“Give us more to see.” This line — the final one from “Move On” from Stephen Sondheim’s hit 1984 musical “Sunday in the Park with George” — feels even more fitting now than it did 51 years ago when the show premiered. It is how Dot describes a real artist: “Anything you do / Let it come from you … Give us more to see.” Sondheim has certainly given us more as a tribute review starring Lea Salonga and Bernadette Peters entitled “Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends” has just opened its pre-Broadway engagement at the Ahmanson Theatre in downtown Los Angeles.

Sondheim passed away in November of 2021, and since then, there has been an onslaught of revivals of his shows on Broadway, as well as the world premiere of his final musical, “Here We Are,” at The Shed in 2023. However, “Old Friends” feels entirely different.

“Old Friends” is a transfer from London’s West End, directed and with musical staging by Matthew Bourne, choreographed by Stephen Mear and devised by Cameron Mackintosh. However, none of them are responsible for the show’s creation. Mackintosh credits Sondheim himself: “Old Friends was Steve’s idea, born during lockdown, when he suggested it was time (and we had plenty of it!) we put together a third review of his work,” and after Sondheim’s passing, Mackintosh finished the job alongside Julia McKenzie.

While reviews, tributes and jukebox shows feel a dime a dozen nowadays, the beauty of “Old Friends” lies in the fact that it feels like a love letter to Sondheim himself and his plethora of shows.

The joyous celebration of Sondheim’s life begins before the show even starts. The walls directly on the side of the proscenium arch are filled with projections showing two photos of Sondheim, one with him laughing and one with him serious but joyous. Adorning the proscenium arch itself are the names of characters from his shows and lyrics from his songs, all part of the stunning scenic design by Matt Kinley.

When the house lights do eventually go down, the projections still shimmer, emphasizing a constant sense that Sondheim is in the theater, too — looking down, watching and laughing.

And that’s how the show starts: with a laugh. After a few lines of “Side by Side” sung by Salonga and Peters, the two launch into “Comedy Tonight” from Sondheim’s first credit as a Broadway lyricist and composer, “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” (1962). That is not to say that the review is a comedy — since it isn’t. However, by opening with “Comedy Tonight,” the audience understands that the music Sondheim created contained multitudes and continues to resonate today.

The first act then properly begins with a section on “Company” (1970), a show that explores the difficulty and responsibility of modern-day relationships. This section also gives the audience a chance to get acquainted with the rest of the cast, many of whom are bona fide Broadway stars in their own right. For example, Beth Leavel, Tony Award Winner for “The Drowsy Chaperone,”  and Gavin Lee, Tony Award Nominee for “Mary Poppins,” sing “The Little Things You Do Together.”

The night’s standout was Kyle Selig — known from “Mean Girls” and “Water for Elephants” — who, compared to the rest of the cast, is rather young at 32 and has far fewer credits than those surrounding him. Selig’s youth is just what makes him stand out. In the first act, he plays Rapunzel’s Prince in a duet of “Agony” from “Into the Woods” with David Harris. Selig commands the stage with the earnestness of a young Gavin Creel, and Selig’s characterization of the Prince is as gullible and devoted as James Lapine, who wrote the book, and Sondheim intended. His vocal clarity is also exceptional, really shining through as he plays Tony in “West Side Story” and sings in “Tonight (Quintet and Chorus)” in the second act.

Bourne — alongside Mears and Mackintosh — makes each of the songs and the people behind them shine. The actors are not doing big dance breaks, but the movement Mears has devised helps to keep the numbers from feeling stiff or sterile. The pacing of the show, shifting between ballads and up-tempo songs and everything in between, feels fully realized, and when the moment asks for a step touch or high kick and split during a song like “You Gotta Get A Gimmick” from “Gypsy”(1959), Mears provides. Bourne’s stage pictures especially shine in “Sunday” from “Sunday in the Park with George,” where the actors onstage mirror the Surat painting projected above the stage as it gets colored in.

The “Sweeney Todd” (1979) section is the only section that feels long. This has less to do with the staging and more to do with the fact that there are five songs that largely only involve Jeremy Secomb — from “Les Miserables” — and Salonga. Compared to the rest of the show, this section seems to stall.

Another standout from the creative team is the original orchestration by Jonathan Tunick — who was a long-time collaborator with Sondheim — conducted by Annbritt duChateau, and played by the Sondheim Orchestra. Act Two opens with “Entr’acte — Overture from ‘Merrily We Roll Along,’” and duChateau positively dances through it. Sondheim was a lyricist as much as a composer, so it feels right to have Kinley’s scenic design highlight the orchestra onstage instead of in a pit, and it has echoes of a Lear deBessonet show.

While the show may be daunting to those unfamiliar with Sondheim, it is not all inside baseball. Every element of the show feels cohesive; it is not a plot-driven show but a true celebration of the late musical theater legend’s body of work. Even if one walks in knowing nothing about the show, over the course of the evening, every audience member will learn the breadth and depth of his work and the lasting legacy he created.

It feels a bit like he is leaving us one last gift and letting us in on a little secret that he’s not completely gone yet. By the time Peters, Solonga and the rest of the female company members sing “Not A Day Goes By,” there is not a single dry eye in the theater, and finally, “Old Friends” reminds everyone of Sondheim’s true power: reminding us that life continues and we must “Move On.”