Amusingly enough, the "gimmick" of Merrily We Roll Along is that the story is told in reverse chronological order. So it starts when he's a successful middle-aged man, but with a life of regrets and ends when he's a college student full of hope for the future.
Granted, it doesn't end with him literally as a child, but it's funny to me that you're saying "let him fucking grow up already" in an article about a show where all of the characters essentially age in reverse.
Edit: Also, the original Broadway cast were almost all teenagers. I think the youngest was 17 and the oldest was 21.
Oh man he did equus! Shoot, I have to go live in New York for a while so I can go to Broadway again. I would have loved to see him do equus, what a great and totally weird movie. Dang I never even heard about that.
Are Broadway productions recorded or produced regularly so that I can watch past Broadway productions?
I saw the Broadway version of Cats on PBS when I was a kid, weird show.
I saw it during the height of Covid when they did a free Andrew Lloyd Webber musical on YouTube every weekend.
Absolutely awful show lol. The "story" doesn't make sense*, the costumes are from the nightmares of an Ailurophobic child and, most importantly, there's only ONE good song, which they are so acutely aware of that they repeat it so much that you're on the verge of getting sick of it before the show ends.
*they spend most of the show introducing themselves and each other and then end by explaining that cats are different from dogs. "A cat is not a dog!" is a direct full sentence quote from the show 🤦
Fun fact: The original Broadway production of Merrily We Roll Along was a flop (unfortunate, because the music is amazing), but it was also the first big break for Jason Alexander!
There's a fun documentary about the musical- Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened- where he talks about an experience when he learned not to question Sondheim's lyrics.