Chicago Tribune
- Highly Recommended
"...Such is my enthusiasm for Kokandy Productions' exquisite little Chicago staging of Stephen Sondheim's "Sunday in the Park with George" that I wrote down five different opening paragraphs, or organizing principles, if you will. They're crucial in the reviewing business but never more so when you believe in a show enough that you want the reader not just to keep reading your jottings but to actually go to the show."
Chicago Sun Times
- Highly Recommended
"...Director Derek Van Barham and Kokandy Productions stage another Stephen Sondheim masterwork - following their much-praised "Sweeney Todd" and "Into the Woods" - in the cramped basement space of the Chopin Theatre. This time, it's a richly emotional, cleverly designed and musically vivid "Sunday in the Park with George," about the creation of painter Georges Seurat's "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte," the large neo-impressionist masterpiece that - so very lucky for us! - hangs a few miles away in the Art Institute."
Chicago Reader
- Recommended
"...A brief bit of art history: Georges Seurat basically invented pointillism, the method of painting with thousands of colored dots that trick the eye into seeing colors that aren't actually on the canvas. His masterpiece A Sunday on La Grande Jatte-the piece he's feverishly working on through the first act of Sunday in the Park-hangs on the second floor of the Art Institute. Look closely at the purple-flowered hat and you'll see it's a mass of blue and red dots. Back up, and the eye insists it sees purple. The whole painting is a magnificent, shimmering color illusion."
Talkin Broadway
- Highly Recommended
"...Kokandy Productions is presenting Sunday in the Park with George, the meditation on art, artist, subject, and humanity with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. Kokandy's production, directed and choreographed by Derek Van Barham, with music direction by Nick Sula, makes skillful use of the intimate downstairs space at the Chopin Theatre to deliver a splendid, aching production that taps into the show's enduring power."
Stage and Cinema
- Highly Recommended
"...As is expected by now of any musical at Kokandy, the vocals are absolutely phenomenal. Not a note is out of place, not a line is oversung. Band leader Evelyn Ryan expertly conducts Sondheim's complex, pointillistic score. This is director and choreographer Derek Van Barham's and music director Nick Sula's third Sondheim musical in the last few years at Kokandy, after critically adored productions of Into the Woods and Sweeney Todd, both starring Webb. Their sensibilities are clearly aligned with the material, and the staging and orchestrations are so creative that I'd have to write another several hundred words just to enumerate everything I love about it."
Chicago Stage and Screen
- Highly Recommended
"...Stephen Sondheim's Pulitzer Prize winning musical is always a special treat to see in Chicago because you can scoot right down to the Art Institute to see the inspiration: George Seurat's game changing painting A Sunday Afternoon on The Island of the Grand Jatte that is proudly centered in the Impressionists Gallery on the second floor."
Around The Town Chicago
- Highly Recommended
"...If you are familiar with the painting, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” by George Seurat, with its amazing color and style, you might find the musical piece written by James LaPaine ( book) and Stephen Sondheim ( music & lyrics), a story that will capture your interest into what might have been the “back story” to this work of art. The musical work, takes us into the past and present, containing some truths about life, love, and the creation of art itself. I must tell you that I was concerned about how Kokandy Productions, one of the city’s most creative, would pull it off."
Chicago Theatre Review
- Highly Recommended
"...All of the elements in this wonderful production, from a great script and a lovely score, to a thoughtful and sensitively directed production and a gifted cast at the top of their game, combine to propel this production of SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE to the top. This show must be included on Chicago's must-see list for the Autumn season. After a fifteen year absence in Chicago, Kokandy Production's magnificent, intimate, almost immersive production was well worth the wait. Art isn't easy, so Sondheim says, but director Derek Van Barham has made it look effortless. Do not miss this one!"
Buzz Center Stage
- Highly Recommended
"...Composition, tension, balance, light, and harmony come together seamlessly in Kokandy Productions' revival of Sondheim's opus, 'Sunday in the Park with George'. Director Derek Van Barham transforms the basement of the Chopin Theatre into a three dimensional reproduction of Georges Seurat's 'A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte' for this beloved musical's return to Chicago."
Third Coast Review
- Highly Recommended
"...One of the most beloved paintings to see in Chicago is French post-impressionist painter Georges Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte at the Art Institute of Chicago. Some may not know the pointillist painting was the inspiration for Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Pulitzer-winning musical Sunday in the Park with George. In Kokandy Productions' staging of the musical, the company welcomes the audience into a mesmerizing experience that will engulf them into the show's artistry and emotions."
Chicago Theater and Arts
- Recommended
"...In “Sunday in the Park with George” originally produced in 1982, playwright James Lapine partnered with composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim to lift the otherwise anonymous images from Georges Seurat’s famed work A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte and give them life. This thoughtful conceit takes the opportunity to use these characters to delve into the thought processes of the artist, and earned Lapine a Pulitzer Prize for Drama."
Chicago On Stage
- Somewhat Recommended
"...If only Kokandy Productions' creative team behind Sunday in the Park with George (music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine) had shared Seurat's concern for the relationship between space and viewership, the artistry on display in their staging of the Tony Award winning musical would reach levels worthy of theatrical mastery. Staged in the studio of Chopin Theatre, the cramped, obstructed, and acoustically unbalanced performance proved an unfortunate framing for the incredible talents of the actors and musicians in one of Sondheim's most beloved musicals. Craning necks and straining ears frustrate the delicate interpersonal intimacy the actors deliver on stage. In the end, one is left with a certain feeling that the expertly crafted square peg that is Sunday in the Park with George was never going to fit into the well-intentioned round hole envisioned by Kokandy's production team."
PicksInSix
- Recommended
"...“Sunday in the Park with George” returns to the Chicago stage this season, through a set of street front double doors on Division Street. Kokandy Productions tackles this beloved musical in Chopin Theatre’s Downstairs Studio, an intimate black box in the round. With book by James Lapine and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, “Sunday” took home the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama—one of only 10 musicals to win the esteemed prize—and amassed a whopping 10 Tony Award nominations, including Best Musical. It’s also said that 1 in 3 music theatre majors have at least one lyric discreetly tattooed somewhere, easily covered by a character shoe or mic pack."
Curtain Call Chicago
- Highly Recommended
"...Kokandy Productions' Sunday in the Park with George is a beautifully scaled, uniquely felt production that finds extraordinary unique intimacy in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's incredible story of art, love, ambition, and what ultimately endures through time. Staged in the potentially problematic downstairs space at the Chopin Theatre, Derek Van Barham's production turns the challenge of the limited space into one of its greatest strengths: the audience doesn't just watch Georges Seurat's world take shape, but is essentially invited to sit inside the revealed life sized painting with him."
Splash Magazine
- Highly Recommended
"...Directed and choreographed by Derek Van Barham, with music direction by Nick Sula, the production is inspired by Georges Seurat's famous painting, "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte." If you haven't seen it, the original is hanging in the Art Institute, beloved by all Chicagoans."
