(Intro) Merrily We Roll Along

Lyrics

[Intro] Okay, it didn't happen exactly like that At the final callback, we were all ushered into this big room And Hal Prince stepped forward and said "Well, I have good news and bad news The good news is, you're all in the show" Yay! Lots of jumping up and down and hugging "The bad news is, I have to direct an opera in Houston So we're going to postpone the show for nine months" Yay? Actually, it was okay Because during those nine months we all bonded And every month the cast would get together For Mеrrily waiting parties And occasionally, Steve would show up And onе of these parties was at Lonny Price's apartment And at one point, we all piled into Lonny's bedroom where the piano was And Steve sat down and played "Good Thing Going" for us for the first time I remember thinking, "I'm in a movie, this isn't real" It was amazing Well, finally after nine months we started rehearsals And then we previewed And then we opened And two weeks later we closed Welcome to the theatre! You know, because Merrily closed so quickly I suspect not many of you got to see me in the show So I would like to re-create my performance for you now [Verse 1] Yesterday is done See the pretty countryside [Interlude] But wait, there's more! [Verse 2] How did you get there from here, Mr. Shepard? [Outro] Thank you Thank you so much Yes, those were my two solo lines If you get the original cast album, you'll hear them And by the way, not to toot my own horn But I still sing them in the original key In addition to being in the chorus, I also understudied the female lead Played by the wonderful Annie Morrison Now Merrily previewed for almost two months And every day we rehearsed Putting in changes, and taking out changes, and putting changes back in And it was a brutal schedule and Annie started to get sick She never missed a performance But in order to save her voice to do the show at night During the day, she would stand on stage and rehearse her new lines And I would sing in the front row of the Alvin Theatre And sing her songs for her And it didn't occur to me until much later That of course, sitting a few rows behind me was Sondheim And maybe it was those times singing for Annie That was actually my audition for the future work I'd get to do with him