Maria Friedman is one of the UK’s most celebrated stage performers and has been nominated for nine Olivier Awards, winning four. Her first major role onstage was originating Dot/Marie in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Sunday in the Park with George in 1990. She went on to play Mary in Merrily We Roll Along (1992), Fosca in Passion (1996), Roxie Hart in Chicago (1998), Sukie in The Witches of Eastwick: The Musical (2000), Mother in Ragtime (2003), Marian in The Woman in White (2004), Mrs. Lovett in the revival of Sweeney Todd (2007) and Golde in the revival of Fiddler on the Roof (2019)—to name a few of her theater credits—and there’s a LOT of Sondheim in there, a mentor and good friend of hers for almost four decades.
She made her Broadway debut when The Women in White transferred in 2005.
In 2024, she received a Tony nomination (and should have won) for directing the wildly-acclaimed revival of Merrily We Roll Along, starring Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez.
But how did this come about?
Well, firstly Merrily has its own messy history. The original 1981 Broadway production, directed by Harold Prince, with book by George Furth and music and lyrics by Sondheim, opened to fairly negative reviews and closed after only 16 performances and 44 previews. But the songs lived on and the show attracted a massive cult following.
The plot follows the lives of three “Old Friends” over the course of 20 years, backwards, from the pinnacle of success and destruction of friendships towards the character’s artistic struggles and forging of a seemingly unbreakable bond. The central figure, composer Franklin Shepard, was the glue that held himself, his collaborator, playwright Charlie, and their novelist bestie, Mary, together. Frank is also, arguably, the cause of everything falling apart.
Much like with Chess, there were many attempts at revivals, through the decades, that tried to fix the book, with new songs added and discarded, but none of them ever fully succeeded in presenting a definitive Merrily. I’ve seen most of the NYC attempts and a few in London, and I can attest to that.
Enter Maria Friedman
In November of 2012, Friedman directed a revival of Merrily at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory, which then transferred to the Harold Pinter Theatre in 2013 and received positive notices. In 2017, Friedman directed the show at The Huntington Theatre Company in Boston.
Then, in November of 2022, she was tapped to direct an off-Broadway version at New York Theater Workshop, based on her prior staging, with Groff, Radcliffe and Mendez. And it was such a huge success, transferring to Broadway’s Hudson Theatre less than a year later. The production broke house records and received seven Tony nominations, winning four, including Best Revival of a Musical, Lead Actor and Featured Actor.
And now, that stage version has become a spectacular hybrid theatrical film. But not the type that we are used to. Friedman uses the camera to take us inside Frank’s world—his head. And the world of Frank, Charley and Mary. We’re like voyeurs–brought into the proceedings where we can delve into the psyches of these people. Usually, with a filmed stage show, we are used to the camera occasionally dollying in and out, but for the most part, the viewer is an audience member watching from afar. Here Friedman goes deep, so the characters are almost speaking directly to the viewer, as we are made part of the milieu. It’s an astonishing feat and is even more stirring and moving than the stage show was—which is saying a lot.
Friedman also manages to elicit incredibly subtle yet potent work from her ensemble, especially the three leads.
Filming took place over three performances and Friedman’s direction to her actors: “I told them not to do a single thing differently.”
It’s a difficult work to categorize so it’s a tough one for awards placement, but it certainly deserves consideration. It is ineligible for Oscars because it is deemed a “filmed performance,” However it can and will compete for Golden Globes and certain guild awards, including SAG. The Academy really should take a closer look at their rules, especially when it comes to less easily defined, more hybrid presentations like this one.
Merrily We Roll Along will be released nationwide on December 5, 2025, by Sony Pictures Classics.
The Contending had the pleasure of a VIDEO chat with Friedman.
