Playbill reports:

When Sweet Smell of Success opened on Broadway in 2002, it closed just after three months. Now, NYC choral ensemble MasterVoices – under the direction of Tony winner Ted Sperling – is readying to give the Marvin Hamlisch, Craig Carnelia and John Guare show an NYC return. The company is presenting a concert of the 2002 musical November 21-22 at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall, with a cast led by Raúl Esparza (Company) as J.J. Hunsecker and Lizzy McAlpine (Floyd Collins) as Susan. It’s a long overdue return for the musical.

To find out more, we caught up with Guare, Carnelia, and MasterVoices Artistic Director (and this concert’s director and conductor) Sperling during rehearsals.

Playbill: What do you think Marvin would think about re-visiting this?

Guare: Marvin felt it was his best score. He loved it, and was very disappointed by the reaction. I think Marvin would not be surprised at all. He’d just say, “About time!”

Carnelia: When Marvin and I met, we hit it off instantly, artistically. The thing he said to me in our first meeting was he wanted to write another serious score. He felt A Chorus Line and Sweet Smell were by far his best, and they were both written with people who also write music! Which isn’t to suggest for a moment that I wrote a note of the music – I didn’t. But I think having a lyricist in those two cases who also wrote music informed not only the lyric writing, but also, what Marvin was able to do. He was truly brilliant, a great composer and so fluid. Stephen Sondheim used to talk about what it was like working with Jule Styne and how the melody just flowed out of him. Marvin was like that. It was thrilling to be in the room with him. He had a visceral, animal connection to why people sing, and that’s what you hear in that music, be it for film or theatre.

Read more here!