10/12/01: At a talk in Toronto, for the World Leaders celebration, Sondheim spoke a bit about the show. Much, he said, has been rewritten.

9/7/01: Sondheim has said the show is still in the works, with late 2002 as a current target date with a U.S. opening. He also said it's not going to be a big play, but is a musical comedy. The current tentative title is Gold.

7/20/01: At a San Francisco Symphony press conference (for the Sweeney Todd concert), Stephen Sondheim said he finished rewriting the first act, "Hal Prince is directing it, we read through it, and we are pleased with ourselves. We are redoing the second act and, with any luck, it will get on at the end of the next season," he said, "and if not, the beginning of the following season."

10/5/00: In speaking after receiving an award at Fairfield University in September, Stephen Sondheim spoke of the show:

"As for WISEGUYS [he called it that throughout], I fear it will be viewed like an elephant giving birth to a mouse. It's just a musical comedy."

"Addison and Wilson Mizner represent [among other things] construction and destruction."

6/21/00: You can hear a snippet of "A House for Mama" on this NPR Morning Edition show, from the Sondheim 70th Birthday Tribute in May at the LOC.

3/13/00: Victor Garber speaks out about the Wise Guys experience in this National Post article.

3/11/00: From this NY Times interview with Stephen Sondheim: Wise Guys will likely be renamed, though Sondheim is "eager to revamp [the show] with his collaborator, the playwright John Weidman." And the replacement of Sam Mendes with Hal Prince was confirmed.

2/15/00: Looks like Hal Prince may take over director duties for Wise Guys.

11/26/99: Wise Guys will not open on Broadway this season. The show is officially postponed, but not cancelled according to the NY Times and USA Today.

11/16/99: Read a first person account of the 11/15 Wise Guys workshop production.

11/1/99: The workshop has begun and the lucky few report that only the first act has been presented thus far.

10/12/99: The Fall issue of The Sondheim Review reports:

"Three new songs will be added when the long-awaited Wise Guys has its workshop in New York: "Isn't He Something?" (sung by Mama neat the end of the first act), "Stay Right Where You Are" (sung by Wilson to Mrs. Yerkes) and "Courtroom Sequence" (which replaces "What's Next")."

10/1/99: From today's NY Times:

"Elsewhere, however, talk of directorial changes seemed to be just that, talk. The rumor du jour on Broadway was that Sam Mendes, the director of "Wise Guys," the new Sondheim musical, and of the film "American Beauty," was close to leaving the developmental production at the New York Theater Workshop. Gossips also posited that the show, scheduled to begin on Oct. 29, might be delayed because rehearsals began a week later than scheduled. But John Barlow, a spokesman, said that while rehearsals for principal performers were delayed by a week, the show's stars, Nathan Lane and Victor Garber, are now in the second week of music rehearsals at the workshop and the full company rehearsals with Mendes would begin on Oct. 7. Sondheim and John Weidman, the book writer, are working on the script and score, and on Monday, a letter went out to renewing subscribers of the workshops inviting them to the show. "Everything's on schedule," Barlow said."

9/12/99: Stephen Sondheim has written a wonderful article in the 9/12/99 NY Times. Online Times subscribers (it's free) can click here: "Wise Guys: Work in Progress for 47 Years".

The same Times issue ran Ben Brantley's outlook on Broadway. He mentioned:

"Wise Guys," the story of two archetypal American dreamers and schemers of the 1920s, the Mizner brothers, would seem to offer especially fertile terrain for Sondheim: a chance to again anatomize both all-American ambition (as he did in "Merrily We Roll Along" and "Assassins") and the show business legacy of vaudeville (as in "Follies"). It should be added that few performers today embody that legacy with the style and swagger of Nathan Lane, who will be playing one half of the fraternal team of the title. (His co-star is another nicely seasoned pro, Victor Garber.)

Workshop Cast: (as of 10/19 this is official) Nathan Lane (Addison Mizner), Victor Garber (Wilson Mizner), Candy Buckley (Mama)(Communicating Doors), Michael Hall (Paris Singer), Lauren Ward (Violet, 1776), Kevin Chamberlin, Christopher Fitzgerald (Corpus Christi), Nancy Opel, Brooks Ashmanskas (Little Me), Jessica Boevers (Forum), Jessica Molaskey, William Parry, Clarke Thorell (Titanic), Ray Wills.

Update 8/25/99: The NYTW workshop will take place October 29 - November 20. As previously announced, only NYTW subscribers can purchase tickets. This is not a NYTW production, but one of the producing team of Scott Rudin, Roger Berlind, Dodger Theatricals and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Art. Nathan Lane and Victor Garber are confirmed for this workshop series, but are still not signed for the Broadway production. Reported by BroadwayNow.

Update 7/29/99: A final reading scheduled for the last week of July has been cancelled. Casting for the workshop has begun.

The latest issue (Summer, 1999) of The Sondheim Review magazine presents "Inside the fourth reading of Wise Guys", by Sean Patrick Flahaven. Sean was present at the fourth reading for Wise Guys, held at Dodger Theatricals rehearsal space in Manhattan April 30, 1999. Here are some highlights of his report:

• actors included Nathan, Victor Garber, Debra Monk as Mama Mizner, Michael Hall a Paris Singer, William Parry, Ray Wills and Lauren Mitchell, Becky Ann Baker, Carolee Carmello, Kevin Chamberlin and Peter Samuel.
• also in attendance were an invited audience of 50 plus producers Scott Rudin, Roger Berlind and representatives of Dodger Theatricals, music director Paul Gemignani, and orchestrator Jonathan Tunick. Ira Weitzman produced the reading; Ted Sperling conducted and Matt Sklar was the rehearsal pianist.
• the performers read from scripts and scores on music stands; no movement or technical elements were used
• the score now includes thirteen songs plus two still being prepared

Update 5/5/99: The New York reading took place in April. The fall workshop will be held in November at the New York Theatre Workshop. Tickets will be available to current NYTW subscribers (not to new subscribers). The musical is now a Spring '00 hopeful.

Update 4/10/99: Wise Guys will have a fourth private reading in New York in late April, followed by a fall workshop production at New York Theater Workshop (the original producer of Rent) and a Broadway opening in the 1999-2000 season.

Update 3/19/99: The Washington Post has published this statement in their coverage of the 99-00 Kennedy Center season:

"Absent from next year's schedule is "Wise Guys," a Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman musical the center commissioned with great fanfare several years ago. The show's opening was postponed several times as the creators missed deadlines and the center finally stopped scheduling it. Wilker said yesterday the play is written, will be presented in a workshop in September and eventually will be presented at the Kennedy Center."

I have learned that there may also be a reading in late April or early May in NYC in addition to the above mentioned pre-Broadway workshop.

After three workshop sessions in the last few years, the probability of the production of this musical builds. Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by John Weidman, Wise Guys tells the tale of Addison and Wilson Mizner, real-life brothers who built a reputation as con men, adventurers and entrepreneurs around the turn of the century. Nathan Lane (Addison Mizner),

Victor Garber (Wilson Mizner), and Debra Monk (Mama Mizner), all Sondheim veterans, participated in the most recent workshop in NYC and are rumored to be involved in the actual production, now said to be planned for the fall of 2000.

For more information on the real Mizners, see:

The Real-Life Wise Guys at The Stephen Sondheim Stage.

The Legendary Mizners by Alva Johnston *

Addison Mizner, the Palm Beach Architect by Donald H. Dyal *

Rogue's progress : the fabulous adventures of Wilson Mizner by Richard O'Connor *

Mizner's Florida : American Resort Architecture (American Monograph Series) by Donald Walter Curl

Florida Architecture of Addison Mizner (Dover Books on Architecture) by Addison Mizner, Donald W. Curl (Designer)

( * for these out of print books, try Alibris or
Advanced Book Exchange)

Other Mizner links at The Stephen Sondheim Stage

For more about the workshops, read Wise Guys receives its third reading and More of Wise Guys revealed at reading from The Sondheim Review.

For news of the future production: from Playbill Online and The Stephen Sondheim Stage.