Are there worse things than sitting in the Barbican watching Ariande Grande on a Sunday?

That is the question raised by the announcement, rumored for weeks, that the music superstar was pairing with Jonathan Bailey in a revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Sunday in the Park with George.

The catch is that the production, under the direction of Olivier and Tony Awards winning director Marianne Elliot, will not take place until the summer of 2027 at London’s Barbican Theatre. Tickets will go on sale in May of this year for the production produced by Empire Street Productions and London’s Barbican.

Eliot has won four Tony Awards for her direction of War Horse and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (both first produced at London’s Royal National Theatre); and two West End transfers, Angels in America and the gender-bending revival of Company. She has won two Olivier Awards (Curious Incident…, and a revival of Death of a Salesman). The production will be designed by Tom Scutt, the Tony-winning designer of the environmental Cabaret in both London and New York. He also won a Olivier Award for his designs for a 2025 revival of Fiddler on the Roof in the West End. His latest work is the recent revival of Into The Woods, produced by the Bridge Theatre that is currently playing in the West End.

Additional production details will be announced later.

In the visionary musical is centered around Georges Seurat’s 1884-1885 canvas  ‘A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte’ that resides at the Chicago Institute of Art. Bailey posted a photo of himself and Grande chatting in front of the painting. In the musical both actors play dual roles: Bailey as Seurat in the first act, and his great grandson, also an artist named George, in the second. Grande plays his lover Dot in Act One, and Dot’s elderly daughter Marie in the second.

A graphic for the upcoming production of Sunday in the Park with George, scheduled for the Barbican Theatre in the summer of 2027.

The roles were originated in 1984 by Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters in the musical’s Broadway premiere that played at the Booth Theatre for 604 performances. Though critically acclaimed, its initial run lost money. It was recorded for Showtime and American Playhouse the following year with most of the original cast. It was first produced in London at the Royal National Theatre in 1990 with with Philip Quast and Maria Friedman. A 2005 London revival at the Menier Chocolate Factory featured Daniel Evans and Anna-Jane Casey. It transferred to the West End with Jenna Russell replacing Casey in 2006, then Broadway in 2008. A gala City Center revival in 2016 featured Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford. It transferred to Broadway in 2017. A proposed London production was canceled due to the Covid pandemic.

In 2013, memorable production, performed in the English language at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, was directed by Lee Blakeley and featured the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France led by David Charles Abell. George was played by Julian Ovenden. Dot/Marie was played by Sophie-Louise Dann. For this production, Michael Starobin reworked his musical arrangements, which were originally tailored to an 11-piece chamber orchestra, to match a full orchestra.[36] The production was taped for radio and TV and has been frequently broadcast in the French Mezzo HD channel.

The musical’s first act follows Seurat’s struggle to complete the painting. Its characters are figures from the canvas come-to-life. In it, his obsession with his art leads to his breakup with Dot, his model and lover. The second takes place a hundred years later. Seurat’s great-grandson, a conceptual artist also named George, is experiencing an artistic block as he presents an aesthetic homage to the painting.

Grande appears ideal to play the coquettish Dot from the first half. The question is if she can morph into the 90+ year old Marie in the second. As for Bailey, he seems perfect for the troubled second-act George; the reclusive artist in the first act may be more of a challenge.

Watch the Théâtre du Châtelet production of Sunday in the Park with George.