Trivia / A Little Night Music

• Actor-Inspired Element: The reason "Send in the Clowns" has only four syllables to a line was because Sondheim thought Glynis Johns had trouble sustaining notes, so Sondheim worked around it.
• Billing Displacement: On a fairly regular basis, including both Broadway productions, the actress playing Madame Armfeldt gets top billing alongside the leads (Desiree and Fredrik), despite not having nearly as large a part. In particular, the recent revival gave Angela Lansbury higher billing than Alexander Hanson, who played Fredrik, because... well, because she's Angela Lansbury.
• Breakaway Pop Hit: "Send in the Clowns" became Sondheim's first and only pop hit as a composer.
• Creator Killer: After the critical and commercial failure of the film version, Harold Prince never directed another film, though he remained successful as a theatre director.
• Cut Song:
  • "Bang!", an alternate introductory song for Carl-Magnus, replaced with "In Praise of Women" because director Hal Prince needed a scene change during the song.
  • "My Husband the Pig", a long musical monologue for Charlotte; the bridge section was lifted out of the number and became "Every Day A Little Death".
  • A third Night Waltz.
  • "Two Fairy Tales", a Distant Duet for Henrik and Anne.
  • "Silly People," sung by Frid, cut because nobody knew nor cared who Frid was.
• Life Imitates Art: Victoria Mallory and Len Cariou, the actors for Anne and Frederik, were dating when the original production opened. When it closed, Victoria Mallory ran away with Mark Lambert, Henrik's actor. Their daughter, Ramona Mallory, played Anne in the 2009 Broadway revival. ^note It is perhaps worth noting that though their characters were 18 and 40something, respectively, Mallory and Cariou were themselves 24 and 34 during the run, not nearly so unusual an age gap.

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