Press release: free lecture to reveal the secrets behind Send In The Clowns 

2 October 2024

Sondheim and the Showstopper: Gresham College free lecture explores the composer’s manuscripts to reveal the secrets behind Send In The Clowns 

Professor Dominic Broomfield-McHugh to give first Showstoppers lecture on Thursday, 17 October, online and in central London 

The hidden story behind perhaps Stephen Sondheim’s most celebrated and successful song will be revealed in the Actors’ Church in central London this autumn, thanks to a free lecture organised by Gresham College.   

Professor Dominic Broomfield-McHugh, its visiting lecturer for Film and Theatre Music, will explore the iconic number Send In The Clowns, in collaboration with Olivier Award winner Sara Kestelman, who appears in Slow Horses. 

Professor Broomfield-McHugh said: “In this series of lectures, I’ll be considering some of the more unusual strategies that the great Broadway composers and lyricists employ to create their great showstoppers – literally using just music and lyrics to stop the show. 

“Thanks to the generous support of Sondheim’s estate, I’ll be able to show sketches from the song’s manuscripts – most of them never seen by the public – to help us understand the process by which this iconic number was written.” 

Originally written for Glynis Johns, Send In The Clowns features in Act Two of A Little Night Music, which premiered on Broadway in 1973.  

Broomfield-McHugh said: “Although the song was later recorded by vocal greats from Sinatra to Streisand, it was written for someone who was primarily a great actress.  

“In the lecture, I’ll show how Sondheim’s intoxicating music was inspired by his favourite composer Rachmaninov while the lyrics were developed into a dramatic but fragmented monologue that rarely fails to move the audience in performance.” 

He added: “Whereas we might usually associate showstoppers with big musical gestures and energetic production numbers, Send In The Clowns is subtle and poignant.  

“It’s an honour to be joined by one of the most versatile actresses of our time, Sara Kestelman, to explore how Sondheim used surprisingly restrained methods to stop the show.” 

Gresham College is London’s oldest higher education institution.  Founded in 1597 under the will of Sir Thomas Gresham, Gresham College has been delivering free public lectures for over 427 years from a lineage of leading professors and experts in their field who have included Christopher Wren, Robert Hooke, Iannis Xenakis and Sir Roger Penrose.  

The lecture will be given at the historic Actors’ Church in Covent Garden – St Paul's, Bedford Street WC2E 9ED on Thursday, 17 October. 

Starting at 6pm, entry is free, and it is also broadcast live online. It will last an hour.  

In-person places can be booked online via Gresham College’s website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/whats-on/sondheim-showstopper 

ENDS 

Notes to Editors 

Pictures available on request 

Professor Dominic Broomfield-McHugh is happy to take part in radio and podcast interviews and will also give in-depth print interviews.   

For more information about this story or to arrange an interview with a Gresham Professor please contact: Phil Creighton press@gresham.ac.uk 

About Gresham College 
Gresham College has been providing free, educational lectures - at the university level - since 1597 when Sir Thomas Gresham founded the college to bring Renaissance Learning to Londoners. Our history includes some of the luminaries of the scientific revolution including Robert Hooke and Sir Christopher Wren and connects us to the founding of the Royal Society. 

Today we carry on Sir Thomas's vision. The College aims to stimulate intellectual curiosity and to champion academic rigour, professional expertise and freedom of expression. www.gresham.ac.uk 

Gresham College is a registered charity number 1039962 and relies on donations to help us encourage people's love of learning for many years to come. For more details or to make a gift, visit our website.  
 

About the Showstoppers lecture series at Gresham College  
What makes a song so powerful that it stops the progress of a musical while the audience breaks into tumultuous applause?  

In this series, the concept of the so-called 'showstopper' is explored; most specifically, three songs are used to exemplify how they have made the musicals for which they were written memorable.  

This close examination of theatre classics brings forward archival documents that reveal the composing process, explain their impact and argue its transcendence.