Courtesy Music Theatre of Madison
Amanda Rodriguez, left, and Abby Nichols, in Sondheim's "Marry Me a Little."
Music Theatre of Madison has built a reputation on bringing lesser-known musicals to unexpected spaces — and Marry Me A Little fits that mission perfectly. This rarely produced Stephen Sondheim gem runs April 24-26 at The Bur Oak, an intimate venue that feels more like a jazz lounge than a theater. It’s possible for audiences to grab a drink, settle in, and prepare for something small, sharp, and sneakily moving.
Marry Me A Little isn’t your typical musical. There’s no dialogue, no dramatic set changes, no big 11 o’clock number. Instead, it’s two people — originally a man and a woman, in this production reimagined as two women — each alone in her apartment on a Saturday night. They sing, daydream, scroll, wait. They don’t speak to each other. They don’t even know the other exists. But the show quietly asks: What if they connected? What if they were just one floor apart?
The songs themselves are what theater folks call “trunk songs,” pieces written for other Sondheim shows (Company, Follies, A Little Night Music) but cut before opening night. Sondheim, being Sondheim, didn’t toss them. He tucked them away, and decades later, they were pulled from the metaphorical trunk to create this revue. Think of it as a B-sides album from Broadway’s sharpest lyricist — full of cuts that didn’t make the final record but still hit just as hard.
Marry Me A Little was assembled in the early 1980s, just after Sweeney Todd, and later became a kind of cult favorite, especially among Sondheim fans who love finding meaning in the margins. The piece is minimal, but emotionally full, leaning into ambiguity while landing with surprising specificity.
Among the standout songs are the show’s title track, “Marry Me a Little,” originally cut from Company — a quietly devastating ballad about craving closeness but setting boundaries before anything can really begin. There’s also “Happily Ever After,” an early version of Being Alive that trades hope for something more cynical and clear-eyed. And for a sharp jolt of humor, there’s “Can That Boy Foxtrot!” — a cut from Follies that’s equal parts camp, bite, and subtext. Even if you’ve never heard them before, the songs land like memories you forgot you had.
Music Theatre of Madison producer Meghan Randolph says the company picked the show because the timing was right — both artistically and logistically. When colleagues from other companies approached her about participating in the Madison theater community's “Spring of Sondheim,” she wanted to find a piece that aligned with MTM’s mission: something intimate, underproduced, and emotionally rich. The Frogs was briefly on the table — a work even more obscure than Marry Me A Little — but ultimately, she says, this show made more sense in scope, size, and spirit.
Emily Glick, making her MTM directing debut, cast two women in roles traditionally written for a man and a woman — a simple shift that unlocks something broader than romance. The idea came from Glick’s realization that it’s hard to find new friendships as you grow older, says Randolph, “and female friendships are important to her.” The production focuses on how we find each other in a world that makes that hard.
The cast features Abby Nichols (a staple in Madison’s voice and theater community) and Amanda Rodriguez (a Jeff Award nominee), with live accompaniment by music director Lisa Erdman. It’s a show where the music carries the emotional architecture — and with Sondheim’s layered lyrics and rhythmic turns, it takes both precision and vulnerability to land.
In just under an hour, the show will build a full arc — two lives circling each other, aching for something they can’t name. It’s quiet, contemporary, and intentionally unresolved.
There’s also something notable about the MTM team itself: its Marry Me A Little is shaped almost entirely by women and nonbinary artists — onstage, backstage, and behind the piano. That’s not the headline, but it’s part of the story.
Whether you’re a Sondheim devotee or just in the mood for something new, Marry Me A Little offers something rare. It should be a thoughtful show but also a fun one.
Marry Me A Little runs April 24-26 at The Bur Oak, 2262 Winnebago St., with shows at 7:30 p.m. Ticket info at mtmadison.com.
