Ariana Grande and Jonathan Bailey to reunite on the London stage

Ariana Grande is officially stepping onto the London stage. The singer, actor and pop-culture fixture is set to make her UK stage debut in a revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, Sunday in the Park With George, starring opposite her Wicked co-star Jonathan Bailey. The production will run at the Barbican Centre in summer 2027.

After months of speculation, the now-confirmed project reunites Grande and Bailey following their turns as Glinda and Fiyero in the two-part Wicked film adaptation. Bailey all but sealed the announcement on 14 January by sharing a teasing Instagram post of the pair seated in front of George Seurat’s ‘A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte’, the painting that inspired Sondheim’s musical. The caption? A line from the show itself: “All it has to be is good.” 

Originally premiering on Broadway in 1984, Sunday in the Park With George remains one of Sondheim’s most formally ambitious and emotionally resonant works, a musical about obsession, artistry and the lonely, consuming act of creation. Written with longtime collaborator James Lapine, the musical centres around George, a fictionalised version of Seurat and, generations later, his great-grandson, exploring the challenges in understanding life and art. The revival will be designed by Tom Scutt, whose recent credits include the current revival of Into the Woods at the Bridge Theatre, signalling a visually ambitious approach to Sondheim’s painterly world.

The revival will be directed by Marianne Elliott, reuniting her with Bailey on her Olivier Award-winning production of Company in 2018. Since then, Bailey’s career has shifted into a different gear entirely, from Bridgerton heartthrob to blockbuster musical star in Wicked. The Barbican production will also mark his return to the London stage following his recent turn as Richard II in the Shakespeare play at the Bridge Theatre, further cementing his acting range. Returning to Sondheim feels less like a step back and more of a flex. 

For Grande, the Barbican production marks a significant career milestone. While she has long been associated with Broadway, having made her debut in 13 as a teenager, Sunday in the Park with George will be her first time performing on a London stage. It’s a move that feels deliberate: a prestige theatre role, a Sondheim score and a space that rewards intimacy over spectacle. 

Online, reaction to the reunion has been predictably unhinged. Fellow performers flooded the comments of Bailey’s post, with Heartstopper’s Joe Locke summing up the collective mood with an iconic “Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.” Rachel Zegler, who recently starred in Evita, echoed the excitement with a “Yeah” alongside Broadway icon Lea Salonga, while theatre fans celebrated the collision of two modern musical-theatre powerhouses. Two Wicked stars. A Sondheim revival. Ariana Grande at the Barbican. The maths are mathing.

Before stepping into Seurat’s world in 2027, Grande will return to London this summer for a ten-night run at the O2 Arena as part of her Eternal Sunshine tour. Back at the Barbican, the production will be produced by Empire Street Productions and presented in association with the venue, with further casting yet to be announced. Tickets are set to go on sale in May. 

If Bailey’s caption is anything to go by, expectations are already sky-high. ‘All it has to be is good’ might be the case, but with this cast and creative team, it’s shaping up to be something far more compelling than that. It’s already giving a theatre-meets-pop-culture moment.