Ariana Grande and Jonathan Bailey ignited the internet with the publication of a photo taken in Chicago, as seen above. It was a clear reference to Sunday in the Park with George, the musical by Stephen Sondheim with a book and direction by James Lapine. It premiered on Broadway in 1984 and immediately stood apart from everything else on stage at the time. This was not a traditional love story, comedy, or spectacle. It was a meditation on art, obsession, and legacy, built around one of the most famous paintings in Western art history.

The musical is inspired by Georges Seurat's 1886 painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, the painting in Grande and Bailey's photo, which they published in collaboration in Instagram.

Rather than dramatizing Seurat's life in a conventional biographical way, the show imagines what it might have cost him emotionally to create something so meticulous and enduring.

Act I: the making of a masterpiece

The first act is set in 19th-century Paris and centers on Georges Seurat, a painter consumed by precision and order. He works obsessively on La Grande Jatte, constructing the painting dot by dot using pointillism. His lover and muse, Dot, models for him but grows increasingly frustrated by his emotional distance and single-minded devotion to his art.

This act is about process. Sondheim famously structures the music to mirror Seurat's technique, with repeated phrases, musical fragments, and rhythms that layer gradually, much like the painting itself. The conflict is not dramatic in a soap-opera sense. It is internal, quiet, and deeply human. How much of your life do you give to your work, and what happens to the people standing beside you?

Act II: legacy and repetition

The second act jumps forward nearly 100 years. Seurat is gone, but his artistic descendant, also named George, is a contemporary artist navigating the modern art world. This George struggles with critics, donors, museums, and the pressure to repeat past success rather than risk failure with something new.

Dot reappears symbolically through Marie, her daughter, connecting the two eras and reinforcing the show's central question. Does artistic ambition repeat itself across generations, and do artists ever truly learn how to balance creation and connection?

This structural leap is one reason the musical is considered groundbreaking. Few shows dare to abandon their initial setting so completely, or ask the audience to reassess the meaning of what they have just watched.

A rare Pulitzer for a musical

In 1985, Sunday in the Park with George won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. This is extremely rare for a musical, especially one without mass commercial appeal. The award recognized the show not as entertainment alone, but as serious dramatic literature.

At the time, the musical was divisive. Some critics found it cold or intellectual. Others immediately recognized it as one of Sondheim's most personal works, a reflection on his own artistic discipline and emotional isolation.

Major revivals and lasting influence

Since its Broadway debut, Sunday in the Park with George has been revived multiple times, including landmark productions in London and a highly acclaimed 2017 Broadway revival starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford. Each revival tends to arrive during moments when theater audiences and artists are reexamining the purpose of art itself.

The show is now considered essential Sondheim. Songs like "Finishing the Hat" and "Move On" are studied in acting and composition programs worldwide for their emotional precision and musical complexity.

Why the play still matters

Unlike many musicals that age with nostalgia, Sunday in the Park with George remains current because its questions never resolve. It does not argue that art is worth the sacrifice, nor does it condemn it. It simply observes the cost.

That ambiguity is the point.

The play is ultimately about making something lasting in a world that demands speed, attention, and compromise. It is about standing still long enough to place one dot, then another, trusting that meaning will emerge only when you step back.

That is why, more than 40 years after its premiere, Sunday in the Park with George continues to return. It does not comfort. It challenges.

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Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey