People can’t get enough of Meryl Streep and her friends, Audra McDonald and Christine Baranski, singing together via a Zoom video call while wearing bathrobes and enjoying cocktails.
Welp, we’re calling it now: the next viral video of 2020 starring Christine Baranski, Meryl Streep, @AudraEqualityMc (but hey, we’re watching it live!) #Sondheims90th
— BroadwayWorld (@BroadwayWorld) April 27, 2020
In honor of the 90th birthday of Stephen Sondheim, a livestream commemorative video was aired on Sunday, April 26 to celebrate the Broadway composer — remotely. The video streamed live on both YouTube and Broadway.com . The highlight of the recognition video was the performance given by Streep, McDonald, and Baranski.
For their tribute to Sondheim, the three actress friends coordinated a Zoom singalong of “The Ladies Who Lunch.” Rather than wearing sophisticated gowns, decadent jewelry, elegant hairdos, and full faces of makeup, all three came to the call dressed in their best quarantine attire — white bathrobes.
Since this was intended to be a celebratory occasion, each of the actresses came to the call ready to make cocktails. Baranski cooly poured herself a glass of red wine, McDonald breaks open a bottle of bourbon, and Streep shook herself a martini, which she elaborately poured into her glass over her head. In a notable moment of hilarity during their musical number, Streep is seen opening another bottle of liquor, prepared to pour it into her martini glass, then shrugged and drank straight from the bottle.
The performance of Streep, McDonald, and Baranski came toward the end of the two-hour, 22-minute tribute. According to Variety , the livestream special got off to a false start due to some technical problems and had a 70-minute delay. But once it started, people couldn’t get enough. The performance by Streep and her squad was the icing on the cake.
People adored them. As the tribute played live on YouTube, many came to watch and comment on their favorite Broadway stars in action but were especially bowled over by Streep, McDonald, and Baranski.
“Christine, Meryl and Audra plastered and singing ‘ladies who lunch’ was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time,” said one fan.
“‘The Ladies Who Lunch’ is the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” said another.
“What an amazing ‘Ladies Who Lunch’ — an anthem for the lockdown, if you will,” replied another commenter.
Other big names from Broadway within the last 40 years — which included Patti Lupone, Lin-Manuel Miranda , Neil Patrick Harris, Donna Murphy, Bernadette Peters, and even Jake Gyllenhall and Mandy Patinkin — were also invited on to the video to pay tribute to Sondheim from a respectful social distance.
