giving personal
relationships as much time and attention as art is a problem with most artists?
• What blocked George’s relationship with Dot? When do they finally
understand each other?
• What does George mean in Act I when he says “I am not hiding behind my
canvas. I am living in it”?
• Dot expresses unhappiness with herself because George will not pay
attention to her. She dreams of ways she could begin to matter more. Have
you ever blamed yourself for someone else’s treatment of you?
• Is Dot blameless in the failure of her relationship with George? Are they
equally unaware of each other’s needs?
• Are there other kinds of professions that produce the kind of obsession
which drives George?
ASSIGNMENTS/RESEARCH AND WRITING PROJECTS
• At the beginning and ending of the show, George is embracing not a person
but an empty white canvas that he loves for its many possibilities. Comment.
• Analyze the song “Finishing The Hat.” What do we learn about George in
this song? What does he mean when he sings about how he “watches the
rest of the world from the window?”
The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George 17
The Painting
Q
UESTIONS/DISCUSSION IDEAS
• The painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island La Grande Jatte” has
become part of the consciousness of everyone who has seen it in the past
century. Discuss how painters live on through their work.
ASSIGNMENTS/RESEARCH AND WRITING PROJECTS
• Write your own story based on the painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the
Island La Grande Jatte.” Research the history of the painting. Read a
biography of Seurat to learn more about his process in creating it. How
was it received in its own time? Under what circumstances was it sold to
an American museum?
• Research pointillism as a technique. Find other examples of works created
with the technique. Explain the optical theory behind it.
• Pointillism was an example of scientific principles gaining over romantic
principles. How else was this happening in Seurat’s day?
Family Trees
Q
UESTIONS/D
ISCUSSION IDEAS
• George, the artist in 1984, is greatly changed when he begins to connect
with his family roots. How much do you know about your ancestors? How
did you learn what you know about them?
• What do you find that you have in common with these ancestors?
ASSIGNMENTS/RESEARCH AND WRITING PROJECTS
• The contemporary George’s discovery of family gives him a sense of
oneness with his personal past and a sense of direction for his future. Can
you think of a time when something like this has happened in your own
life? Describe the experience.
• Discuss your ancestors with members of your family. Ask if there was
someone on your family tree who shared your own interests. Write an
imaginary description of this person in the setting of the time during
which they lived.
• What is the importance of tradition? How does it contribute to
contemporary George’s expanded awareness of himself?
• When George’s mother speaks of the tower as an encroaching menace to the
tree, what does the tree symbolize? What will be lost when the tree is gone?
18 The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George
Sunday in the Park with George as a Theatrical Metaphor for Seurat’s
Masterpiece
Q
UESTIONS/DISCUSSION IDEAS
• What is a metaphor?
• Discuss the fact that the characters in the piece are rather one-dimensional
and in some cases are portrayed by cut-outs made of cardboard. Are we
meant to care about these characters? Why or why not?
• Why are we moved at the end of Act I? Because of the plot developments?
Because we have seen harmony created? Because we have seen an artist
accomplish his vision?
ASSIGNMENTS/RESEARCH AND WRITING PROJECTS
• Discuss the possibility that the characters in the musical, like the characters
in the painting, were seen by their creators as little more than forms to be
manipulated.
• Discuss the ways in which the entire musical is a metaphor for the sea of
floating dots that make up the painting itself. How do the creators of the
musical use music and language in ways that, like Seurat’s brushstrokes,
are meaningful only when perceived in a thoughtful observer’s mind?
• The boatman tells George that the artist portrays his characters both in
terms of what is true and what suits the artist. How have the authors of the
musical used the characters in the painting to both reveal what is true and
what suits their needs?
• Imagine you are Seurat. You come back to life long enough to see a
performance of Sunday in the Park with George. Write a letter to a friend
describing your feelings.
Sunday in the Park with George as a Theatrical Metaphor for the
Struggles of Contemporary Broadway Authors and Composers
Q
UESTIONS/DISCUSSION IDEAS
• Compare the difficulties of George, the artist in 1984, to the challenges
confronting musical theatre creators. What problems do they share in the
areas of collaboration, huge budgets, and the need to compromise because
of factors in the current marketplace?
The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George 19
ASSIGNMENTS/RESEARCH AND WRITING PROJECTS
• The authors of the musical try to make the case that the artistic passion of
cerebral artists such as George Seurat and George, the artist in 1984, can be
as powerful as the sweepingly sentimental passion of romantic painting or
more conventional musicals. Are you personally reached as powerfully by
a musical like Sunday in the Park with George as you are by a more
conventional musical? Why or why not?
• Trace the career of Stephen Sondheim as an American musical theatre
artist. How does it compare to Seurat’s experience as an artist?
Sunday in the Park with George as a Musical Theatre Work
Q
UESTIONS/DISCUSSION IDEAS
• How is this work different from the Broadway musicals which preceded it?
• There is no dance in this musical. Why? Do you agree with the author’s
choice? Where would you have placed dance in the musical? Why?
• Re-tell the story that this musical tells. Is the story the most important
thing in this musical? Why or why not? Are themes more important than
characters or plot?
• Which is more important in this musical, visual and musical imagery
or drama?
ASSIGNMENTS/RESEARCH AND WRITING PROJECTS
• Explore Stephen Sondheim’s musical references to the modern French
composers whose revolution in musical paralleled that of Seurat and the
other post-impressionists in art.
• How does Sondheim capture the sense of Seurat’s painting style in musical
rhythms?
• Seurat used 11 basic colors. Stephen Sondheim used repeated musical motifs
and key words and phrases throughout the work to create an aural picture
of Seurat’s color scheme and technique. Find examples of this in the musical.
(For example, the words “connection,” “move on,” “Sunday,” “tree,” “color
and light” and the repeated musical phrases that travel with them.)
• Trace George and Dot’s continuing love song throughout the show by
finding fragments of it in the songs “Sunday in the Park With George,”
“Color and Light,” “We Do Not Belong Together,” finally in “Move On” at
the end of Act II. How are the themes of their relationship threaded
through a series of scenes covering one hundred years? Listen for other
such examples of threaded themes in the piece.
20 The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George
• How do the songs “Putting It Together” and “Finishing the Hat” relate to
each other?
• What are some of the ways this musical blurs the lines between show
music and serious music? Between entertainment and art?
The Musical Theatre Elements of Sunday in the Park with George
Look at each musical segment of the show.
• Discuss the manner in which each musical segment contributes to the
narrative, mood, and presentation of characters in the show.
• What do we learn about the world in which the action is taking place in the
musical segment?
• What do we learn about the larger themes of the show in this musical segment?
• Can you find another place in the show where a musical segment might have
been placed? What would it be about? What kind of music would it have?
Musical Elements
ACT I
“Sunday In The Park With George”
“No Life”
“Color and Light”
“Gossip”
“The Day Off”
“Everybody Loves Louis”
“Finishing The Hat”
“We Do Not Belong Together”
“Beautiful”
“Sunday”
ACT II
“It’s Hot Up Here”
“Chromolume #7”
“Putting It Together”
“Children and Art”
“Lesson # 8”
“Move On “
“Sunday” (Reprise)
The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George 21
Create Your Own Musical
• Select a painting that you like. Write a story about it.
• Plan a musical theatre work based on your story.
• What role would music play in your work? What kind of music will your
characters sing?
• Will your work include dance? How will dance be used?
• How will your musical be relevant to today? Where will it be set in terms
of time and place? Would you use a contemporary setting or set it in its
own time and place?
• Outline your musical scene by scene.
• Make a list of the characters.
• Make a list of musical segments you might include.
• Try to write the first scene.
• Try to write a lyric or melody for one of the musical segments.
Critical Analysis
A
SSIGNMENTS/RESEARCH AND WRITING PROJECTS
• Write a review of a performance of Sunday in the Park with George. You may
wish to include any combination of the following elements in your review:
1. Did the show hold your interest? Why?
2. Describe the manner in which the story was presented to the
audience? Was there a narrator? What was the dialogue like?
3. What was the structure of the story? Was there a single story or
multiple stories? How did the multiple stories connect? Was anything
about the story unexpected? How did the show begin and end?
4. Describe the way music and lyrics worked in the show.
5. Describe the sets, costumes, lighting, and musical accompaniment.
How did these elements add to the meaning of the show?
6. Discuss the effectiveness of the performers.
7. Discuss the ideas presented in the show. Analyze their importance
to your reader.
8. Explain why your reader should make an effort to see the show.
22 The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George
Appendix
The following background material on the creative team who wrote Sunday in the Park
with George; the process of creating the show; Georges Seurat; impressionism; and the
resource lists are designed to enrich your exploration of the Themes and Topics.
About the Creation of S
UNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE
Sunday in the Park with George was the first collaboration between James Lapine and
Stephen Sondheim. Initially the team was exploring the concept of a show based on a
theme and variations rather than a linear story. They searched for an existing image
on which to base their theme and variations and settled on Seurat’s painting which
seemed to be the setting for a play with the missing figure of the artist as the main
character. As the work evolved, a narrative was suggested by Seurat’s life and the
characters on the canvas.
A workshop of the show was presented in October, 1983, at Playwright’s Horizons, an
off-Broadway theatre dedicated to supporting the work of promising playwrights.
The show was then produced by the Shubert Organization, Emanuel Azenberg, and
Playwright’s Horizons on Broadway where it ran for 540 performances.
Sunday in the Park with George was nominated for 10 Tony Awards and won the
Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
About the Creators
STEPHEN SONDHEIM wrote the music and lyrics for Assassins (1991), Into the Woods
(1987), Sunday In The Park With George (1984), Merrily We Roll Along (1981), Sweeney Todd
(1979), Pacific Overtures (1976), The Frogs (1974), A Little Night Music (1973), Follies (1971;
revised in London, 1987), Company (1970), Anyone Can Whistle (1964) and A Funny Thing
Happened On The Way To The Forum (1962), as well as the lyrics for Do I Hear A Waltz?
(1965), Gypsy (1959), West Side Story (1957), and additional lyrics for Candide (1973). Side
By Side By Sondheim (1976), Marry Me A Little (1981) and You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow
(originally presented as A Stephen Sondheim Evening on March 3, 1983) are anthologies
of his work as composer and lyricist. He composed songs for the films Dick Tracy (Academy
Award, 1990) and Reds (1981), the score for Stavisky (1974), songs for the television
production “Evening Primrose” (1966), co-authored the film The Last of Sheila (1973)
and provided incidental music for Broadway’s Twigs (1971), Invitation to a March (1961)
The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George 23
and The Girls of Summer (1956). He won Tony awards for Best Score for a Musical for
Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, Follies and Company. All of these shows
won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, as did Pacific Overtures and Sunday in
the Park with George, the latter also receiving the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1985.
Mr. Sondheim was born and raised in New York City. He graduated from Williams
College, winning the Hutchinson Prize for Music Composition. After graduation he
studied theory and composition with Milton Babbitt. He is on the Council of the
Dramatists Guild, the national association of playwrights, composers and lyricists,
having served as its president from 1973 until 1981, and in 1983 was elected to the
American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1990 he was appointed the first Visiting
Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Oxford University.
JAMES LAPINE co-conceivedwith William Finn and directed Falsettos for which they
won the Tony Award (Best Book) in 1992. In 1990 Falsettoland, the second part of Falsettos,
won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical. In 1988 Mr. Lapine won th e Tony
for the book of Into The Woods, as well as the Drama Desk Award (Book), and the New
York Drama Critics Award. The London production of Into The Woods won the Evening
Standard Award and the London Critics Award for Best Musical in 1991. For Sunday in
the Park with George, Mr. Lapine won two Drama Desk Awards for Book and Direction,
the New York Drama Critics Award for Best Musical, and the 1985 Pulitzer Prize For
Drama with Stephen Sondheim. The London production of Sunday in the Park with
George won the Olivier Award for Best Musical. In 1980, Table Settings, which he wrote
and directed, won the George Oppenheimer Playwriting Award. In 1979, he wrote
and directed Twelve Dreams (Public Theater). In 1978 he won an Obie Award for his
first production, Photograph by Gertrude Stein, which he adapted and directed.
Mr. Lapine’s extensive directing credits include: A Winter’s Tale, 1988 (Public Theater);
Merrily We Roll Along, revised version, 1985 (La Jolla Playhouse); A Midsummer Night’s
Dream, 1982 (Delacorte Theatre); and March of the Falsettos, (the first act of Falsettos),
1981 (Playwrights Horizons). In film he has directed Life with Mikey (1993) and
Impromptu (1991). In 1988 he directed Into the Woods for PBS American Playhouse.
James Lapine was born in Mansfield, Ohio. He received a B.A. History from Franklin
and Marshall College, and an M.F.A. Design from California Institute of the Arts.
Prior to moving into the theatre, he worked as a professional photographer and
graphic designer, as well as an architectural preservationist, at the Architectural
League of New York before moving full-time to New Haven and designing graphics
for the Yale Repertory Theatre and teaching design at the Yale School of Drama.
24 The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George
Impressionism
Impressionism was the leading development in French painting in the last part of the
19th century. The main figures in the movement, which was a reaction against
romanticism and the academic tradition, were Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir,
Camille Pissaro, and Alfred Sisley. These artists shared a common approach to using
color range and brush strokes when painting outdoor subjects.
The term “impressionism” is also used to refer to the work of those artists who exhibited
their work in a series of group shows which were held in Paris. The most famous of
these shows was held in the studio of the photographer Nadar in the spring of 1874.
Among the artists exhibiting at Nadar’s studio and other group showings between
1876 and 1878 were Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Jean Baptiste Arman Guillaumin,
Berthe Morisot, Paul Gauguin, and the American artist, Mary Cassatt.
The name “impressionism” was taken from a painting by Claude Monet called
“Impression: Sunrise.” This painting, which was created in 1872, was a view of the
port of Le Havre in the mist.
Monet selected the title to refer to the painting’s sketchy style, which conveyed an
impression of its subject matter without providing complete visual details. However,
the name “impressionism” was seized upon by critics to describe a visual impression
stamped on the senses rapidly and fleetingly, depicting a specific moment in time.
Monet, Renoir, Pissaro, and Sisley painted outdoors, recording the quickly fluctuating
conditions of light and atmosphere in the context of their individual responses to
nature. They used a wide variety of brushstrokes and a palette of colors that allowed
them to depict both actual shapes in nature and the impact of light upon their surfaces.
The term “impressionism” is also used to indicate painting that showed a concern for
subjects of an informal, pleasant nature and a technique that created an impression
that is casual and spontaneous. The works of painters such as Degas, Morisot, and
Edouard Manet fit into this category.
By the early 1880’s, the feeling of unity that had brought the impressionists together began
to dissolve as the result of factions and rivalries. Each artist increasingly took his or
her own direction, carrying their interests into new dimensions of technique and content.
But the impressionist movement continued to have a tremendous impact on French
painting and on the art of other countries well into the 20th century. Through
developments such as neo-impressionism and post-impressionism in the 1880’s,
impressionism influenced modern art in areas such as the loosening up of brushwork,
a concern for the two-dimensional surface of a painting, and a use of pure, bright colors.
The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George 25
Georges Seurat
Georges Seurat (1859-1891) began painting as a teenager in his middle-class Parisian
home. In the wake of impressionism in the 1880’s, Seurat developed a new style of
painting called pointillism or divisionism which was based on scientific findings on
color. He found by painting tiny particles, color next to color, that at a certain
distance, the eye would fuse the specks optically, giving them greater intensity than
any mixed pigments.
In 1880, he was attracted to the impressionists’ technique and began his study of color
theory and the science of optics. An artist who defied conventional perspective and
conventional space, Seurat started creating small paintings of peasants and workers.
He developed a smudgy technique using Conte crayon as his medium.
“The Bathing Place,” which he painted in 1883 was his first major painting. It depicted
an impressionistic subject, a group of people relaxing during an afternoon excursion
on the banks of the Seine. The painting has a shimmering quality and a suggestion of
cut-out flatness and frozen static poses. From 1883 on, Seurat concentrated on creating
very large paintings capturing the bourgeois lifestyle in Paris.
His painting, “On A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,” which he
created between 1884 and 1886, was the inspiration for the musical Sunday in the Park
with George. Before creating this masterwork, Seurat executed more than 200 sketches
and oil studies for it. The painting, which now hangs at the Art Institute of Chicago, is
so large that is resembles a mural.
La Grade Jatte was an island that was a favorite recreational spot for the Parisian
middle class. The park is located on a long thin sliver of land in the middle of the
Seine that is now a suburb of Paris. In the painting, the subjects appear to be isolated
by their recreational activities on the Island rather than drawn together by them. “On
a Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” was shown at the eighth and
last Impressionist Exhibition. Because of its inclusion in the show, Monet, Renoir, and
Sisley withdrew their submissions. The painting was placed in a small room to the
side of the main hall, too dark for the painting to truly be seen. While the painting
was initially ridiculed, the technique of pointillism utilized by Seurat in this painting
was adopted by a group of his followers, the neo-impressionists, and was eventually
used widely in early 20th century art.
Seurat refined the technique in his own later work; he used less naturalistic shapes and
colors and introduced a theory of aesthetic harmony based on line as well as color. He
created six more major paintings before his death, but never sold a painting in his lifetime.
In his personal life, Seurat was the most secretive of men. Even his best friends never
met the woman he lived with. On the only occasion he was known to draw or paint
himself, he took great pains to do it from the back. He left behind no diaries and his
friends have little to say about him in their own diaries and other writings. This
anonymity was an extension of his belief that it was the painting and not the painter
who was the focal point of the artistic process.
Among the information that is known about his life is the fact that he met a woman
named Madeleine Knobloch at a carnival booth while working on his painting “The
Sideshow”. She became his mistress and gave birth to their child a year later. A short
time after that, Seurat developed a persistent sore throat and choked to death in 1891
at the age of 31; his son Pierre died shortly after of the same illness. His mother, whom
he visited every night for dinner, only learned of the existence of Madeleine and
Pierre a few weeks before Seurat’s death.
26 The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George
The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George 27
Resources
Impressionism
Dayez-Distel, Anne. Impressionism: A Centenary Exhibition.
Dustan, Bernard. Painting Methods of the Impressionists.
Kelder, Diane. The French Impressionists and Their Century; The Great Book of French
Impressionists.
Herbert, Robert. Impressionism: Art, Leisure, and Parisian Society.
Leymarie, Jean. Impressionism.
Mathey, Francois. The Impressionists.
Moffett, C.S. The New Painting.
Nochlin, Linda. Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.
Pool, Phoebe. Impressionism.
Rewald, John. The History of Impressionism.
Seurat
Broude, Norma. Seurat in Perspective.
Courthion, P. Seurat.
Dorra, Henri and Rewald, John. Seurat.
Herbert, Robert L. Seurat’s Drawings; Seurat.
Homer, William I. Seurat and the Science of Painting.
Rewald, John. Seurat: A Biography.
Rich, Daniel Catton. Seurat and the Evolution of “La Grande Jatte.”
Russell, John. Seurat.
28 The MTI Study Guide for Sunday in the Park with George
Sarah Schlesinger, author of this MTI STUDY GUIDE, is Program Coordinator
and the Faculty Lyricist-Librettist for the Musical Theatre Program at New York
University's Tisch School of the Arts. Before joining the NYU faculty, she taught
at Pace University and Towson State University as a specialist in mass
communications and group discussion processes.
She has a string of musical lyricist-librettist credits: On the Swing Shift (Manhattan
Theatre Club), Heidi (Theatreworks USA) and Follow the Sun (Hudson Guild),
among others. She just completed work on Love Comics, a musical interpretation
of the romance comics of the 1950's and '60's, with David Evans. Ms. Schlesinger
also is working on O'Henry's New York, as well as writing lyrics for a new musical
based on Frank Baum's Queen Zixi of Ix.
She is also the author of recent non-fiction works published by Random
House/Villard, William Morrow, Avon Books and the Princeton Book Company.
Music Theatre International Study Guides are edited by Richard Salfas.
