UPDATED, 9:14 AM: Empire Street Productions and London’s Barbican have confirmed that Jonathan Bailey and Ariana Grande will star in a new stage production of Stephen Sondheim’s musical, Sunday in the Park with George.
Performances will begin at the Barbican Centre in London in the summer 2027. The production will be directed by Marianne Elliot, with design by Tom Scutt. Sunday in the Park with George is produced by Empire Street Productions and presented in association with the Barbican. Tickets will go on sale in May 2026.
Additional production details will be announced later. Check out the first artwork for the production here:
PREVIOUSLY, : Jonathan Bailey appeared to confirm Deadline’s report that he and Ariana Grande will star in a Sunday in the Park With George revival with an Instagram post shared this morning.
Bailey posted an image of himself and his Wicked co-star in front of Georges Seurat’s painting ‘A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatt,’ which served as the inspiration behind the musical, penned by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine.
Bailey captioned the post: “All it has to be is good.”
Baz Bamigboye reported in December 2025 that the revival will have a potential summer opening at London’s Barbican Theatre in 2027. Tony Award and Olivier Award winner Marianne Elliott will direct.
As Baz reported in December, Seurat’s artwork depicts people of varying social classes strolling and relaxing in a Parisian park on the Seine. Lapine and Sondheim demonstrate how the artist might have put his huge painting together by imagining who the people in Seurat’s painting might be. They include the character George, a fictional version of the painter, and his witty lover and muse, Dot. In the play’s second act, the same actress plays Dot’s daughter, Marie. Those roles originated at the Booth Theatre on Broadway by Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters, respectively. Philip Quast and Maria Friedman created the parts over here in London in a production at the National Theatre directed by Steven Pimlott. It won the Olivier for Best New Musical.
Jake Gyllenhaal starred in a Broadway revival of the play in 2017 alongside Annaleigh Ashford. The pair were scheduled to star in the show at London’s Savoy Theatre in 2020, but the production was postponed due Covid.
