Opening a mayo but getting only a little piece off. Major tinkering went on during the previews, but up until opening night, Sondheim, Prince, and company thought they had a brilliant show. It’s the flop that came back from the dead. The legendary lyricist and composer Stephen Sondheim is worthy of a great, big, expansive documentary. Please enter your birth date to watch this video: You are not allowed to view this material at this time. Water cooler that makes you suck the rust if you wish to drink. It’s a documentary about a famous flop: “Merrily We Roll Along,” the quasi-experimental musical that Sondheim composed in 1981, right after “Sweeney Todd.” He and his longtime director/producer/collaborator, Harold Prince, knew that because they were coming off the huge success of “Sweeney,” they now had the chance to take a chance — to try for something that would be game-changing even for them. Come to think of it, the concept isn’t all that radical; basically, it’s what you see anytime you watch a high-school musical. It … “Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened” takes a more audacious and offbeat — and, therefore, Sondheimian — approach. Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along was a flop in 1981. 2. The end of the story told by the documentary, which had … Price interviews all the original cast members, many of whom wound up falling between the cracks of the theater world, though a few kept going — notably Jim Walton, who went on to have a major Broadway career, and Jason Alexander, who made his debut in “Merrily.” Price himself became a director (of Sondheim musicals, among other things), and in 2002 he was responsible for bringing the original cast back together for a crucial one-night concert revival of “Merrily We Roll Along.” Now that the actors were actually adults, people could simply sit back and hear the songs. 4. The film’s second act packs a bittersweet punch, along with the fact that the failed show is now much-respected. Lonny Price’s Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened faces a quandary right away. The Srebrenica massacre (Serbo-Croatian: Masakr u Srebrenici / Масакр у Сребреници), also known as the Srebrenica genocide (Serbo-Croatian: Genocid u Srebrenici / Геноцид у Сребреници), was the July 1995 genocide of more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys in and around the town of Srebrenica in July 1995, during the Bosnian War. Oscars Predictions: Best Picture – Is ‘Nomadland’ Still the Academy Frontrunner or Is Netflix Closing In? MUSIC: Songs from and Inspired by the Motion Picture. “Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened,” a documentary by Lonny Price, examines the buildup and collapse of “Merrily We Roll Along” in 1981. One of the truly legendary musicals in the history of Broadway, Merrily We Roll Along opened to enormous fanfare in 1981, and closed after sixteen performances. But all of that could have been tied up in a quicker epilogue. ‘Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened’: Broadway-Flop Doc Is a Success Story of legendary, rare theatrical failure from Stephen Sondheim doubles as … Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened is a nimble documentary made with a personal touch of nostalgia, and it should prove nothing less than catnip to Sondheim obsessives. But even if it hadn’t, “Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened” illustrates an essential principle of art: You have to risk cataclysmic failure — and, at times, fall into it — if you’re planning to scale the heights. For the first time, Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened draws back the curtain on the extraordinary drama of the show's creation - and tells the stories of the hopeful young performers whose lives were transformed by it. Summary: One of the truly legendary musicals in the history of Broadway, MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG opened to enormous fanfare in 1981, and closed after sixteen performances. “Best Worst Thing” is more than a story about a Broadway show; its most poignant moments examine the thrill of dreams coming true, and the inevitable come down afterwards. 2016 | TV-MA | 1h 36m | Documentary Films. Stephen Sondheim's "Merrily We Roll Along" opened in November 1981 to scathing reviews and closed after just 16 performances. 1. It’s a documentary about a famous flop: “Merrily We Roll Along,” the quasi-experimental musical that Sondheim composed in 1981, right after “Sweeney Todd.” Audiences, however, could barely sit still for it, and the critics were savage; the show closed after only 16 performances. Was it simply the debacle that disillusioned them — or did failure make them realize that they’d said all they had to say? Frank Rich, as ardent a Sondheim fan as there is, looks back in sadness at his pan in The New York Times, but stands by it, and he describes the profound confusion the show provoked in audiences. The cataclysm was the single worst event life on Earth has ever experienced. BEST WORST THING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED draws back the curtain on the extraordinary drama of that show's creation -- and The cast and crew of the 1981 Broadway musical "Merrily We Roll Along" recall joy and heartbreak during the production of a surefire hit that wasn't. Another candidate would be “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” (1979), the show that propelled Sondheim to the height of his fame and creative glory. The show turned into something comparable to a cult film, and it has since been revived many times, its songs (like “Now You Know” and the haunting “Not a Day Goes By”) recorded by major artists. Variety and the Flying V logos are trademarks of Variety Media, LLC. Pennebaker documented the recording of the cast album of “Company,” the musical that dissected modern love relationships — back when “relationships” was kind of a new concept — and the one that marked the full-scale launch of the Sondheim vision: the notion that a musical could be as nuanced as a novel, with songs that fused verbal intricacy and tangy harmonics into sublime acerbic monologues. “Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened” takes a more audacious and offbeat — and, therefore, Sondheimian — approach. 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This film from acclaimed theater director Lonny Price charts the journey of the original cast of Stephen Sondheim's "Merrily We Roll Along" in the 30-plus years since the musical debuted on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre in 1981.

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