Nina rules :)

 “Into the Woods” on Broadway in 1987, starring (from left) Joanna Gleason, Robert Westenberg, Tom Aldredge, Bernadette Peters, Barbara Bryne and Chip Zien. Stephen Sondheim won a Tony Award for his score.Credit...The Al Hirschfeld Foundation. www.alhirschfeldfoundation.org

Yours truly has a guilty pleasure, Al Hirschfeld's amazing takes on broadway. Elegant, funny and above all else, graceful, they are a treasure to behold as per a Hirschfeld seen above. When combined with Sondheim, a match made in heaven is a fait accompli. :)

“Anyone Can Whistle” on Broadway in 1964, with Angela Lansbury (top), Lee Remick and Harry Guardino.Credit...The Al Hirschfeld Foundation. www.alhirschfeldfoundation.org

Hirschfeld always said he would rather be called a “characterist” than a caricaturist. His illustrations of Sondheim, the most complex character portraitist in the Broadway songbook, make you understand why. Caricatures are a shorthand for the physical traits that make stars distinctive: Angela Lansbury’s immense Tweety Bird eyes, for example, or Bernadette Peters’s Cupid’s bow mouth.

Hirschfeld nails such elements of physiognomy. He also endows them with the exciting emotional temperature that heats up every Sondheim song. The Lansbury he draws as the corrupt mayor Cora Hoover Hooper of “Anyone Can Whistle” (1964) and as the cannibal pie-maker Mrs. Lovett in “Sweeney Todd” are recognizably the same woman.

“Sweeney Todd” on Broadway in 1979, with Sarah Rice and Victor Garber dancing and, from left, Joaquin Romaguera, Len Cariou, Angela Lansbury, Jack Eric Williams and Edmund Lyndeck. It won Tonys for best musical and best score, among other awards.Credit...The Al Hirschfeld Foundation. www.alhirschfeldfoundation.org

If you know about Nina, you are a true devotee of Hirschfeld. :)

Stephen Sondheim, 1977.Credit...The Al Hirschfeld Foundation. www.alhirschfeldfoundation.org