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One of the wittiest little morsels in TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s world premiere of “Being Alive: A Sondheim Celebration” is this observation: “Though he didn’t marry until his 80s, Sondheim always knew a lot about marriage.” Turns out, Stephen Sondheim knew a lot about a lot of things. In “Being Alive,” co-conceived by Robert Kelley and William Liberatore, Sondheim’s greatest introspections about love, lust, children and friendship are given the star treatment, placing the genius of the oft-produced composer and lyricist onto a two-hour traffic of the stage.

The result is a lovely and beautifully sung reminder of why one of theater’s most recognizable names continues to solve the riddles of our world with panache and poignance. Both Kelley, who retired from TheatreWorks in 2020 after a 50-year run as artistic director, and Liberatore, the longtime current resident musical director, are in fine form in crafting a narrative that showcases the warmest of Sondheim’s complicated melodies and ideas. They provide wonderful opportunities for each of the six talents tasked with singing Sondheim’s scintillating songs that expose the heart’s affairs.



The basis of the narrative is all about the minutiae of rehearsal, complete with a visible stage manager and a tiny combo of musicians, including Liberatore on piano and Artie Storch handling drum duties. All of these details, which are not about the largesse of Broadway, take the music to its roots, when Sondhe.

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