Jonathan Bailey and Ariana Grande are returning to the stage together for a major London revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George. The pair will lead the new production at the Barbican Centre, with performances set to begin in summer 2027.
The revival reunites the actors following their recent screen partnership in Wicked, introducing them to a new generation of musical theatre audiences. While the production has not yet confirmed their roles, the casting places two globally recognised performers at the centre of one of Sondheim’s most demanding and introspective works.
Tony and Olivier Award winner Marianne Elliott directs the production, with Tom Scutt designing the sets and costumes. Empire Street Productions will produce the revival in association with the Barbican. Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine wrote the musical, drawing inspiration from Georges Seurat’s painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.” The story examines the personal cost of artistic obsession across two generations of artists.
Sunday in the Park with George premiered on Broadway in 1984 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Its most recent major staging came in 2017, when Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford led a Broadway revival. The score, which includes the song “Sunday” and the lyric “All it has to be is good,” remains a cornerstone of modern musical theatre.
For Ariana Grande, the revival signals a continued return to her theatrical roots, while Bailey’s involvement further reinforces his growing presence across stage and screen. Together, their casting positions the Barbican revival as one of the most closely watched theatre events on London’s cultural calendar.
Tickets will go on sale in May, 2026.
What do you think about this casting? Share your thoughts on X, and visit Lyrical Muse for more entertainment stories.
Leave a Reply