LONDON — Empire Street Productions confirmed on Sunday what the theater world had quietly accepted for weeks: the planned 2027 London revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George” at the Barbican will not happen.
The company’s statement, released to The Hollywood Reporter, was brief. “The planned 2027 production of ‘Sunday in the Park with George’ at the Barbican will no longer proceed as scheduled,” it read. “Empire Street Productions will retain the rights with a view to presenting the production in 2028. Further details will be announced in due course.” No further details were announced.
The statement does not say that the production was built around one central idea: Ariana Grande and Jonathan Bailey, reunited after playing Glinda and Fiyero in the Wicked films, would turn a beloved Sondheim musical into a cultural event.
When that idea disappeared, so did the show.
Grande’s departure came first. On August 2, her representative cited “intensified public scrutiny” following the conclusion of her Eternal Sunshine tour, describing her decision to step back from high-profile commitments as a necessary pause.
Within 24 hours, Empire Street issued reassurances that production would continue, alternative casting was being considered, and director Marianne Elliott remained attached. The statement projected a confidence the company may not have felt.
Bailey’s announcement came on September 1, via Instagram. “Ari is one of my dearest friends, and my support for her is unwavering,” he wrote. “After much consideration, I have decided to also step back from Sunday in the Park with George.” Empire Street responded a second time, more quietly: “Work on the production continues.” Thirteen days later, the work had stopped.
“Sunday in the Park with George” opened on Broadway in 1984 with Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The musical charts the obsessive creative life of painter Georges Seurat as he works on “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,” with his lover and muse, Dot, at the center of its emotional argument. It has proved one of the more resistant of Sondheim’s works to major commercial staging. The 2005 Menier Chocolate Factory production with Daniel Evans and Jenna Russell eventually transferred to the West End and then to Broadway, building its reputation on the work’s gravity alone. The Barbican revival was counting on something faster.
That floor collapsed on a structural point: neither star could hold the commitment. Grande’s withdrawal preceded the first planned performance by nearly a year. The company’s “work continues” statement after Bailey’s exit held for thirteen days.
Compounding the difficulty was the May departure of Devyani Saltzman, the Barbican’s Director for Arts, who had been central to bringing the project to the venue. After her exit, the Barbican’s institutional stake in the show shifted from artistic championship to real-estate provision.
Empire Street’s reference to 2028 leaves the project nominally alive. What that timeline contains is not yet clear. No new cast or director is announced. The Sondheim estate has not commented. The 2027 window — the more natural occasion, closer to the production’s creative genesis — has closed. A 2028 staging would need to rebuild its rationale and find new anchors entirely.
Elliott has not spoken publicly about what comes next. Bailey has not indicated whether his withdrawal is a deferral or a permanent departure. Grande’s representative continues to say she is stepping back from public commitments. The Barbican’s event listing no longer promotes scheduled performances.
What remains is an estate’s asset and one company’s stated ambition, separated from the production that generated interest in both by a casting announcement that arrived in January and was effectively over by September.
Whether the show finds a London stage in 2028 is a question that, for now, has no cast to answer it.
