An imperfect musical and a notable Stephen Sondheim flop (book by George Furth), Merrily We Roll Along is regularly revived anyway, each new production an attempt to finally make it work. The show, which premiered on Broadway in 1981, covers 20 years in the lives of three stage-struck friends, but moves backwards—from the present to the past (1976 to 1957), success to salad days, cynicism to idealism. This latest rethink, directed by Maria Friedman, has been called the best so far. The leads are spectacular—Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lindsay Mendez—and as Jesse Green wrote in The New York Times, “Maria Friedman’s staging brings the intelligence of the songs fully alive and justifies the baroque construction.” —Laura Jacobs