Passion by Stephen Sondheim

Passion by Stephen Sondheim

A one-act musical from the award-winning writing partnership behind Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods...

Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's musical is based on Ettore Scola's 1981 film Passione d'Amore, and its source material, Iginio Ugo Tarchetti's 1869 novel Fosca, and tells of the consequences of a sickly woman's love for a handsome young army captain.

Giorgio is a lusty officer in the Italian army, transferred to a remote outpost under the watchful eye of Colonel Ricci. Ricci's ward, Fosca, is a sickly and unattractive girl, who falls heavily in love with Giorgio at first sight. This is a love so compelling that she gradually wins the young officer over - but at what cost?

Passion opened on Broadway at the Plymouth Theatre in May 1994, in a production directed by James Lapine. It won three Tony Awards: Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score.

The show opened in the West End, with significant musical and script revisions, at the Queen's Theatre in 1996, in a production directed by Jeremy Sams. It was revived in London at the Donmar Warehouse in September 2010, as part of Stephen Sondheim's 80th birthday celebrations, winning Best Musical at the 2010 Evening Standard Awards.

James Lapine is a filmmaker, dramatist, screenwriter, and librettist who has worked on a wide range of projects. He has three Tony Award nominations for Best Book of a Musical (Passion, Falsettos, and Into the Woods), as well as nine Tony Award nominations, five Drama Desk Awards, a Pulitzer Prize in Drama, and a Peabody Award. He has also received the Abbott Award for lifetime accomplishment in theater and has been inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame.