By SHARON EBERSON
Aaron Galligan-Stierle beamed through the Zoom screen when asked if he was familiar with the score to Sunday in the Park with George.
He will play the show’s two artists named George – one, a fictional version of renowned pointillist George Seurat, circa 1884; the other, that George’s grandson, in 1984 – when Front Porch Theatricals’ production of the Stephen Sondheim musical opens at the New Hazlett Theater, on Friday, August 15. Read our review here.
You might say Galligan-Stierle has been preparing for the two Georges his entire career.
“This is a show that I have known intimately, in my mind and in my heart, for many, many years,” he said. “It felt very familiar in terms of the struggles and the challenges, and the questions that it’s asking.”
Galligan-Stierle, the Head of Musical Theatre at Slippery Rock University when he’s not onstage, credited one of his college professors, who advised that he dig into “dream roles” for auditions. That’s when one Sunday song became a staple in repertoire.
“The number of shows that I’ve auditioned for with Finishing the Hat is literally in the hundreds. It’s a song that has just been part of who I am and part of what I do. But the rest of the score, I have never sung before,” Galligan-Stierle said.
Saige Smith was familiar with the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical through a pro shot of the original cast, starring Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters, that remains available on YouTube.
For Front Porch, Smith will play the dual roles of the appropriately named Dot, mistress and muse to 1880s George, and Marie, grandmother to 1984 George.
“It’s a show I had geeked out over in high school. And then Point Park ended up doing Sunday in the Park with George a couple of years after I graduated, and that was an amazing production,” said Smith, who in May was among the standouts in Baby for Front Porch, and who continues to be among the busiest performers in Pittsburgh.
“I was hearing other actors in my head when I was thinking about these songs, and then actually seeing it on the page and doing it, it opens up so much,” Smith said. “You realize how many choices the actors are making, and the intentions the composer and the writer had, and how much the music of the show just goes hand in hand with the character development.”
Director Rob James did some digging into previous Pittsburgh performances of Sunday in the Park, and was surprised to learn “that the only records I have of the show being performed in Pittsburgh are higher ed performances – Point Park University, pre-pandemic; we share their music director [Camille Rolla] and their designer [Johnmichael Bohach] – and [Carnegie Mellon University] did a summer production in the mid-80s at the New Hazlett, right where our production will be.”
When Sunday first appeared on Broadway, it was a hit with critics, earning two Tony Awards for design and a nomination for Best Musical, and later, the 1991 Olivier Award for Best Musical. However, the decades-long time jump from Act I to Act II proved challenging for some audiences.
That may have to do with the familiarity of the famous painting that inspired the show.
The real-life Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884–1886) looms large not only in the show, but as a pivotal work in the neo-impressionist movement of modern art.
(Image: Deana Muro)
Act One George works obsessively on the painting, neglecting even those he professes to care about, along with everyone else in his life. Act Two George is a successful modern artist who is struggling with his legacy and the commerce of art – appreciation, acceptance and patronage for artists being keys to survival, in any age.
It’s a clear path to see the artist Stephen Sondheim speaking directly to the viewer about artistic vision versus commercial success.
“In Act One, [George] is struggling to be seen and heard, and he doesn’t know how to do the commercial part. And yet he has a vision and he has a mission,” Galligan-Stierle said. “In Act Two, he’s really damn good at the entrepreneurial part, but he’s struggling with making sure he’s creating art that matters. And so that’s the conversation in this piece: How do you do both? [The art may be] incredibly impressive and sparkly, but does it have value? That’s the question.”
Another theme consistent with Sondheim is the idea of creating a path for future generations. That includes knowing when to let go as well. When Into the Woods – another collaboration with librettist James Lapine – comes up, it’s not a stretch to make the connection from the song Children Will Listen to Sunday’s Children and Art.
Sunday in the Park with George, at its heart, is a love story of two people who want different things out of life, and one who is unwilling, or unable, to compromise.
“Being lovers and being someone’s muse, they’re not quite the same thing,” Smith said of Dot and George. “I think that there’s a difference between a life partner and a soulmate, ane that when it comes to Dot and George, they are soulmates. They’re there to teach each other something really important, but maybe not necessarily are they supposed to be together forever.”
In Act One, she continued, George teaches Dot “how to choose herself and move on.” In the second act, “we are 98 years into the future, but here we’ve got George’s descendant who is also reckoning with what it means to be an artist and what it means to feel stagnant … And we’ve got Dot coming back and teaching him what George taught her.”
Following your passion, said Galligan-Stierle, is “absolutely essential to understanding what these artists are grappling with and exploring.”
He compared an artist’s passion to a creative mission, a calling, that you find in many vocations.
“There’s something inside of people that has a desire to create,” he said. “And what this musical talks about is the benefits and costs of that vocational life, right? The challenges that come with it, the sacrifices … of, how do you stay committed to your vocation when in order to do your vocation, you must survive? … So all of that is a valuable and important story that Act One is the setup for, and Act two is the payoff for.”
“The show itself is a director’s dream,” summed up Rob James. “This material is so human. If anyone has ever had the urge to create, in art, in construction, even in business, they are going to find something in this show that rings true.”
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Front Porch Theatrical’s production of Sunday in the Park with George is at the New Hazlett Theater, North Side, August 15-24, 2025. Tickets: Visit https://ci.ovationtix.com/36406/production/1223326 .
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