Playcrafters’ “Marry Me a Little” Means a Lot to Music Director
Performing for a musical is always an intense, emotional, bonding experience.
Since February, I’ve had the pleasure of being part of three outstanding community theater shows — providing piano accompaniment first for Music Guild’s “Escape to Margaritaville” (done the first two weekends of April), and currently Black Box Theatre’s “Fun Home” (to run May 30 to June 14). The one that’s meant the most to me is “Marry Me a Little,” a very special revue of Stephen Sondheim songs at Playcrafters Barn Theatre, for which I can’t play for the performances since it overlaps with “Fun Home.”
Opening at the Barn (4950 35th Ave., Moline) Friday, May 23, running two weekends, this is the rare show I served as music director, working closely with veteran director Jake Ladd. Though I had previously committed to play for the Black Box musical (like “Marry Me,” a QC premiere), Jake persuaded me to lead rehearsals for the first two weeks at Playcrafters, for the two-person show, starring the extraordinarily talented Sydney Crumbleholme and Thayne Lamb (both veterans of several Barn productions, and Ladd’s “Fiddler on the Roof,” done last August at Music Guild).
Coincidentally, the only other area show I’ve been music director was in spring 2019, for the wonderful “Last Five Years,” by Jason Robert Brown, also featuring only a man and woman, at the intimate, 60-seat Black Box.
A scene from “Marry Me a Little,” directed by Jake Ladd.
I leapt at the chance to take on “Marry Me a Little,” since Sondheim (1930-2021) is a Broadway colossus, and a longtime hero of mine. NOTE: You can read a very personal essay and tribute I did on him shortly after his death HERE.
Anyone who has ever worked on a Sondheim show knows that his songs can be fiendishly difficult — often filled with chromaticism, intricate wordplay, challenging rhythms, and shifting key and time signatures — but once you master them, the feeling of accomplishment and triumph is unmatched.
My first experience performing a Sondheim musical was in high school, in 1981, the same year that “Marry Me a Little” premiered off-Broadway. While our regular drama director was on sabbatical, two college students in Milwaukee led us in the infamous “Anyone Can Whistle,” Sondheim’s “flop” from 1964 that closed after just nine performances. To say that score is a handful (or two) and a daunting challenge is an understatement. I fondly remember after the school run was done, at our drama banquet, I got a standing ovation for my role in the production.
Sydney Crumbleholme, who plays an artist in the musical, is an artist and art teacher in real life.
Music from that one is among the many Sondheim gems in Playcrafters’ “Marry Me a Little,” primarily songs cut from Sondheim’s final productions, or simply unproduced.
As Jake wrote for the Playcrafters program, the genesis of the show came from Craig Lucas, who was in the chorus for the 1979 masterwork “Sweeney Todd” (which I got to play for in 2023 at Guild). Sondheim had mentioned that he had a collection of unperformed songs. Subsequently, Lucas was commissioned by a New York theatre group to put together a musical revue, and remembering Sondheim’s conversation about “orphan songs,” Lucas contacted the composer and the two began work on what would become “Marry Me A Little.”
In 1983, Jake directed its West Coast professional premiere in Los Angeles, and shares my passion for Sondheim’s genius — and his unique ability to craft perfection and that intense, emotional experience in each song, of wildly varying styles. Like his shows, most every song here embodies its own little world, yet you can appreciate the same composer created each.
At Playcrafters on May 21, 2025 are (clockwise from left) Thayne Lamb, Jake Ladd, Jonathan Turner and Sydney Crumbleholme.
Not only are the moving ballads and delightful uptempo numbers deeply satisfying, as a writer I get great satisfaction from Sondheim’s literate, clever lyrics. There are so many examples in this revue, but two of my favorites are the rhymes “Who needs Albert Schweitzer when the lights are low?” and “This was their dilemma, keeping them apart.”
Part of the brilliance of “Marry Me a Little” is that it’s not simply a “stand and sing” revue on a bare stage. It is a fully fleshed-out story of “the boy” and “the girl,” two New York singles living alone in their one-room apartments as upstairs and downstairs neighbors. At Playcrafters, their two apartments share the same space, and Jake notes the musical unfurls their hopes, dreams, fantasies and passions, all during one Saturday night alone, and all without any dialogue.
Fittingly, the show begins with Sondheim’s “Saturday Night,” which he wrote when he was just 24 (!), the title song of s show intended to open on Broadway in 1955; however, after the sudden death of its lead producer, the show was shelved. Sondheim then went on to make his professional premiere in 1957, as the lyricist for “West Side Story,” and “Saturday Night” didn’t get its off-Broadway premiere until 2000.
In Jake’s creative, lovely staging, Sydney and Thayne do interact in “fantasy” sequences, imagining their dreams and flights of fancy, including uncomplicated, sophisticated dances. Both characters are storytellers — she a painter and he a writer, and the early “Two Fairy Tales” is a demanding duet and impressively reveals their ability to spin a mesmerizing yarn. From where we started our first rehearsal just speaking the song, to seeing it on stage Wednesday night, filled me with immense pride and gratitude for Sydney’s and Thayne’s hard work and dedication.
Sydney and Thayne in a playful moment from the show, opening Friday, May 23 at 7:30 p.m.
There are so many great songs in “Marry Me a Little,” particularly the title song, which was inexplicably cut from the groundbreaking “Company” (1970), but added to many revivals, including the one done in late 2021 at Black Box Theatre. The piano accompaniment is constantly churning with rolling 8th notes, while the singer (here the luminous Sydney) soars above with the yearning tale of wanting that match and commitment, but only so much. (“Keep a tender distance, so we’ll both be free. That’s the way it ought to be.”).
Thayne has been a wonder to watch grow and progress through this process, becoming assured and self-confident. Since there is no dialogue in “Marry Me,” both he and Sydney are excellent in the facial expression department. That is key to any theatrical performance, but you can read volumes from their expressiveness, their gestures and the expert, practiced precision they bring to all the songs.
Pro tip: The super smart Sondheim also helps expand your vocabulary — I had no idea what a “niblick” was until I played the jaunty, fun, upper-crust “Pour Le Sport” (1956). The golf-themed duet (appropriately with a green backdrop) prominently features the term in one verse. It’s an iron golf club with a wide, deeply slanted face. You’ll have a ball with it.
Among my other treasured Sondheim experiences was getting to be on stage at Black Box in summer 2019 for the wondrous, dark yet patriotic “Assassins” (1990), which is another kaleidoscopic cornucopia of musical styles, reflecting the misfit, disturbed men and women who have killed (or tried to kill) an American president. I played John Hinckley (who attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan, also in 1981), and got to sing my favorite song from that show, the pop duet “Unworthy of Your Love.”
“Marry Me a Little” opened Off-Broadway in 1981.
Seeing a first-half preview at Playcrafters Wednesday night, I wept at the heartbreaking, gorgeous duet “Your Eyes Are Blue,” identifying with its profound, innocent emotions. At the end of our “Fun Home” rehearsal the same night, I saw the choreographer crying at the show’s dramatic weight and final catharsis (the equally affecting musical focuses on the famous lesbian cartoonist Alison Bechdel and the relationship with her father, who was gay and killed himself).
That’s the magic of theater — the feelings it reflects and creates are universal, while music adds the powerful arrow straight to our hearts.
Seeing it performed live, with an audience, also provides that irreplaceable jolt of electricity, a unique, shared experience. And even if we can’t identify with the people on stage, we can appreciate their stories, their emotions and the talents of actors who bring them blazingly to life.
Thayne and Sydney play single New Yorkers, who live in one-room apartments a floor apart, but share the same space at Playcrafters.
“Marry Me a Little” absolutely gives the lie to the misconception of Sondheim as a chilly intellectual, who penned unhummable tunes. As you can see in many interviews with him, his heart and melodic gift were as limitless as the universe.
Getting this intimate, beautiful, bittersweet production off the ground at Playcrafters (which saw the premiere of my own, first and only musical, “Hard to Believe” in 2010) has been one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.
Thanks to Jake, Sydney and Thayne for putting their heart and soul into this shining jewel of a show. It’s priceless and I will never forget it.
** “Marry Me a Little” will run at Playcrafters at 7:30 p.m. May 23-24 (plus May 30-31), and 3 p.m. May 25 and June 1. Tickets are $20 ($18 for seniors and military), available at https://playcrafters.com/shows/MMAL.html
“Marry Me a Little” runs this weekend and next at the Barn Theatre, 4950 35th Ave., Moline.
