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      Arthur Russell’s ‘City Park’: Reconstructed, Newly Performed

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      Arthur Russell — former Midwesterner, avant-gardist in the making — moved to New York from San Francisco in the early 1970s to study at the Manhattan School of Music, where his teachers included the composer Charles Wuorinen. It wasn’t a happy relationship.Call it a clash of uptown and downtown, when such a dichotomy existed: Wuorinen, a prickly modernist of the academy, versus Russell, a post-Cagean thinker from Allen Ginsberg’s circle who was into Indian classical music. Neither was likely to be a fan of the other, and things came to a head over Russell’s “City Park,” created and first performed in 1973.The piece blends texts from Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein with a nonlinear, modular score of repetitive phrases and Fluxus-inspired directions. Russell is said to have explained to Wuorinen that the structure allows listeners to “plug out and then plug back in again without losing anything essential.”Wuorinen, famously cranky, shot back, “That’s the most unattractive thing I’ve ever heard.”Russell quickly drifted away from Wuorinen, seeking guidance from a different composer, Christian Wolff, and getting more into electronics. His career developed, ever-changing and exploratory — gathering support from peers like Philip Glass and David Byrne, freely floating among the worlds of classical music, disco and songwriting — and “City Park” faded into distant memory. Russell died in 1992 at 40, a victim of the AIDS epidemic, and the piece lived on mostly as an amusing anecdote about a lost work.Nick Hallett, center, rehearsing “City Park” at Wesleyan University, with Parsa Ferdowsi, left, and Lea Bertucci.Adrian Martinez Chavez for The New York TimesNow, though, it has been reconstructed and will be performed for the first time in five decades at the New York City AIDS Memorial on Saturday, presented by the memorial outdoors for free and featuring an ensemble that includes Russell’s close collaborators. The musician Nick Hallett, who is responsible for the reconstruction, said that the piece was “about New York City,” and more important, “tells the story of Arthur’s New York City.”Russell is a particular case among composers lost to AIDS. Most around his age died without publishers or estates; their music languishes in archives like those at the New York Public Library. Russell may have been poor and perpetually underground, despite high-profile friends and collaborators like Talking Heads, but at least he had the infrastructure of an estate to maintain his legacy.More of a problem was his output. Russell, who was often seen around town with his Walkman, obsessing over mixing and production, recorded prolifically but released little. His attitude inspired some: David Van Tieghem, the composer and percussionist, who met Russell at the Manhattan School of Music and performed in the premiere of “City Park,” respected his friend’s belief that “if you’re going to do it, do it as best you can.”“City Park” features prerecorded material, scratch loops and instructions for a turntablist.Adrian Martinez Chavez for The New York TimesRussell’s piece has been prepared at Wesleyan ahead of its performance in New York on Saturday.Adrian Martinez Chavez for The New York TimesAnother collaborator, though, the trombonist Peter Zummo, said Russell could be obstinate about not making more of a living off his art. “One time he came to me, and he said, ‘The ideal record would be one,’ a press of one,” Zummo recalled. “Which would make it a work of art. He had standards, but there was also a stubbornness.”Russell has long been known for bits of his catalog, including the album “24→24 Music” (for which he enlisted friends like Zummo, Julius Eastman and Peter Gordon) and the disco song “Is It All Over My Face.” But his music, with its wide stylistic range, has taken on new life in the decades after his death as the recordings he left behind have been released this century.“I love seeing how people really latch onto it,” Van Tieghem said. “I have students at the New School who are huge fans. People have only recently come across his stuff and just love it.”Among Russell’s longtime admirers is Hallett, 49, who came of age in clubs and looked to him as an artist who “bridged the gap between disco, experimental and songs.” Hallett eventually met people from Russell’s circle, including Van Tieghem and Zummo, as well as younger musicians who were interested in preserving Russell’s legacy.Over the years, “City Park” lingered in Hallett’s mind like “a faint question mark,” he said. “Every new description of it intrigued me in a new way.” So, when the opportunity arose to reconstruct and revive the piece, he seized it.“City Park” includes Fluxus-inspired instructions for players, including “Play like the clouds always.”Adrian Martinez Chavez for The New York TimesHallett started with several sheets of material — which was all that Russell’s estate was aware had survived. There were two pages of notes, and two more of instructions on manuscript paper. Those only introduced more questions. “I saw so many potential roads to travel down,” Hallett said. “We see references to ‘scratch pulse.’ We see instructions for a turntablist. We see instructions for electronic tape.”He next turned to archivists at the New York Public Library, who tracked down two recordings. When Hallett listened to them, he was surprised. “From the score instructions, I anticipated a disco masterpiece,” he said. “This was different. And it fascinated me.”Unable to hear the turntable, he sought help from those who had performed in the premiere to figure out why. No one seemed to remember anything of use until, after what Hallett called some “memory jogging,” it emerged that the D.J. score is meant to be inaudible to everyone but the drummer.“Arthur uses the turntable not as we’d imagine a hip-hop D.J., but more in the way that John Cage was using the turntable in 1939, in the first ‘Imaginary Landscape,’” Hallett said. “The D.J. is the inaudible brain of the work; the drummer responds only to the scratch loops.”Not only is the influence of Cage here, but also that of artists he knew intimately, including Ginsberg and Jackson Mac Low. Among notated instructions are Fluxus-esque ones: “Play like the clouds always” and “Give a signal to someone, another player, without explaining what it’s for.” Elsewhere, musicians are told, “ask the drummer (when he’s not playing) what section he’s in, and play something from that section.”The New York City AIDS Memorial, where “City Park” will be performed outdoors for free on Saturday.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“The score is a map,” Hallett said, “one that is not intended to be followed literally but one that puts agency in the performer and allows them to make choices.”Van Tieghem said that, as far as he could remember, there wasn’t any rehearsal before “City Park” premiered. There is, Hallett said, a “great amount of planning” that goes into this piece, but it can’t be prepared in a traditional way. Saturday’s players got together at Wesleyan University last week, but, accustomed to Russell’s idiom and performance practice, are not repeatedly running through it.“You shouldn’t over-rehearse a piece like this,” Hallett said. “It’s meant to be interpreted in the moment.”That doesn’t mean it’s easy, though. Zummo said that, like Terry Riley’s classic “In C,” “City Park” can’t be picked up by any musician. Looking at the score recently, he was reminded of the questions he used to ask Russell before playing a new piece of his.“I would say something like, ‘Where do you want me to start?’ and he said, ‘Anywhere,’” Zummo recalled. “At one point I asked a similar question, and he said, ‘It’s a sound field.’ It’s another way to describe the open form, I guess, and ‘City Park’ brings that to mind. In a way, it’s not going anywhere.” More

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      Jorja Smith’s ‘Falling or Flying’ Gives Polished Voice to Messy Emotions

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      The English songwriter uses vocal nuance instead of volume and lets the rhythms stir things up on her second studio album.There’s always a forlorn edge to Jorja Smith’s voice, even when things are going well. “A love like this is nothing I have known before,” she sings on “Make Sense,” a track from her new album, “Falling or Flying.” Even as she rejoices, “A home in you I’ve found,” the chords circle around a minor key and she sounds cautious, almost disbelieving.Smith, 25, has been delivering pensive British R&B since she emerged with “Blue Lights” in 2016, singing about racism and police violence. She has released a steady string of her own tracks and collaborated prolifically and internationally: with Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Burna Boy, Stormzy, Kali Uchis and Ibeyi, among many others.From the beginning, and more than ever on “Falling or Flying,” her second full-length studio album, Smith has kept her sound strictly focused. No matter how many layers are in the final mixes — and there can be plenty tucked in — the songs present themselves as minimal, with stripped-down riffs behind aching vocals. In other words, rhythms and blues.On first impression, Smith might seem diffident. Her tone is natural and understated, and as her catalog has grown, she has raised her voice less and less. Smith uses nuance instead of volume. With a voice that often sounds like it’s on the verge of tears, she brings flickers of vibrato, jazzy curlicues, grainy inflections and subtle pauses and accelerations to her phrasing. It’s not modesty at all — it’s precision, and it has been ever more sharply honed.Although Smith established herself as a ballad singer with songs like “Addicted” from her 2021 EP, “Be Right Back,” she has always been canny about rhythm. With “Falling or Flying,” she raises the tension in her songs by pushing the beat upfront, sometimes shifting it into double time. Smith isn’t joining the disco and house revival. On the contrary: She and her producers — especially Damedame, the partnership of Edith Nelson and Barbara Boko-Hyouyhat — come up with un-nostalgic beats. And while the tracks can be sleek, they strive to make Smith sound exposed, not glossy.Throughout the album, the insistent physicality of rhythm hints at the jitters that someone hides while putting on a brave face. “Try Me” opens the album with a Bo Diddley beat laced at first with finger-cymbal pings and later with a pistol-cocking sound, as Smith confronts naysayers and past wounds. “I don’t have to tell you what I’ve changed,” she sings.The songs on “Falling or Flying” are about primal needs: for love, for sex, for comfort, for understanding, for independence. As the rhythms push forward, Smith’s voice ponders and hesitates, working through doubts and then taking chances, physical and emotional.In “Little Things,” a hopping bass line and brisk Latin percussion drive a bold come-on — “Won’t you come with me and spend the night?” — while dissonant, syncopated piano chords hint at suppressed misgivings. The title song, “Falling or Flying,” is even more ambivalent about a new infatuation; with percussion and rhythm guitar ricocheting left and right, Smith urges, “Show me you want me.” Then she wonders, “Who else could get me to fall from these heights?”Most of the album is filled with goodbyes, not connections. “Go Go Go,” with a syncopated guitar backbeat and slamming drums harking back to the Police, summarily jettisons a lover who wouldn’t keep things to himself. In “Broken Is the Man,” Smith looks back on a relationship she now realizes was toxic: “Can you believe I put myself through that all/Just to realize you mean nothing to me,” she sings, over a slow, thudding beat; she won’t let it drag her down.But Smith refuses to simplify partners into heroes and villains; she knows it’s never that clear. The final stretch of the album moves back toward her old ballad mode — guitars, piano, string arrangements — as she sings about reluctantly, guiltily but unequivocally pulling away. “What if My Heart Beats Faster?,” the finale, contemplates the way even the closest partners ultimately can’t know each other. “Think that I’ve always been this way/Funny how life will change but they never figure it out.” It feels like an internal conversation that somehow turned into song. And the drums hit like a heartbeat.Jorja Smith“Falling or Flying”(FAMM) More

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      Nashawn Breedlove, Rapper Who Dueled Eminem in ‘8 Mile,’ Dies at 46

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      He drew praise for his scene in the film, in which he belittled Eminem’s character with sarcastic lyrics, a gruff voice and an imposing presence.Nashawn Breedlove, the actor who received acclaim for his scene in the rap-to-riches film “8 Mile,” in which he delivers a tenacious freestyle in a battle against the character portrayed by the rapper Eminem, commanding the gloomy stage with his blustery lyrics and imposing presence, has died. He was 46.Mr. Breedlove’s mother, Patricia Breedlove, confirmed his death in a statement on Facebook, though she did not share the date or a cause of his death.The 2002 film “8 Mile” starred the rapper Eminem, in a story that is loosely based on his life growing up poor in a trailer park on the northern edge of Detroit. The film is renowned for its gritty portrayal of an artist hustling to make it big in the rap world, depicting a community that can be ruthlessly critical of bland artists yet rapturous when a talent twists lyrics into a clever diss or vituperation. It regularly ranks among the best hip-hop movies ever made.Mr. Breedlove, who in the film portrayed the rapper Lotto, a member of a rival rap group, projected a sense of bravado in his scene with Eminem’s character, Jimmy, who raps as B-Rabbit.Set in a small, cramped and darkly lit venue, their battle scene shows both characters onstage — Lotto, his arms muscular and voice gruff, visibly more amped up, and Jimmy, his black beanie snugged and eyes downcast, appearing relaxed and even somewhat disinterested.After calling Jimmy a “coward,” Lotto takes the mic first and injects his rap with mentions of race and Jimmy’s lack of self-worth, all while playfully adding sarcastic notes of politeness, like when he says “I hate to do this” and tells Jimmy to “have a nice day” right after lobbing a profanity at him.In one verse, Lotto compares Jimmy to the titular character in the midcentury sitcom “Leave It to Beaver,” saying, “Call me your leader, I feel bad that I got to murder that dude from ‘Leave It to Beaver.’”After finishing his freestyle, Lotto drops the mic and receives resounding cheers from the audience.Then the mic is handed to Jimmy, who stares at Lotto before charging into his belittling verse that describes Lotto as someone “paranoid” who needs “another steroid.”Then Jimmy continues to target Lotto’s muscles: “Looking like a cyclone hit you, tank top screaming, ‘Lotto, I don’t fit you!’”Jimmy is named the winner of the battle, but compared to how others fared against Eminem’s character — including his final opponent in the film, who famously chokes when confronted with Jimmy’s self-deprecating verses — Lotto’s rap stood out for its forceful yet lucid delivery.A complete list of Mr. Breedlove’s survivors was not immediately available, and relatives could not be reached for comment on Wednesday night.Mr. Breedlove also appeared on the soundtrack to the 2001 comedy “The Wash,” which starred Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, according to the music publication HipHopDX.On Monday, Mickey Factz, a rapper, said on Instagram that Mr. Breedlove would be remembered as “one of the few emcee’s to beat Eminem.” More

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      Beyoncé’s Silvery, Shimmering Renaissance

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      .cls-1 { fill: url(#linear-gradient); } .cls-2 { mask: url(#mask); } .cls-1 { fill: url(#linear-gradient); } .cls-2 { mask: url(#mask); } .cls-1 { fill: url(#linear-gradient); } .cls-2 { mask: url(#mask); } A Silvery, Shimmering Summer of Beyoncé Her tour has rivaled the Olympics in economic scale and an earthquake in its power. Sept. 27, 2023, 5:49 […] More

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      Christian Thielemann to Succeed Daniel Barenboim at Berlin State Opera

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      The conductor, an acclaimed Wagnerian, was named to replace Barenboim, who stepped down in January after three decades because of health problems.For months, the Berlin State Opera, one of the world’s premier opera houses, has been in a state of uncertainty. Its revered leader, the conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim, resigned in January after three decades in charge because of health problems. Musicians and cultural leaders questioned whether anyone would be able to match his impact and influence.But on Wednesday, German officials said they had found their maestro: the acclaimed Wagnerian Christian Thielemann, the principal conductor of the Staatskapelle orchestra in Dresden, who will take over as general music director of the Berlin State Opera in September 2024.“It was a perfect match,” Joe Chialo, Berlin’s senator for culture, said in an interview. “This is a new beginning.” Thielemann, 64, the heir to storied maestros like Wilhelm Furtwängler and Herbert von Karajan, for whom he once served as an assistant, praised the opera house’s “long and illustrious tradition” and thanked Barenboim for his “wonderful work and constant support.” As a child, he said he traveled from West Berlin to East Berlin to catch performances at the opera house.“I’m proud I can be part of this tradition,” Thielemann said in an interview. “Daniel is such a wonderful musician and he has inspired me always.”Barenboim, who has known Thielemann since he was 19, said that “his musical talent was already obvious back then and he has since developed into one of the outstanding conductors of our time.” He said he was pleased to see him take the helm of the opera and its renowned orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin.“I have been at the helm of these very special musical institutions for over 30 years, and I am sure that, under the leadership of Christian Thielemann, they will continue to maintain and expand their exceptional position in Berlin and international musical life,” he said in a statement.Thielemann, who is from Berlin and led the Deutsche Oper there from 1997 to 2004, will face significant challenges at the State Opera, including restoring a sense of stability after a tumultuous period.The institution has been in flux over the past couple years as Barenboim, 80, a towering figure in classical music who has built an artistic empire in Berlin and helped define German culture after reunification, grappled with health issues. He was diagnosed last year with a serious neurological condition, and he said in January that the illness made it impossible for him to carry out his duties.The uncertainty of his condition placed strains on the opera house. It was left scrambling to find substitutes for Barenboim, including for a highly anticipated new production of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle last year, for which Barenboim tapped Thielemann at the last minute.Thielemann and Barenboim have a complicated history. When Thielemann was at the Deutsche Oper, he complained publicly about its low level of government support compared with Barenboim’s State Opera. At the same time, accusations spread that Thielemann had made antisemitic comments about Barenboim, who is Jewish. Thielemann denied making the comments at the time. The two men never broke and have spoken and met regularly over the years.Thielemann said on Wednesday that the two men had a strong relationship and that Barenboim was a critical influence in his career. “I owe him,” he said. Daniel Barenboim at the State Opera in Berlin in 2017.Odd Andersen/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWhen he stepped in for Barenboim last year, Thielemann deepened his bond with the Staatskapelle Berlin and became a favorite of the orchestra’s players, who were influential in his selection.When Chialo started his term as Berlin’s top culture official in April, he made arrangements to meet Thielemann. “The orchestra was jumping up and down and preferring him,” Chialo said. Elisabeth Sobotka, the Berlin State Opera’s incoming artistic director, said she felt Thielemann’s vision and musical approach were close to Barenboim’s.“There was a very, very special atmosphere between him and members of the orchestra,” she said. “It all comes very naturally to him, and the musicians trust him.”Thielemann rose to prominence in his 20s, winning posts at German opera houses, including in Düsseldorf and Nuremberg. He led the Munich Philharmonic from 2004 to 2011, leaving amid disagreements with the orchestra’s managers. He served as music director of the Bayreuth Festival in Germany, a showcase for Wagner’s work, from 2015 until 2020. He was the artistic director of the Salzburg Easter Festival in Austria, founded by von Karajan, from 2013 until last year. While he was once a regular in the United States, he has reduced his commitments there significantly over the past couple decades. But last year, he made a triumphant return, taking the podium of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for the first time since 1995 in performances of Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony.Succeeding Barenboim will not be easy. During his tenure, he brought the Staatskapelle to new heights, leading international tours and securing hundreds of millions in government grants to finance his ambitions. He persuaded officials to build the Pierre Boulez Saal, a Frank Gehry-designed hall housed in the same building as a music academy. And he pushed a costly renovation of the opera house’s main theater that was finished in 2017. The State Opera last year had 587 employees and a budget of roughly 81.4 million euros, or about $85.9 million.Barenboim maintained his grip on power, despite occasional troubles. In 2019, members of the Staatskapelle accused him of bullying; later that year, though, the opera house, saying that it could not verify the accusations, extended his contract.As his health worsened last year, Barenboim initially resisted resigning his post and told friends and family that he planned to return to the podium. But even as he kept up some appearances, attending rehearsals and teaching classes in Berlin, it became increasingly apparent that he could no longer lead the opera house full time.Thielemann said he hoped to bring more operas by Richard Strauss to Berlin, including the rarely staged “Die Schweigsame Frau,” and that he was eager to find ways to connect with younger audiences.“If people think, ‘I don’t go to an opera house because I think it’s so stiff and I don’t feel comfortable,’ then one has to take away the fear from them,” he said.Thielemann’s career has had its share of drama; he has left some positions under tumultuous circumstances. He said he had learned from his years in the music industry. “When you are young, you are more temperamental and you make more mistakes,” he said. “I’m trying to be a little bit wiser, especially coming into a so well-organized institution.” More

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      Bruce Springsteen Postpones 2023 Shows Because of Peptic Ulcer Disease

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      A statement on the musician’s social media said he is continuing to recover from peptic ulcer disease, and will resume shows in 2024.Bruce Springsteen has postponed the remaining dates of his tour this year with the E Street Band while he continues to recover from peptic ulcer disease, a few weeks after he postponed eight shows for the same reason.In a statement posted to social media on Wednesday, Springsteen — who turned 74 last week — said that 14 more dates for the remainder of 2023, across Canada and in Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco and the Los Angeles area, would be postponed “on doctor’s advice,” and that the dates would be rescheduled for next year. In all, Springsteen postponed 22 shows because of his illness.“Thanks to all my friends and fans for your good wishes, encouragement, and support,” Springsteen said in the statement. “I’m on the mend and can’t wait to see you all next year.”Springsteen’s latest tour is his first with the E Street Band since 2017, and has been on the road since February. After opening in Tampa, Fla., and making a first pass around the United States, it has been through Britain and Europe, including multiple shows in Italy, Germany, Sweden and Ireland. The tour returned to the United States briefly in August and early September before its previous postponement. More

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      Popcast (Deluxe): Doja Cat’s Rap Renaissance + Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicThis week’s episode of Popcast (Deluxe), the weekly culture roundup show on YouTube hosted by Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, includes segments on:The emergent relationship between Taylor Swift and the NFL star Travis KelceThe new album by Doja Cat, “Scarlet,” its relationship to hip-hop from the 1990s and 2010s, and its uniqueness in relationship to the rest of the women who are dominating contemporary hip-hopThe recent New Yorker exposé of the comedian Hasan Minhaj, and how he strategically deployed misdirection and composite narratives to amplify his humorNew songs from Headie One & K-Trap featuring Clavish, and Jean Dawson featuring SZASnack of the weekConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

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      Stephen Sondheim’s Final Musical is Opening. How Complete Was It?

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      Sondheim said days before his death in 2021 that he did not know when it would be finished, but the musical, now called “Here We Are,” begins performances Thursday.Stephen Sondheim, asked days before his death if he had any sense of when his final musical would be finished, offered a simple answer: “No.”The great composer and lyricist, who was 91 at the time, in late 2021, had been working on and off for years on the show, which was adapted from two Luis Buñuel films. He had written songs for the first act but was struggling with the second. “I’m a procrastinator,” he told me then. “I need a collaborator who pushes me, who gets impatient.”Now, two years after his death, the show, which Sondheim had been calling “Square One” but which was later renamed “Here We Are,” is being presented for the first time, in a 526-seat theater at the Shed, a nonprofit cultural center in Hudson Yards on the Far West Side of Manhattan. Performances of the show, which is based on Buñuel’s “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” and “The Exterminating Angel” and billed as “the final musical by composer Stephen Sondheim,” are set to begin Thursday and to run until January,So what changed? How did a show that Team Sondheim suggested was incomplete at the time of his death get to a point where it was ready for public consumption?The show’s creative and producing team say that two months before Sondheim’s death, he had agreed to let the show go forward, following a successful reading of the material that existed at that point. They had come up with a rationale for a second act that is light on songs. And they note that, following that reading, Sondheim had appeared on Stephen Colbert’s late-night show and had said, “We had a reading of it last week and we were encouraged. So we’re going to go ahead with it, and with any luck we’re going to get it on next season.”So is the show being staged a finished musical? “Who would consider a musical ‘finished’ until it has gone through a full preview process?” the show’s producing and creative team said in written responses to questions for this article. “What we are putting on stage now is as finished as any production about to play its first preview. It’s ready for audiences, and very much the musical Steve envisioned.”The creative team said that all of the show’s songs, and all of its lyrics, were written by Sondheim, and that “as is the case with every musical, the orchestrator and arranger take the composer’s melodies and motifs and use them to arrange and orchestrate the instrumental interstitial music.”The musical will be based in part on Luis Buñuel’s 1972 film “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.” Rialto Pictures“There isn’t a note in this score that wasn’t born out of Steve’s compositions, as will be abundantly clear to audiences,” they said.The book, on the other hand, has been revised since Sondheim’s death by its writer, David Ives, and director, Joe Mantello. But the team said that “the three collaborators agreed after the informal reading that took place on Sept. 8, 2021, that Steve’s songwriting for both acts was complete.”There is a long history of work in various stages of completion being released after the death of an artist. Mozart’s Requiem, Puccini’s “Turandot” and Berg’s “Lulu” were all left unfinished when their composers died and are now considered classics.“The work that David and Stephen did should absolutely be seen,” said Oskar Eustis, the artistic director of the Public Theater, which was working with Sondheim to develop the show until a few years ago. “It’s a jewel, it’s small, it’s incomplete, but it’s absolutely delightful and smart and gorgeous, and it would be a crime for it not to be seen. So I’m entirely in favor of the work being shown in public.”James Lapine, who as a librettist collaborated with Sondheim on shows including “Into the Woods” and “Sunday in the Park With George,” agreed. “I really trust David and Joe, and don’t think they would be putting up something they didn’t feel was finished — not on this scale,” he said. “They’re smart cookies, and if they wanted to do a workshop because it wasn’t finished, they could. But they see it as finished, and Steve gave his blessing, so it’s going to be an addition to the canon.”The show, in Sondheim’s pithy description in that last interview, has a “so-called plot” in which “the first act is a group of people trying to find a place to have dinner, and they run into all kinds of strange and surreal things, and in the second act, they find a place to have dinner, but they can’t get out.”When Sondheim seemed stymied by the second act, Ives and Mantello suggested that perhaps, once the characters are trapped, they can no longer sing.“Hopefully it won’t feel unfinished,” said the actor Nathan Lane, who took part in the 2021 reading. “It makes sense that these characters, once they’re trapped, they can’t sing any more.”“Here We Are,” like many new musicals, has had a complicated developmental journey.Long before he appeared on Colbert’s show, Sondheim had made suggestions that a production could be imminent. In 2014, during an appearance at the New York Film Festival, Sondheim said that he and Ives had just finished a first draft. In 2016, the producer Scott Rudin, who had been consulting with Sondheim about the show, told the “Fresh Air” interviewer Terry Gross that he hoped it would be staged in 2017. Two months later Sondheim, speaking at the Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown, N.Y., said he also hoped the show would be staged in 2017, “if I can finish the score in time.”Sondheim had been working on the project off and on for years. Daniel Dorsa for The New York TimesThere was a reading and three workshops before the pandemic — all led by the Public Theater — but no productions.“My impression was that Steve hadn’t finished it in his mind to where he wanted it to be exactly, but an unfinished Sondheim song still sounds like a pretty amazing song,” said Michael Cerveris, an actor who took part in two readings at the Public.At one point Sondheim set aside work on the musical; he and Ives returned to another project, called “All Together Now,” and the Public’s rights to the Buñuel films lapsed.Then Mantello and Ives pulled together the 2021 reading, with a starry cast led by Lane and Bernadette Peters. The reading was a one-afternoon event, with no singing — the assembled actors read the words of the script and the song.“It was two acts, and the lyrics were witty and clever, unsurprisingly,” Lane said. Sondheim, he said, “had written an act and the beginning of the second act, and there was some material in the script that was suggesting perhaps he might turn some long monologue into a song — I wasn’t privy to those conversations.”There is uncertainty among some Sondheim biographers about how to view this show.“I’m both eager and apprehensive,” said Daniel Okrent, who is writing a book about Sondheim. “I’m eager because I so admire his work, and I’m apprehensive because of his public statements that suggested he wasn’t very happy with what he had done, or that he didn’t think it was complete.”Several people who spoke with Sondheim in his final years said they were surprised by the turn of events. “He thought it was never going to happen,” said the director Ivo van Hove, who spent time with Sondheim while directing a 2020 Broadway revival of “West Side Story,” “but it’s happening now.”Others would like more transparency from the creative team about how they have pulled this show together, a process partly described by Frank Rich in New York magazine.“I think we’d all like to know more about how the sausage was made, especially the second act sausage,” said D.T. Max, a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of “Finale: Late Conversations With Stephen Sondheim.”Sondheim was known for revising many of his shows throughout the preview process, which makes this one unusual. (He wrote “Comedy Tonight,” the opener of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” and “Being Alive,” the 11 o’clock number in “Company,” after out-of-town pre-Broadway productions had begun.)“Steve going on Colbert and saying ‘we’re going to do a show’ and then being around for rehearsals and previews and developing and rewriting as always is one thing,” said David Benedict, a writer who is also at work on a Sondheim biography. “It’s a very different proposition when the composer-lyricist isn’t with you.”The show has a sizable budget for an Off Broadway production — the commercial producers who are financing the show (Tom Kirdahy, Sue Wagner, John Johnson and The Stephen Sondheim Trust) expect to raise between $7 million and $8 million, according to a spokesman for the production. The ticket prices are also steep for Off Broadway: Prime seats are being priced at $349.Alex Poots, the Shed’s artistic director, said he had been thrilled when the Sondheim estate approached him last year about staging the musical.“We’re here to support artists who advance their fields,” he said. “I was literally doing back somersaults — for the most important and groundbreaking theater composer and lyricist to have his final work at the Shed is wonderful for us.” More