Sunday in the Park with George is an American musical that won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for drama for Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics) and James Lapine (book). Lapine also directed. The show’s main themes explore the nature of art and the creative process. The musical also satirizes art criticism, art patronage, and fads in art. Notable songs include “Children and Art” and “Move On.”
The first act takes place in Paris in 1884. There the French artist Georges Seurat is painstakingly creating his famous painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte out of thousands of tiny dots of color. The second act takes place in the present time in New York City, where Seurat’s great-grandson George is a modern experimental sculptor experiencing a creative block. The other major characters are Seurat’s model and mistress, Dot, in the first act, and Marie, the daughter of Seurat and Dot, in the second act. A highlight of the show comes at the final moment of the first act, when the supporting characters gradually arrange themselves to reproduce the scene captured by Seurat in his Grande Jatte painting.
Sunday in the Park with George opened on Broadway on May 2, 1984. Mandy Patinkin played Georges and George, and Bernadette Peters played Dot and Marie.
See also Seurat, Georges ; Sondheim, Stephen ; Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte .
