"Not a day goes by,
Not a single day
But you're somewhere a part of my life
And it looks like you'll stay.
As the days go by,
I keep thinking, "When does it end?
Where 's the day I'll have started forgetting?"
But I just go on
Thinking and sweating
And cursing and crying
And turning and reaching
And waking and dying..."

"Since Merrily We Roll Along is about friendship, the score concentrates attention on the freindship of Mary, Frank, and Charley by having all their songs interconnected through chunks of melody, rhythm and accompaniment. And since the story moves backwards in time, it presented an opportunity to invent verbal and musical motifs which could be modified over the course of the years, extended and developed, reprised, fragmented, and then presented to the audience in reverse: extensions first, reprises first, fragments first."

-Stephen Sondheim

Merrily We Roll Along is based on the Kaufman and Hart play of the same title. In it we are transported back in time, as a disillusioned, middle-aged songwriter, Franklin Shepeard examines his life from it's idealistic beginnings to it's somewhat jaded present. The show goes backwards in time and the characters grow younger, as it spans the time period between 1980-1957.

Merrily We Roll Along opened November 16, 1981 at the Alvin Theatre it closed November 28, 1981. The show ran for only 16 performances. Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim; Book by George Furth : From the play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. Produced by Lord Grade, Martin Starger, Robert Fryer, and Harold Prince in association with Ruth Mitchell and Howard Haines. Directed by Harold Prince . Choreography by Larry Fuller; Set Designed by Eugene Lee ; Costumes Designed by Judith Dolan;Lighting Designed by David Hersey; Orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick; Musical Direction by Paul Gemignani.

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