a special nine-page Theater supplement on March 15, 2020, featuring comments by "Critics, Performers and Fans on the Bard of Broadway." Due to theater closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Broadway revival of Company set to open on March 22, 2020, Sondheim's 90th birthday, was delayed. But the virtual concert Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration was livestreamed on the Broadway.com YouTube channel on April 26. Participants in the event included Lin-Manuel Miranda, Steven Spielberg, Meryl Streep, Nathan Lane, Mandy Patinkin, Victor Garber, Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone, Neil Patrick Harris, Jake Gyllenhaal, Christine Baranski, Sutton Foster, Josh Groban, Ben Platt, Brandon Uranowitz, Katrina Lenk, Kelli O'Hara, Jason Alexander, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Beanie Feldstein, Audra McDonald, Laura Benanti, and Raúl Esparza. After New York City theaters reopened in 2021, Sondheim attended revivals of two of his musicals: the opening night of Assassins at the Classic Stage Company on November 14, and the first post-shutdown preview of Company at the Jacobs Theatre on November 15. Sondheim's Old Friends In 2022, Cameron Mackintosh presented Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends, a two-hour concert tribute to the late Sondheim. The concert happened on the West End in May and aired on BBC Two in December. Performers at the event included Helena Bonham Carter, Rob Brydon, Petula Clarke, Dame Judi Dench, Damian Lewis, Julia McKenzie, Bernadette Peters, and Imelda Staunton. Highlights included Dench singing "Send in the Clowns", Peters singing "Children Will Listen", and Staunton's "Everything's Coming Up Roses". Style and themes According to Sondheim, when he asked Milton Babbitt if he could study atonality, Babbitt replied: "You haven't exhausted tonal resources for yourself yet, so I'm not going to teach you atonal". Music critic Anthony Tommasini wrote that Sondheim's work, "while hewing to a tonal musical language, activated harmonies and folded elements of jazz and Impressionist styles in his own distinctive, exhilarating voice." Sondheim is known for complex polyphony in his vocals, such as the five minor characters who make up a Greek chorus in 1973's A Little Night Music. He used angular harmonies and intricate melodies. His musical influences were varied; although he said that he "loves Bach", his favorite musical period was from Brahms to Stravinsky. Raymond-Jean Frontain writes that thematically, Sondheim's musicals occupy a paradoxical place in gay culture, describing him as a gay creative artist who never created an explicitly gay character, but nevertheless attained gay cult status.