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Stephen Sondheim

January 13, 2023

Stephen Joshua Sondheim (/ˈsɒndhaɪm/; March 22, 1930 – November 26, 2021) was an American composer and lyricist. One of the most important figures in twentieth-century musical theater, Sondheim is credited for having "reinvented the American musical"[1] with shows that tackle "unexpected themes that range far beyond the [genre's] traditional subjects"[2] with "music and lyrics of unprecedented complexity and sophistication."[3] His shows address "darker, more harrowing elements of the human experience,"[4] with songs often tinged with "ambivalence" about various aspects of life.[5] He was known for his frequent collaborations with Hal Prince and James Lapine on the Broadway stage.

Stephen Sondheim
Sondheim, c. 1976
Born
Stephen Joshua Sondheim

(1930-03-22)March 22, 1930
New York City, U.S.
DiedNovember 26, 2021(2021-11-26) (aged 91)
Roxbury, Connecticut, U.S.
Alma materWilliams College
OccupationComposer
Years active1952–2021
Spouse
Jeffrey Romley
​
(m. 2017)​
AwardsFull list
Musical career
GenresMusical theater

Sondheim's interest in musical theater began at a young age, and he was mentored by Oscar Hammerstein II. He began his career by writing the lyrics for West Side Story (1957) and Gypsy (1959). He transitioned to writing both music and lyrics for the theater, with his best-known works including A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), Company (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979), Merrily We Roll Along (1981), Sunday in the Park with George (1984), and Into the Woods (1987).

Sondheim's numerous awards and nominations include eight Tony Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Tony in 2008), an Academy Award, eight Grammy Awards, a Olivier Award, a Pulitzer Prize, a Kennedy Center Honor, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom.[6] A theater is named after him both on Broadway and in the West End of London. Film adaptations of his works include West Side Story (1961), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Into the Woods (2014), and West Side Story (2021).

Early life and education

Sondheim was born on March 22, 1930, into a Jewish family in New York City, the son of Etta Janet ("Foxy"; née Fox; 1897–1992) and Herbert Sondheim (1895–1966). His paternal grandparents, Isaac and Rosa, were German Jews and his maternal grandparents, Joseph and Bessie, were Lithuanian Jews from Vilnius.[7] His father manufactured dresses designed by his mother. The composer grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and, after his parents divorced, on a farm near Doylestown, Pennsylvania. As the only child of affluent parents living in the San Remo at 145 Central Park West, he was described in Meryle Secrest's biography (Stephen Sondheim: A Life) as an isolated, emotionally neglected child. When he lived in New York City, Sondheim attended the Ethical Culture Fieldston School. He spent several summers at Camp Androscoggin.[7] His mother sent him to New York Military Academy in 1940.[8] From 1942 to 1947, he attended George School, a private Quaker preparatory school in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where he wrote his first musical, By George in 1946.[8][9] From 1946 to 1950, Sondheim attended Williams College. He graduated magna cum laude and received the Hubbard Hutchinson Prize, a two-year fellowship to study music.[8]

Sondheim traced his interest in theater to Very Warm for May, a Broadway musical he saw when he was nine. "The curtain went up and revealed a piano", Sondheim recalled. "A butler took a duster and brushed it up, tinkling the keys. I thought that was thrilling."[10]

Sondheim detested his mother,[11] who was said to be psychologically abusive[12] and to have projected her anger from her failed marriage onto her son:[13] "When my father left her, she substituted me for him. And she used me the way she used him, to come on to and to berate, beat up on, you see. What she did for five years was treat me like dirt, but come on to me at the same time."[14] She once wrote him a letter saying that the only regret she ever had was giving birth to him.[15] When she died in the spring of 1992, Sondheim did not attend her funeral. He had already been estranged from her for nearly 20 years.[11][16]

Mentorship by Oscar Hammerstein II

 
Oscar Hammerstein c. 1940

When Sondheim was about ten years old (around the time of his parents' divorce), he formed a close friendship with James Hammerstein, son of lyricist and playwright Oscar Hammerstein II, who were neighbors in Bucks County. The elder Hammerstein became Sondheim's surrogate father, influencing him profoundly and developing his love of musical theater. Sondheim met Hal Prince, who would later direct many of his shows, at the opening of South Pacific, Hammerstein's musical with Richard Rodgers. The comic musical he wrote at George School, By George, was a success among his peers and buoyed the young songwriter's self-esteem. When Sondheim asked Hammerstein to evaluate it as though he had no knowledge of its author, he said it was the worst thing he had ever seen: "But if you want to know why it's terrible, I'll tell you." They spent the rest of the day going over the musical, and Sondheim later said, "In that afternoon I learned more about songwriting and the musical theater than most people learn in a lifetime."[17]

Hammerstein designed a course of sorts for Sondheim on constructing a musical. He had the young composer write four musicals, each with one of the following conditions:[18]

None of the "assignment" musicals were produced professionally. High Tor and Mary Poppins have never been produced: The rights holder for the original High Tor refused permission (though a musical version by Arthur Schwartz was produced for television in 1956), and Mary Poppins was unfinished.[20]

Hammerstein's death

In 1960, Sondheim lost his mentor and father figure when Hammerstein died of stomach cancer on August 23, aged 65.[21][22] Sondheim later recalled that Hammerstein had given him a portrait of himself. Sondheim asked him to inscribe it, and said later about the request that it was "weird...it's like asking your father to inscribe something." Reading the inscription ("For Stevie, My Friend and Teacher") choked up the composer, who said, "That describes Oscar better than anything I could say."[23]

Education

Sondheim began attending Williams College, a liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts, whose theater program attracted him.[24] His first teacher there was Robert Barrow:

 ... everybody hated him because he was very dry, and I thought he was wonderful because he was very dry. And Barrow made me realize that all my romantic views of art were nonsense. I had always thought an angel came down and sat on your shoulder and whispered in your ear 'dah-dah-dah-DUM.' It never occurred to me that art was something worked out. And suddenly it was skies opening up. As soon as you find out what a leading tone is, you think, Oh my God. What a diatonic scale is – Oh my God! The logic of it. And, of course, what that meant to me was: Well, I can do that. Because you just don't know. You think it's a talent, you think you're born with this thing. What I've found out and what I believed is that everybody is talented. It's just that some people get it developed and some don't.[25]

The composer told Meryle Secrest: "I just wanted to study composition, theory, and harmony without the attendant musicology that comes in graduate school. But I knew I wanted to write for the theatre, so I wanted someone who did not disdain theatre music."[26] Barrow suggested that Sondheim study with Milton Babbitt, whom Sondheim described as "a frustrated show composer" with whom he formed "a perfect combination".[26] When they met, Babbitt was working on a musical for Mary Martin based on the myth of Helen of Troy. The two would meet once a week in New York City for four hours. (At the time, Babbitt was teaching at Princeton University.) According to Sondheim, they spent the first hour dissecting Rodgers and Hart or George Gershwin or studying Babbitt's favorites (Buddy DeSylva, Lew Brown, and Ray Henderson). They then proceeded to other forms of music (such as Mozart's Jupiter Symphony), critiquing them the same way.[27] Babbitt and Sondheim, fascinated by mathematics, studied songs by a variety of composers (especially Jerome Kern). Sondheim told Secrest that Kern had the ability "to develop a single motif through tiny variations into a long and never boring line and his maximum development of the minimum of material". He said about Babbitt, "I am his maverick, his one student who went into the popular arts with all his serious artillery".[26] At Williams, Sondheim wrote a musical adaption of Beggar on Horseback (a 1924 play by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly, with permission from Kaufman) which had three performances.[28] A member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity,[29] he graduated magna cum laude in 1950.[30]

"A few painful years of struggle" followed, when Sondheim auditioned songs, lived in his father's dining room to save money, and spent time in Hollywood writing for the television series Topper.[10] He devoured 1940s and 1950s films, and called cinema his "basic language";[11] his film knowledge got him through The $64,000 Question contestant tryouts. Sondheim disliked movie musicals, favoring classic dramas such as Citizen Kane, The Grapes of Wrath, and A Matter of Life and Death: "Studio directors like Michael Curtiz and Raoul Walsh ... were heroes of mine. They went from movie to movie to movie, and every third movie was good and every fifth movie was great. There wasn't any cultural pressure to make art".[31]

At age 22, Sondheim had finished the four shows requested by Hammerstein. Screenwriters Julius and Philip Epstein's Front Porch in Flatbush, unproduced at the time, was being shopped around by designer and producer Lemuel Ayers. Ayers approached Frank Loesser and another composer who both turned him down. Ayers and Sondheim met as ushers at a wedding, and Ayers commissioned Sondheim for three songs for the show; Julius Epstein flew in from California and hired Sondheim, who worked with him in California for four or five months. After eight auditions for backers, half the money needed was raised. The show, retitled Saturday Night, was intended to open during the 1954–55 Broadway season; however, Ayers died of leukemia in his early forties. The production rights transferred to his widow, Shirley, and due to her inexperience the show did not continue as planned;[3] it opened off-Broadway in 2000. Sondheim later said, "I don't have any emotional reaction to Saturday Night at all – except fondness. It's not bad stuff for a 23-year-old. There are some things that embarrass me so much in the lyrics – the missed accents, the obvious jokes. But I decided, leave it. It's my baby pictures. You don't touch up a baby picture – you're a baby!"[11]

Career

1954–1959: Early Broadway success

Burt Shevelove invited Sondheim to a party where Sondheim arrived before him but knew no one else well. He saw a familiar face, Arthur Laurents, who had seen one of the auditions of Saturday Night, and they began talking. Laurents told him he was working on a musical version of Romeo and Juliet with Leonard Bernstein, but they needed a lyricist; Betty Comden and Adolph Green, who were supposed to write the lyrics, were under contract in Hollywood. He said that although he was not a big fan of Sondheim's music, he enjoyed the lyrics from Saturday Night and he could audition for Bernstein. The following day, Sondheim met and played for Bernstein, who said he would let him know. Sondheim wanted to write music and lyrics; he consulted with Hammerstein, who said, as Sondheim related in a 2008 New York Times video interview, "Look, you have a chance to work with very gifted professionals on a show that sounds interesting, and you could always write your own music eventually. My advice would be to take the job."[3] West Side Story, directed by Jerome Robbins, opened in 1957 and ran for 732 performances. Sondheim expressed dissatisfaction with his lyrics, saying that they did not always fit the characters and were sometimes too consciously poetic. Initially Bernstein was also credited as a co-writer of the lyrics; later, however, Bernstein offered Sondheim solo credit, as Sondheim had essentially done all of them. The New York Times review of the show never even mentioned the lyrics.[32] Sondheim described the division of the royalties, saying that Bernstein received three percent and he received one percent. Bernstein suggested evening the percentage at two percent each, but Sondheim refused because he was satisfied just getting the credit. Sondheim later said he wished "someone stuffed a handkerchief in my mouth because it would have been nice to get that extra percentage".[3]

After West Side Story opened, Shevelove lamented the lack of "low-brow comedy" on Broadway and mentioned a possible musical based on Plautus' Roman comedies. When Sondheim was interested in the idea he called a friend, Larry Gelbart, to co-write the script. The show went through a number of drafts, and was interrupted briefly by Sondheim's next project.[33]

In 1959, Sondheim was approached by Laurents and Robbins for a musical version of Gypsy Rose Lee's memoir after Irving Berlin and Cole Porter turned it down. Sondheim agreed, but Ethel Merman – cast as Mama Rose – had just finished Happy Hunting with an unknown composer (Harold Karr) and lyricist (Matt Dubey). Although Sondheim wanted to write the music and lyrics, Merman refused to let another first-time composer write for her and demanded that Jule Styne write the music.[34] Sondheim, concerned that writing lyrics again would pigeonhole him as a lyricist, called his mentor for advice. Hammerstein told him he should take the job, because writing a vehicle for a star would be a good learning experience. Sondheim agreed; Gypsy opened on May 21, 1959, and ran for 702 performances.[3]

1962–1966: Music and lyrics

The first Broadway production for which Sondheim wrote the music and lyrics was A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, which opened in 1962 and ran for 964 performances.[35] The book, based on farces by Plautus, was written by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart. The show won six Tony Awards (including Best Musical)[36] and had the longest Broadway run of any show for which Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics.[37]

Sondheim had participated in three straight hits, but his next show – 1964's Anyone Can Whistle – was a nine-performance bomb (although it introduced Angela Lansbury to musical theater).

Do I Hear a Waltz?, based on Arthur Laurents' 1952 play The Time of the Cuckoo, was intended as another Rodgers and Hammerstein musical with Mary Martin in the lead. A new lyricist was needed,[38] and Laurents and Rodgers' daughter, Mary, asked Sondheim to fill in. Although Richard Rodgers and Sondheim agreed that the original play did not lend itself to musicalization, they began writing the musical version.[39] The project had many difficulties, including Rodgers' alcoholism. Sondheim later called it the one project he ever truly regretted writing, given that the reasons he wrote it -- as a favor to Mary, as a favor to Hammerstein, as an opportunity to work again with Laurents, and as an opportunity to make money -- were all not reasons to write a musical. He then decided to work only when he could write both music and lyrics.[11]

He asked author and playwright James Goldman to join him as bookwriter for a new musical. Inspired by a New York Times article about a gathering of former Ziegfeld Follies showgirls, it was entitled The Girls Upstairs (and would later become Follies).[40]

In 1966, Sondheim semi-anonymously provided lyrics for "The Boy From...", a parody of "The Girl from Ipanema" in the off-Broadway revue The Mad Show. The song was credited to "Esteban Río Nido",[41] Spanish for "Stephen River Nest", and in the show's playbill the lyrics were credited to "Nom De Plume". That year Goldman and Sondheim hit a creative wall on The Girls Upstairs, and Goldman asked Sondheim about writing a TV musical. The result was Evening Primrose, with Anthony Perkins and Charmian Carr. Written for the anthology series ABC Stage 67 and produced by Hubbell Robinson, it was broadcast on November 16, 1966. According to Sondheim and director Paul Bogart, the musical was written only because Goldman needed money for rent. The network disliked the title and Sondheim's alternative, A Little Night Music.[42]

After Sondheim finished Evening Primrose, Jerome Robbins asked him to adapt Bertolt Brecht's The Measures Taken despite the composer's general dislike of Brecht's work. Robbins wanted to adapt another Brecht play, The Exception and the Rule, and asked John Guare to adapt the book. Leonard Bernstein had not written for the stage in some time, and his contract as conductor of the New York Philharmonic was ending. Sondheim was invited to Robbins' house in the hope that Guare would convince him to write the lyrics for a musical version of The Exception and the Rule; according to Robbins, Bernstein would not work without Sondheim. When Sondheim agreed, Guare asked: "Why haven't you all worked together since West Side Story?" Sondheim answered, "You'll see". Guare said that working with Sondheim was like being with an old college roommate, and he depended on him to "decode and decipher their crazy way of working"; Bernstein worked only after midnight, and Robbins only in the early morning. Bernstein's score, which was supposed to be light, was influenced by his need to make a musical statement.[43] Stuart Ostrow, who worked with Sondheim on The Girls Upstairs, agreed to produce the musical (now entitled A Pray By Blecht and, later, The Race to Urga). An opening night was scheduled, but during auditions Robbins asked to be excused for a moment. When he did not return, a doorman said he had gotten into a limousine to go to John F. Kennedy International Airport. Bernstein burst into tears and said, "It's over". Sondheim later said of this experience: "I was ashamed of the whole project. It was arch and didactic in the worst way."[44] He wrote one-and-a-half songs and threw them away, the only time he ever did that. Eighteen years later, Sondheim refused Bernstein and Robbins' request to retry the show.[43]

 
Stephen Sondheim's House, Turtle Bay, New York City, New York

Sondheim lived in a Turtle Bay, Manhattan brownstone from his writing of Gypsy in 1959. Ten years later, while he was playing music he heard a knock on the door. His neighbor, Katharine Hepburn, was in "bare feet – this angry, red-faced lady" and told him "You have been keeping me awake all night!" (she was practicing for her musical debut in Coco). "I remember asking Hepburn why she didn't just call me, but she claimed not to have my phone number. My guess is that she wanted to stand there in her bare feet, suffering for her art".[45]

1970–1981: Collaborations with Hal Prince

 
Sondheim in New York, 1972

After Do I Hear a Waltz?, Sondheim devoted himself solely to writing both music and lyrics for the theater – and in 1970, he began a collaboration with director Harold Prince resulting in a body of work that is considered one of the high water marks of musical theater history, with critic Howard Kissel writing that the duo had set "Broadway's highest standards".[46][47]

The first Sondheim show with Prince as director was 1970's Company. A show about a single man and his married friends, Company (with a book by George Furth) lacked a straightforward plot, and was instead centered around themes such as marriage and the difficulty of making an emotional connection with another person. It opened on April 26, 1970, at the Alvin Theatre, running for 705 performances after seven previews, and won Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Music, and Best Lyrics.[48] Company was revived on Broadway in 1995, 2006, and 2020/2021 (the last revival began previews in March 2020, but shut down until November 2021 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic; in this revival, the main character was gender-swapped).[48]

Follies (1971), with a book by James Goldman, opened on April 4, 1971, at the Winter Garden Theatre and ran for 522 performances after 12 previews.[49] The plot centers on a reunion, in a crumbling Broadway theater scheduled for demolition, of performers in Weismann's Follies (a musical revue, based on the Ziegfeld Follies, which played in that theater between the world wars). The production also featured choreography and co-direction by Michael Bennett, who later created A Chorus Line (1975). The show was revived on Broadway in 2001 and 2011.[50][51]

A Little Night Music (1973), with a more traditional plot based on Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night and a score primarily in waltz time, was among the composer's greatest commercial successes. Time magazine called it "Sondheim's most brilliant accomplishment to date".[52] "Send in the Clowns", a song from the musical, was a hit for Judy Collins and became Sondheim's best-known song. The show opened on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre on February 25, 1973, and ran for 601 performances and 12 previews.[53] It was revived on Broadway in 2009.[54]

Pacific Overtures (1976), with a book by John Weidman, was one of Sondheim's most unconventional efforts: it explored the westernization of Japan, and was originally presented in a mock-Kabuki style.[55] The show closed after a run of 193 performances,[56] and was revived on Broadway in 2004.[57]

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979), with a score by Sondheim and a book by Hugh Wheeler, is based on Christopher Bond's 1973 stage play derived from the Victorian original.[58][59][60][61][62] It was revived on Broadway in 1989 and 2005; there will be a Broadway revival at the Lunt-Fontaine Theatre in the spring of 2023, with previews beginning in February, and officially opening in March.

Merrily We Roll Along (1981), with a book by George Furth, is one of Sondheim's more traditional scores; songs from the musical were recorded by Frank Sinatra and Carly Simon. According to Sondheim's music director, Paul Gemignani, "Part of Steve's ability is this extraordinary versatility". However, the show was not the success their previous collaborations had been: after a chaotic series of preview performances, the show opened to widely negative reviews, and closed after a run of less than two weeks. Due to the high quality of Sondheim's score, however, the show has been repeatedly revised and produced in the ensuing years. Martin Gottfried wrote, "Sondheim had set out to write traditional songs ... But [despite] that there is nothing ordinary about the music."[63] Sondheim later said: "Did I feel betrayed? I'm not sure I would put it like that. What did surprise me was the feeling around the Broadway community – if you can call it that, though I guess I will for lack of a better word – that they wanted Hal and me to fail."[45] An acclaimed feature documentary on the show and its aftermath, Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened, directed by Merrily cast member Lonny Price, and produced by Bruce David Klein, Kitt Lavoie, and Ted Schillinger premiered at the New York Film Festival on November 18, 2016. A film adaptation of Merrily We Roll Along, directed by Richard Linklater, began production in 2019 and is expected to continue periodically over the following two decades, to allow the actors to age in real time.[64] There will be an Off-Broadway revival that is scheduled to run between November 2022 and January 2023 at the New York Theatre Workshop.

1984–1994: Collaborations with James Lapine

Merrily's failure greatly affected Sondheim; he was ready to quit theater and do movies, create video games or write mysteries: "I wanted to find something to satisfy myself that does not involve Broadway and dealing with all those people who hate me and hate Hal."[65] Following Merrily, Sondheim and Prince did not collaborate again until their 2003 production of Bounce.[66]

However, Sondheim decided "that there are better places to start a show" and found a new collaborator in James Lapine after he saw Lapine's Twelve Dreams off-Broadway in 1981: "I was discouraged, and I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't discovered Twelve Dreams at the Public Theatre";[45] Lapine has a taste "for the avant-garde and for visually-oriented theatre in particular". Their first collaboration was Sunday in the Park with George (1984), with Sondheim's music evoking Georges Seurat's pointillism. Sondheim and Lapine won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the play,[67] and it was revived on Broadway in 2008, and again in a limited run in 2017.[68][69]

They collaborated on Into the Woods (1987), a musical based on several Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Although Sondheim has been called the first composer to bring rap music to Broadway (with the Witch in the opening number of Into the Woods), he attributed the first rap in theater to Meredith Willson's "Rock Island" from The Music Man (1957).[27] Into the Woods was revived on Broadway in 2002,[70] and at the St. James Theatre in 2022.

Sondheim and Lapine's last collaboration on a musical was the rhapsodic Passion (1994), adapted from Ettore Scola's Italian film Passione D'Amore. With a run of 280 performances, Passion was the shortest-running show to win a Tony Award for Best Musical.[71]

In 2013, Lapine directed the HBO feature-length documentary Six by Sondheim, which he executive produced with former New York Times theater critic Frank Rich, an old friend and longtime champion of Sondheim's work.[72] Sondheim himself acts and sings in the documentary as Joe, the cynical theater producer in the song "Opening Doors".[73]

1990–2021: Later work

Assassins opened off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on December 18, 1990, with a book by John Weidman. The show explored, in revue form, a group of historical figures who tried (either with success or without) to assassinate the President of the United States. The musical closed on February 16, 1991, after 73 performances. The Los Angeles Times reported the show "has been sold out since previews began, reflecting the strong appeal of Sondheim's work among the theater crowd."[74] Frank Rich in his review for The New York Times wrote that "Assassins will have to fire with sharper aim and fewer blanks if it is to shoot to kill."[75][76] Assassins eventually had a Broadway run in 2004.[77]

Saturday Night was shelved until its 1997 production at London's Bridewell Theatre. The following year, its score was recorded; a revised version, with two new songs, ran off-Broadway at Second Stage Theatre in 2000 and at London's Jermyn Street Theatre in 2009.[78]

During the late 1990s, Sondheim and Weidman reunited for Wise Guys, a musical comedy based on the lives of colorful businessmen Addison and Wilson Mizner. A Broadway production, starring Nathan Lane and Victor Garber, directed by Sam Mendes and planned for the spring of 2000,[79] was delayed. Renamed Bounce in 2003, it was produced at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in a production directed by Harold Prince, his first collaboration with Sondheim since 1981.[80] Although after poor reviews Bounce never reached Broadway, a revised version opened off-Broadway as Road Show at the Public Theater on October 28, 2008. Directed by John Doyle, it closed December 28, 2008.[81][82][83] The production won the 2009 Obie Award for Music and Lyrics,[84] and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics.[85]

Asked about writing new work, Sondheim replied in 2006: "No ... It's age. It's a diminution of energy and the worry that there are no new ideas. It's also an increasing lack of confidence. I'm not the only one. I've checked with other people. People expect more of you and you're aware of it and you shouldn't be."[86] In December 2007, he said that in addition to continuing work on Bounce, he was "nibbling at a couple of things with John Weidman and James Lapine".[87]

Lapine created a multimedia production, originally entitled Sondheim: a Musical Revue, which was scheduled to open in April 2009 at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta; however, it was canceled due to "difficulties encountered by the commercial producers attached to the project ... in raising the necessary funds".[88][89] A revised version, Sondheim on Sondheim, was produced at Studio 54 by the Roundabout Theatre Company; previews began on March 19, 2010, and it ran from April 22 to June 13. The revue's cast included Barbara Cook, Vanessa L. Williams, Tom Wopat, Norm Lewis, and Leslie Kritzer.[90]

Sondheim collaborated with Wynton Marsalis on A Bed and a Chair: A New York Love Affair, an Encores! concert on November 13–17, 2013 at New York City Center. Directed by John Doyle with choreography by Parker Esse, it consisted of "more than two dozen Sondheim compositions, each piece newly re-imagined by Marsalis".[91] The concert featured Bernadette Peters, Jeremy Jordan, Norm Lewis, Cyrille Aimée, four dancers and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra conducted by David Loud.[92] In Playbill, Steven Suskin described the concert as "neither a new musical, a revival, nor a standard songbook revue; it is, rather, a staged-and-sung chamber jazz rendition of a string of songs ... Half of the songs come from Company and Follies; most of the other Sondheim musicals are represented, including the lesser-known Passion and Road Show".[93]

 
Stephen Sondheim (2014)

For the 2014 film adaptation of Into the Woods, Sondheim wrote the new song "She'll Be Back", sung by The Witch, which was eventually cut from the film.[94]

In February 2012, it was announced that Sondheim would collaborate on a new musical with David Ives, and he had "about 20–30 minutes of the musical completed".[95][96][97][98][99] The show, tentatively called All Together Now, was assumed to follow the format of Merrily We Roll Along. Sondheim described the project as "two people and what goes into their relationship ... We'll write for a couple of months, then have a workshop. It seemed experimental and fresh 20 years ago. I have a feeling it may not be experimental and fresh any more".[100] On October 11, 2014, it was confirmed the Sondheim and Ives musical would be based on two Luis Buñuel films (The Exterminating Angel and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie) and would reportedly open (in previews) at the Public Theater in 2017.[101] In August 2016, a reading for the musical was held at the Public Theater, and it was reported that only the first act was finished, which cast doubt on the speculated 2017 start of previews.[102] There was a workshop in November 2016, with the participation of Matthew Morrison, Shuler Hensley, Heidi Blickenstaff, Sierra Boggess, Gabriel Ebert, Sarah Stiles, Michael Cerveris, and Jennifer Simard.[103] The working title was reported to be Buñuel by the New York Post and other outlets, but Sondheim later clarified that they still had no title.[104] In June 2019, the Public Theatre denied reports that it would be part of its 2019–2020 season, as it was still in development, but would be produced "when it is ready".[105] On April 27, 2021, it was reported that the musical was no longer in development.[106] While appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on September 15, 2021, Sondheim announced he was working on a new musical called Square One in collaboration with Ives.[107] The same day, Nathan Lane revealed that he and Bernadette Peters were involved in a reading of this new work.[108] In Sondheim's final interview before his death, he confirmed that Square One was adapted from the Buñuel films.[109] Sondheim makes a posthumous cameo appearance as himself in the 2022 Netflix film Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.[110]

Other projects

Conversations with Frank Rich and others

The Kennedy Center staged a 15-week repertory festival of six Sondheim musicals—Sweeney Todd, Company, Sunday in the Park with George, Merrily We Roll Along, Passion, and A Little Night Music—from May to August 2002.[111][112][113] The Kennedy Center Sondheim Celebration also included Pacific Overtures, a junior version of Into the Woods, and Frank Rich of The New York Times speaking with the composer for Sondheim on Sondheim on April 28, 2002.[111][114] The two men took their discussion, dubbed "A Little Night Conversation with Stephen Sondheim", on a West Coast tour of different U.S. cities[115][116] including Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Los Angeles,[117][118][119] and Portland, Oregon in March 2008,[120] then to Oberlin College in September. The Cleveland Jewish News reported on their Oberlin appearance: "Sondheim said: 'Movies are photographs; the stage is larger than life.' What musicals does Sondheim admire the most? Porgy and Bess tops a list which includes Carousel, She Loves Me, and The Wiz, which he saw six times. Sondheim took a dim view of today's musicals. What works now, he said, are musicals that are easy to take; audiences don't want to be challenged".[121][122] Sondheim and Rich had additional conversations: January 18, 2009, at Avery Fisher Hall;[123] February 2 at the Landmark Theatre in Richmond, Virginia;[124] February 21 at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia;[125] and April 20 at the University of Akron in Ohio.[126] The conversations were reprised at Tufts and Brown University in February 2010, at the University of Tulsa in April,[127] and at Lafayette College in March 2011.[128] Sondheim had another "conversation with" Sean Patrick Flahaven (associate editor of The Sondheim Review) at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach on February 4, 2009, in which he discussed many of his songs and shows: "On the perennial struggles of Broadway: 'I don't see any solution for Broadway's problems except subsidized theatre, as in most civilized countries of the world.'"[129]

On February 1, 2011, Sondheim joined former Salt Lake Tribune theater critic Nancy Melich before an audience of 1,200 at Kingsbury Hall. Melich described the evening:

He was visibly taken by the university choir, who sang two songs during the evening, "Children Will Listen" and "Sunday", and then returned to reprise "Sunday". During that final moment, Sondheim and I were standing, facing the choir of students from the University of Utah's opera program, our backs to the audience, and I could see tears welling in his eyes as the voices rang out. Then, all of a sudden, he raised his arms and began conducting, urging the student singers to go full out, which they did, the crescendo building, their eyes locked with his, until the final "on an ordinary Sunday" was sung. It was thrilling, and a perfect conclusion to a remarkable evening – nothing ordinary about it.[130]

On March 13, 2008, A Salon With Stephen Sondheim (which sold out in three minutes) was hosted by the Academy for New Musical Theatre in Hollywood.[131][132]

Work away from Broadway

Sondheim was an avid fan of puzzles and games. He is credited with introducing cryptic crosswords, a British invention, to American audiences through a series of cryptic crossword puzzles he created for New York magazine in 1968 and 1969.[133] In 1987 Time called his love of puzzlemaking "legendary in theater circles", adding that the central character of Anthony Shaffer's play Sleuth was inspired by the composer. According to a rumor (denied by Shaffer in a March 10, 1996 New York Times interview), Sleuth had the working title Who's Afraid of Stephen Sondheim?[10] Sondheim's love of puzzles and mysteries is evident in The Last of Sheila, an intricate whodunit written with longtime friend Anthony Perkins. The 1973 film, directed by Herbert Ross, featured Dyan Cannon, Joan Hackett, Raquel Welch, James Mason, James Coburn, Ian McShane, and Richard Benjamin.[134]

Sondheim also wrote occasional music for film: most notably, he contributed five songs to Warren Beatty's 1990 film Dick Tracy, including the ballad "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)", sung in the film by Madonna, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. He also contributed to Reds (1981) (both to the score, and with the song "Goodbye for Now"), The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976) ("The Madam's Song", later recorded as "I Never Do Anything Twice"), Stavisky (1974) (writing the score), and The Birdcage (1996) ("Little Dream", and the eventually-cut "It Takes All Kinds"). For the 2014 movie adaptation of Into the Woods, Sondheim wrote a new song for the character of The Witch (played by Meryl Streep) entitled "She'll Be Back", which was eventually cut from the film.

Sondheim collaborated with Company librettist George Furth to write the play Getting Away with Murder in 1996, though the Broadway production closed after 31 previews and only 17 performances.[135]

In 2003, he was invited to serve as guest curator for the Telluride Film Festival.[136]

Mentoring

After he was mentored by Oscar Hammerstein II[17] Sondheim returned the favor, saying that he loved "passing on what Oscar passed on to me".[23] In an interview with Sondheim for The Legacy Project, composer-lyricist Adam Guettel (son of Mary Rodgers and grandson of Richard Rodgers) recalled how as a 14-year-old boy he showed Sondheim his work. Guettel was "crestfallen" since he had come in "sort of all puffed up thinking [he] would be rained with compliments and things", which was not the case since Sondheim had some "very direct things to say". Later, Sondheim wrote and apologized to Guettel for being "not very encouraging" when he was actually trying to be "constructive".[137]

Sondheim also mentored a fledgling Jonathan Larson, attending Larson's workshop for his Superbia (originally an adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four). In Larson's musical Tick, Tick... Boom!, the phone message is played in which Sondheim apologizes for leaving early, says he wants to meet him and is impressed with his work. After Larson's death, Sondheim called him one of the few composers "attempting to blend contemporary pop music with theater music, which doesn't work very well; he was on his way to finding a real synthesis. A good deal of pop music has interesting lyrics, but they are not theater lyrics". A musical-theatre composer "must have a sense of what is theatrical, of how you use music to tell a story, as opposed to writing a song. Jonathan understood that instinctively."[138]

Around 2008, Sondheim approached Lin-Manuel Miranda to work with him translating West Side Story lyrics into Spanish for an upcoming Broadway revival.[139][140] Miranda then approached Sondheim with his new project Hamilton, then called The Hamilton Mixtape, which Sondheim gave notes on.[140][141] Sondheim was originally wary of the project saying he was "worried that an evening of rap might get monotonous". However, Sondheim believed Miranda's attention to, and respect for, good rhyming made it work.[141]

Sondheim provided a voice cameo for the 2021 film adaptation of Tick, Tick... Boom!, directed by Miranda, for the scene in which a fictionalized version of himself leaves a phone message. Sondheim worked on a revised text of the message and voiced it himself after Bradley Whitford, who portrays him, was unavailable to re-record the line.[142]

Dramatists Guild

A supporter of writers' rights in the theater industry, Sondheim was an active member of the Dramatists Guild of America. In 1973, he was elected as the Guild's sixteenth president, and he continued his presidency of the non-profit organization until 1981.[143]

Unrealized projects

According to Sondheim, he was asked to translate Mahagonny-Songspiel: "But, I'm not a Brecht/Weill fan and that's really all there is to it. I'm an apostate: I like Weill's music when he came to America better than I do his stuff before ... I love The Threepenny Opera but, outside of The Threepenny Opera, the music of his I like is the stuff he wrote in America – when he was not writing with Brecht, when he was writing for Broadway."[144] He turned down an offer to musicalize Nathanael West's A Cool Million with James Lapine around 1982.[145][146]

Around 1960, Sondheim and Burt Shevelove considered making a musical of the film Sunset Boulevard, and had sketched out the opening scenes when they approached the film's director Billy Wilder at a cocktail party on the possibility. Wilder rejected the idea, believing the story was more suited to opera than musical theater. Sondheim agreed, and resisted a later offer from Hal Prince and Hugh Wheeler to create a musical version starring Angela Lansbury. This occurred several years before a musical version was produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber.[147]

Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein wrote The Race to Urga, scheduled for Lincoln Center in 1969, but when Jerome Robbins left the project it was not produced.[148]

After writing The Last of Sheila together, Sondheim and Anthony Perkins then went on to try to collaborate again two more times, but the projects were ultimately unrealized. In 1975, Tony Perkins said he and Sondheim were working on another script, The Chorus Girl Murder Case. "It's a sort of stew based on all those Bob Hope wartime comedies, plus a little Lady of Burlesque and a little Orson Welles magic show, all cooked into a Last of Sheila-type plot", said Perkins.[149] He later said other inspirations were They Got Me Covered, The Ipcress File, and Cloak and Dagger.[150] They had sold the synopsis in October 1974.[151] At one point, Michael Bennett was to direct, with Tommy Tune to star.[152] In November 1979, Sondheim said they had finished it.[153] However, the film was never made.[154] In the 1980s, Perkins and Sondheim collaborated on another project, the seven part Crime and Variations for Motown Productions. In October 1984 they had submitted a treatment to Motown.[155] It was a 75-page treatment set in the New York socialite world about a crime puzzle – another writer was to write the script. It, too, was never made.[156]

In 1991, Sondheim worked with Terrence McNally on a musical, All Together Now. McNally said, "Steve was interested in telling the story of a relationship from the present back to the moment when the couple first met. We worked together a while, but we were both involved with so many other projects that this one fell through". The story follows Arden Scott, a 30-something female sculptor, and Daniel Nevin, a slightly-younger, sexually attractive restaurateur. Its script, with concept notes by McNally and Sondheim, is archived in the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.[157]

Sondheim worked with William Goldman on Singing Out Loud, a musical film, in 1992, penning the song "Water Under the Bridge".[158][159] According to the composer, Goldman wrote one or two drafts of the script and Sondheim wrote six-and-a-half songs when director Rob Reiner lost interest in the project. "Dawn" and "Sand", from the film, were recorded for the albums Sondheim at the Movies and Unsung Sondheim.[144]

In August 2003, Sondheim expressed interest in the idea of creating a musical adaptation of the 1993 comedy film Groundhog Day.[160] However, in a 2008 live chat, he said that "to make a musical of Groundhog Day would be to gild the lily. It cannot be improved."[161] The musical was later created and premiered in 2016 with music and lyrics by Tim Minchin and book by Danny Rubin (screenwriter of the film) with Sondheim's blessing.[162]

Nathan Lane mentioned that he once approached Sondheim on the possibility of creating a musical based on the film Being There with Lane starring as the central character of Chance. Sondheim declined on the basis that the central character is essentially a cipher, whom an audience would not accept expressing himself through song.[163]

Major works

Main article: Works of Stephen Sondheim
Year Title Music Lyrics Book Ref.
1954 Saturday Night Stephen Sondheim Julius J. Epstein [37]
1957 West Side Story Leonard Bernstein Stephen Sondheim Arthur Laurents [37]
1959 Gypsy Jule Styne Stephen Sondheim [37]
1962 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Stephen Sondheim Burt Shevelove, Larry Gelbart [37]
1964 Anyone Can Whistle Arthur Laurents [37]
1965 Do I Hear a Waltz? Richard Rodgers Stephen Sondheim [37]
1966 Evening Primrose Stephen Sondheim James Goldman [164]
1970 Company George Furth [37]
1971 Follies James Goldman [37]
1973 A Little Night Music Hugh Wheeler [37]
1974 The Frogs Burt Shevelove [165]
1976 Pacific Overtures John Weidman [37]
1979 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Hugh Wheeler [37]
1981 Merrily We Roll Along George Furth [37]
1984 Sunday in the Park with George James Lapine [37]
1987 Into the Woods [37]
1990 Assassins John Weidman [37]
1994 Passion James Lapine [37]
2008 Road Show John Weidman [166]

Honors and legacy

Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Stephen Sondheim

Over Sondheim's prolific career in stage and film, he received an Academy Award, 8 Tony Awards, and 8 Grammy Awards. He also received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Sunday in the Park with George (1985, shared with James Lapine) and was honored with the Kennedy Center Honors, Lifetime Achievement (1993).[67] He received the Hutchinson Prize for Music Composition (1950) and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1983). He was also awarded the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member James Earl Jones (2005),[167][168] the Algur H. Meadows Award from Southern Methodist University (1994),[169] a Special Laurence Olivier Award (2011) "in recognition of his contribution to London theatre",[170][171] and a Critics' Circle Theatre Award (March 2012), which according to drama section chair Mark Shenton "is effectively a lifetime achievement award."[172] He became a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame (2014).[173] In 2013, Sondheim was awarded The Edward MacDowell Medal by The MacDowell Colony for outstanding contributions to American culture[174] In November 2015, Sondheim was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in a ceremony at the White House.[a][176][177]

Sondheim founded Young Playwrights Inc. in 1981 to introduce young people to writing for the theater, and was the organization's executive vice-president.[178] The Stephen Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts, at the Fairfield Arts and Convention Center in Fairfield, Iowa, opened in December 2007 with performances by Len Cariou, Liz Callaway, and Richard Kind (all of whom had participated in Sondheim musicals).[179][180]

The Stephen Sondheim Society was established in 1993 to provide information about his work, with its Sondheim – the Magazine provided to its membership. The society maintains a database, organizes productions, meetings, outings, and other events, and assists with publicity. Its annual Student Performer of the Year Competition awards a £1,000 prize to one of twelve musical-theatre students from UK drama schools and universities. At Sondheim's request, an additional prize is offered for a new song by a young composer. Judged by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, each contestant performs a Sondheim song and a new song.[181][182][183]

Most episode titles of the television series Desperate Housewives refer to Sondheim's song titles or lyrics,[184][185][186][187] and the series finale is entitled "Finishing the Hat".[188] In 1990, Sondheim, as the Cameron Mackintosh chair in musical theater at Oxford,[189] conducted workshops with promising musical writers including George Stiles, Anthony Drewe, Andrew Peggie, Paul James, Kit Hesketh-Harvey, and Stephen Keeling. The writers founded the Mercury Workshop in 1992, which merged with the New Musicals Alliance to become MMD (a UK-based organization to develop new musical theater, of which Sondheim was a patron).[190]

Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia established its Sondheim Award, which includes a $5,000 donation to a nonprofit organization of the recipient's choice, "as a tribute to America's most influential contemporary musical theatre composer". The first award, to Sondheim, was presented at an April 27, 2009, benefit with performances by Bernadette Peters, Michael Cerveris, Will Gartshore, and Eleasha Gamble.[191][192][193] The 2010 recipient was Angela Lansbury, with Peters and Catherine Zeta-Jones hosting the April benefit.[194] The 2011 honoree was Bernadette Peters.[195] Other recipients were Patti LuPone in 2012,[196] Hal Prince in 2013, Jonathan Tunick in 2014,[197] and James Lapine in 2015.[198] The 2016 awardee was John Weidman[199] and the 2017 awardee was Cameron Mackintosh.[200]

Henry Miller's Theatre, on West 43rd Street in New York City, was renamed the Stephen Sondheim Theatre on September 15, 2010, for the composer's 80th birthday. In attendance were Nathan Lane, Patti LuPone, and John Weidman. Sondheim said in response to the honor, "I'm deeply embarrassed. Thrilled, but deeply embarrassed. I've always hated my last name. It just doesn't sing. I mean, it's not Belasco. And it's not Rodgers and it's not Simon. And it's not Wilson. It just doesn't sing. It sings better than Schoenfeld and Jacobs. But it just doesn't sing". Lane said, "We love our corporate sponsors and we love their money, but there's something sacred about naming a theatre, and there's something about this that is right and just".[201]

In 2010, The Daily Telegraph wrote that Sondheim was "almost certainly" the only living composer with a quarterly journal published in his name;[202] The Sondheim Review, founded in 1994, chronicled and promoted his work. It ceased publication in 2016.[203]

In 2019, it was observed in the media that three major films of that year prominently featured Sondheim songs: Joker (Wall Street businessmen sing "Send In the Clowns" on the subway),[204] Marriage Story (Adam Driver sings the song "Being Alive", Scarlett Johansson, Merritt Wever, and Julie Hagerty sing "You Can Drive a Person Crazy"),[205] and Knives Out (Daniel Craig sings "Losing My Mind" in the car).[204] Sondheim's work is also referenced in television such as The Morning Show, where Jennifer Aniston and Billy Crudup sing "Not While I'm Around".[206]

Sondheim at 80

Main article: Sondheim! The Birthday Concert

Several benefits and concerts were performed to celebrate Sondheim's 80th birthday in 2010. Among them were the New York Philharmonic's March 15 and 16 Sondheim: The Birthday Concert at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, hosted by David Hyde Pierce. The concert included Sondheim's music, performed by some of the original performers. Lonny Price directed, and Paul Gemignani conducted; performers included Laura Benanti, Matt Cavenaugh, Michael Cerveris, Victoria Clark, Jenn Colella, Jason Danieley, Alexander Gemignani, Joanna Gleason, Nathan Gunn, George Hearn, Patti LuPone, Marin Mazzie, Audra McDonald, John McMartin, Donna Murphy, Karen Olivo, Laura Osnes, Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Bobby Steggert, Elaine Stritch, Jim Walton, Chip Zien, and the 2009 Broadway revival cast of West Side Story. A ballet was performed by Blaine Hoven and María Noel Riccetto to Sondheim's score for Reds, and Jonathan Tunick paid tribute to his longtime collaborator.[207][208] The concert was broadcast on PBS' Great Performances show in November,[209] and its DVD was released on November 16.

Sondheim 80, a Roundabout Theatre Company benefit, was held on March 22. The evening included a performance of Sondheim on Sondheim, dinner and a show at the New York Sheraton. "A very personal star-studded musical tribute" featured new songs by contemporary musical-theatre writers. The composers (who sang their own songs) included Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, Michael John LaChiusa, Andrew Lippa, Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Lin-Manuel Miranda (accompanied by Rita Moreno), Duncan Sheik, and Jeanine Tesori and David Lindsay-Abaire. Bernadette Peters performed a song which had been cut from a Sondheim show.[210][211]

An April 26 New York City Center birthday celebration and concert to benefit Young Playwrights, among others, featured (in order of appearance) Michael Cerveris, Alexander Gemignani, Donna Murphy, Debra Monk, Joanna Gleason, Maria Friedman, Mark Jacoby, Len Cariou, BD Wong, Claybourne Elder, Alexander Hanson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Raúl Esparza, Sutton Foster, Nathan Lane, Michele Pawk, the original cast of Into the Woods, Kim Crosby, Chip Zien, Danielle Ferland, and Ben Wright, Angela Lansbury, and Jim Walton. The concert, directed by John Doyle, was co-hosted by Mia Farrow; greetings from Sheila Hancock, Julia McKenzie, Milton Babbitt, Judi Dench, and Glynis Johns were read. After Catherine Zeta-Jones performed "Send in the Clowns", Julie Andrews sang part of "Not a Day Goes By" in a recorded greeting. Although Patti LuPone, Barbara Cook, Bernadette Peters, Tom Aldredge, and Victor Garber were originally scheduled to perform, they did not appear.[212][213]

A July 31 BBC Proms concert celebrated Sondheim's 80th birthday at the Royal Albert Hall. The concert featured songs from many of his musicals, including "Send in the Clowns" sung by Judi Dench (reprising her role as Desirée in the 1995 production of A Little Night Music), and performances by Bryn Terfel and Maria Friedman.[214][215]

On November 19 the New York Pops, led by Steven Reineke, performed at Carnegie Hall for the composer's 80th birthday. Kate Baldwin, Aaron Lazar, Christiane Noll, Paul Betz, Renee Rakelle, Marilyn Maye (singing "I'm Still Here"), and Alexander Gemignani appeared, and songs included "I Remember", "Another Hundred People", "Children Will Listen", and "Getting Married Today". Sondheim took the stage during an encore of his song, "Old Friends".[216][217]

Sondheim at 90

Main article: Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration

To honor Sondheim's 90th birthday, The New York Times published a special nine-page Theater supplement on March 15, 2020, featuring comments by "Critics, Performers and Fans on the Bard of Broadway."[218] Due to theater closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Broadway revival of Company set to open March 22, 2020, Sondheim's 90th birthday, was ultimately delayed.[219] However, 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.[220][221][222] After New York City theaters eventually 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.[37][223]

Sondheim's Old Friends

In 2022, Cameron Mackintosh presented a two hour concert tribute to the late Sondheim entitled, Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends. The concert happened on the West End in May and aired on BBC Two in December. Those who performed at the event included Helena Bonham Carter, Rob Brydon, Petula Clarke, Dame Judi Dench, Damian Lewis, Julia McKenzie, Bernadette Peters, and Imelda Staunton among others. Highlights of the event include Judi Dench singing "Send in the Clowns", Bernadette Peters singing "Children Will Listen", and Imelda 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".[224] 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."[225]

He 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. Sondheim 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.[226]

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. Frontain continues:

He incarnates the paradox of a highly intellectualized gay perspective that prizes ambivalence, undercuts traditional American progressivism, and rejects the musical's historically idealistic view of sex, romance, and the family; but that at the same time eschews camp, deconstructs the diva, and is apparently oblivious to AIDS, the post-Stonewall struggle for civil equality, and other socio-political issues that concern most gay men of his generation.[227]

Luca Prono described Sondheim's work as rejecting the traditional image of the Western world typically presented in Broadway productions, and instead depicting it as "predatory and alienating". His works have acquired a cult following with queer audiences, and his songs have been adopted as life scores for successive generations of gays, and have often had a primary role in AIDS fundraising events.[228] "Somewhere" from West Side Story was informally adopted as a gay anthem before the start of the gay liberation movement, but Sondheim rejected that reading, saying, "If you think that's a gay song, then all songs about getting away from the realities of life are gay songs."[229]

In an interview with Terry Gross for the Fresh Air program on NPR, Sondheim stated,

I'm interested in the theater because I'm interested in communication with audiences," [...] "Otherwise I would be in concert music. I'd be in another kind of profession. I love the theater as much as music, and the whole idea of getting across to an audience and making them laugh, making them cry – just making them feel – is paramount to me."[230]

Matt Zoller Seitz characterized Sondheim's work for its bravery to express the truth, in all its complexity: "compassionately but without sugarcoating anything," devoid of the "easy reassurances and neat resolutions" typically demanded in the marketplace.[231]

Personal life and death

Sondheim was often described as introverted and solitary. In an interview with Frank Rich, he said: "The outsider feeling—somebody who people want to both kiss and kill—occurred quite early in my life". Sondheim jokingly told the New York Times in 1966: "I've never found anybody I could work with as quickly as myself, or with less argument", although he described himself as "naturally a collaborative animal".[232]

Sondheim opened up about being gay when he was about 40.[11][233] He rarely discussed his personal life, though he said in 2013 that he had not been in love before he turned 60, when he entered into a roughly eight-year relationship with dramatist Peter Jones.[234][235] Sondheim married Jeffrey Scott Romley, a digital technologist, in 2017; they lived in Manhattan and Roxbury, Connecticut.[232]

In 2010–2011, Sondheim published, in two volumes, his autobiography, Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954–1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes[236] and Look, I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981–2011) with Attendant Comments, Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Digressions, Anecdotes and Miscellany.[237] The memoir included Sondheim's lyrical declaration of principle, stating that four principles underpinned "everything I've ever written". These were: "Content Dictates Form, Less is More, God is in the Details – all in the service of Clarity."[232]

In Six by Sondheim, James Lapine's 2013 documentary film about the creative process, Sondheim revealed that he liked to write his music lying down and would occasionally have a cocktail to help him write.[238]

Sondheim died of cardiovascular disease at his home in Roxbury, on November 26, 2021, at the age of 91.[37] Collaborator and friend Jeremy Sams said Sondheim "died in the arms of his husband Jeff".[239] On December 8, 2021, Broadway theaters dimmed their marquee lights for one minute as a tribute.[240] Beneficiaries of the trust managing Sondheim's estate included the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress, and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.[241]

Published works

  • Stephen Sondheim's Crossword Puzzles: From New York Magazine (1980) ISBN 0-06-090708-8
  • Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954–1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes (2010) ISBN 978-0-679-43907-3
  • Look, I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981–2011) with Attendant Comments, Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Digressions, Anecdotes and Miscellany (2011) ISBN 9780307593412

Notes

  1. ^ Sondheim was named for this award for 2014, but was unable to attend the ceremony, and thus was named again for the 2015 award and ceremony.[175]

References

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  12. ^ King, Robert A. (1972). The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child. Yale University Press. p. 310. ISBN 0-300-11996-8.
  13. ^ Secrest 1998, p. 30.
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  15. ^ Kakutani, Michiko (March 20, 1994). "Sondheim's Passionate "Passion"". The New York Times. from the original on May 15, 2013. Retrieved April 7, 2012. ... she wrote me a letter, hand-delivered because she thought she was going to die and she wanted to make sure I got it. She said, 'The night before I undergo open heart surgery,' – underlined three times. Open parenthesis. 'My surgeon's term.' Close parenthesis. 'The only regret I have in life is giving you birth.'
  16. ^ Secrest 1998, p. 272: "Sondheim was in London when his mother died and did not return for her funeral.".
  17. ^ a b Zadan 1986, p. 4.
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  20. ^ Secrest 1998, pp. 78–79.
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Sources

  • Gottfried, Martin (1993). Sondheim. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. ISBN 0-8109-3844-8.
  • Secrest, Meryle (1998). Stephen Sondheim: A Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-679-44817-9.
  • Zadan, Craig (1986). Sondheim & Co (2 ed.). New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 0-06-015649-X.

Further reading

  • Guernsey, Otis L. (Editor). Broadway Song and Story: Playwrights/Lyricists/Composers Discuss Their Hits (1986), Dodd Mead, ISBN 0-396-08753-1

External links

 
Wikiquote has quotations related to Stephen Sondheim.
 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Stephen Sondheim.
  • The Stephen Sondheim Society Web site of The Stephen Sondheim Society
  • Stephen Sondheim Papers at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research
  • Stephen Sondheim at Playbill Vault
  • Stephen Sondheim at the Internet Broadway Database
  • Stephen Sondheim at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
  • Stephen Sondheim at IMDb
  • Stephen Sondheim discography at Discogs
  • Stephen Sondheim online-with Finishing The Chat
  • The Stephen Sondheim Reference Guide Comprehensive listings of productions and recordings information
  • James Lipton (Spring 1997). "Stephen Sondheim, The Art of the Musical". The Paris Review. Spring 1997 (142).
  • Fresh Air NPR radio interview with Sondheim from 2000 (20 minutes, streaming audio)
  • Kennedy Center interview with Sondheim, conducted by Frank Rich in 2002 (90 minutes, streaming video)
  • Stephen Sondheim Center for Performing Arts
  • News article "Sondheim 'Story So Far' available 9/30, including previously unreleased tracks", BroadwayWorld.com
  • Review "Sondheim has more story to tell" USA Today, October 8, 2008
  • – New York Military Academy archives page
  • held at Goldsmiths, University of London, in 2005
  • BroadwayWorld.com interview with Stephen Sondheim, December 20, 2007
  • November 2010
  • Stephen Sondheim interview on BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs, August 22, 1980
Awards and achievements
Preceded by Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre
2008 		Succeeded by

January 13, 2023
stephen, sondheim, stephen, joshua, sondheim, march, 1930, november, 2021, american, composer, lyricist, most, important, figures, twentieth, century, musical, theater, sondheim, credited, having, reinvented, american, musical, with, shows, that, tackle, unexp. Stephen Joshua Sondheim ˈ s ɒ n d h aɪ m March 22 1930 November 26 2021 was an American composer and lyricist One of the most important figures in twentieth century musical theater Sondheim is credited for having reinvented the American musical 1 with shows that tackle unexpected themes that range far beyond the genre s traditional subjects 2 with music and lyrics of unprecedented complexity and sophistication 3 His shows address darker more harrowing elements of the human experience 4 with songs often tinged with ambivalence about various aspects of life 5 He was known for his frequent collaborations with Hal Prince and James Lapine on the Broadway stage Stephen SondheimSondheim c 1976BornStephen Joshua Sondheim 1930 03 22 March 22 1930New York City U S DiedNovember 26 2021 2021 11 26 aged 91 Roxbury Connecticut U S Alma materWilliams CollegeOccupationComposerYears active1952 2021SpouseJeffrey Romley m 2017 wbr AwardsFull listMusical careerGenresMusical theaterSondheim s interest in musical theater began at a young age and he was mentored by Oscar Hammerstein II He began his career by writing the lyrics for West Side Story 1957 and Gypsy 1959 He transitioned to writing both music and lyrics for the theater with his best known works including A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum 1962 Company 1970 Follies 1971 A Little Night Music 1973 Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street 1979 Merrily We Roll Along 1981 Sunday in the Park with George 1984 and Into the Woods 1987 Sondheim s numerous awards and nominations include eight Tony Awards including a Lifetime Achievement Tony in 2008 an Academy Award eight Grammy Awards a Olivier Award a Pulitzer Prize a Kennedy Center Honor and a Presidential Medal of Freedom 6 A theater is named after him both on Broadway and in the West End of London Film adaptations of his works include West Side Story 1961 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum 1966 Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street 2007 Into the Woods 2014 and West Side Story 2021 Contents 1 Early life and education 1 1 Mentorship by Oscar Hammerstein II 1 1 1 Hammerstein s death 1 2 Education 2 Career 2 1 1954 1959 Early Broadway success 2 2 1962 1966 Music and lyrics 2 3 1970 1981 Collaborations with Hal Prince 2 4 1984 1994 Collaborations with James Lapine 2 5 1990 2021 Later work 3 Other projects 3 1 Conversations with Frank Rich and others 3 2 Work away from Broadway 3 3 Mentoring 3 4 Dramatists Guild 4 Unrealized projects 5 Major works 6 Honors and legacy 6 1 Sondheim at 80 6 2 Sondheim at 90 6 3 Sondheim s Old Friends 7 Style and themes 8 Personal life and death 9 Published works 10 Notes 11 References 12 Sources 13 Further reading 14 External linksEarly life and education EditSondheim was born on March 22 1930 into a Jewish family in New York City the son of Etta Janet Foxy nee Fox 1897 1992 and Herbert Sondheim 1895 1966 His paternal grandparents Isaac and Rosa were German Jews and his maternal grandparents Joseph and Bessie were Lithuanian Jews from Vilnius 7 His father manufactured dresses designed by his mother The composer grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and after his parents divorced on a farm near Doylestown Pennsylvania As the only child of affluent parents living in the San Remo at 145 Central Park West he was described in Meryle Secrest s biography Stephen Sondheim A Life as an isolated emotionally neglected child When he lived in New York City Sondheim attended the Ethical Culture Fieldston School He spent several summers at Camp Androscoggin 7 His mother sent him to New York Military Academy in 1940 8 From 1942 to 1947 he attended George School a private Quaker preparatory school in Bucks County Pennsylvania where he wrote his first musical By George in 1946 8 9 From 1946 to 1950 Sondheim attended Williams College He graduated magna cum laude and received the Hubbard Hutchinson Prize a two year fellowship to study music 8 Sondheim traced his interest in theater to Very Warm for May a Broadway musical he saw when he was nine The curtain went up and revealed a piano Sondheim recalled A butler took a duster and brushed it up tinkling the keys I thought that was thrilling 10 Sondheim detested his mother 11 who was said to be psychologically abusive 12 and to have projected her anger from her failed marriage onto her son 13 When my father left her she substituted me for him And she used me the way she used him to come on to and to berate beat up on you see What she did for five years was treat me like dirt but come on to me at the same time 14 She once wrote him a letter saying that the only regret she ever had was giving birth to him 15 When she died in the spring of 1992 Sondheim did not attend her funeral He had already been estranged from her for nearly 20 years 11 16 Mentorship by Oscar Hammerstein II Edit Oscar Hammerstein c 1940 When Sondheim was about ten years old around the time of his parents divorce he formed a close friendship with James Hammerstein son of lyricist and playwright Oscar Hammerstein II who were neighbors in Bucks County The elder Hammerstein became Sondheim s surrogate father influencing him profoundly and developing his love of musical theater Sondheim met Hal Prince who would later direct many of his shows at the opening of South Pacific Hammerstein s musical with Richard Rodgers The comic musical he wrote at George School By George was a success among his peers and buoyed the young songwriter s self esteem When Sondheim asked Hammerstein to evaluate it as though he had no knowledge of its author he said it was the worst thing he had ever seen But if you want to know why it s terrible I ll tell you They spent the rest of the day going over the musical and Sondheim later said In that afternoon I learned more about songwriting and the musical theater than most people learn in a lifetime 17 Hammerstein designed a course of sorts for Sondheim on constructing a musical He had the young composer write four musicals each with one of the following conditions 18 Based on a play he admired Sondheim chose George S Kaufman and Marc Connelly s Beggar on Horseback which became All That Glitters Based on a play he liked but thought flawed Sondheim chose Maxwell Anderson s High Tor Based on an existing novel or short story not previously dramatized which became his unfinished version of Mary Poppins titled Bad Tuesday 19 unrelated to the musical film and stage play scored by the Sherman Brothers An original which became Climb HighNone of the assignment musicals were produced professionally High Tor and Mary Poppins have never been produced The rights holder for the original High Tor refused permission though a musical version by Arthur Schwartz was produced for television in 1956 and Mary Poppins was unfinished 20 Hammerstein s death Edit In 1960 Sondheim lost his mentor and father figure when Hammerstein died of stomach cancer on August 23 aged 65 21 22 Sondheim later recalled that Hammerstein had given him a portrait of himself Sondheim asked him to inscribe it and said later about the request that it was weird it s like asking your father to inscribe something Reading the inscription For Stevie My Friend and Teacher choked up the composer who said That describes Oscar better than anything I could say 23 Education Edit Sondheim began attending Williams College a liberal arts college in Williamstown Massachusetts whose theater program attracted him 24 His first teacher there was Robert Barrow everybody hated him because he was very dry and I thought he was wonderful because he was very dry And Barrow made me realize that all my romantic views of art were nonsense I had always thought an angel came down and sat on your shoulder and whispered in your ear dah dah dah DUM It never occurred to me that art was something worked out And suddenly it was skies opening up As soon as you find out what a leading tone is you think Oh my God What a diatonic scale is Oh my God The logic of it And of course what that meant to me was Well I can do that Because you just don t know You think it s a talent you think you re born with this thing What I ve found out and what I believed is that everybody is talented It s just that some people get it developed and some don t 25 The composer told Meryle Secrest I just wanted to study composition theory and harmony without the attendant musicology that comes in graduate school But I knew I wanted to write for the theatre so I wanted someone who did not disdain theatre music 26 Barrow suggested that Sondheim study with Milton Babbitt whom Sondheim described as a frustrated show composer with whom he formed a perfect combination 26 When they met Babbitt was working on a musical for Mary Martin based on the myth of Helen of Troy The two would meet once a week in New York City for four hours At the time Babbitt was teaching at Princeton University According to Sondheim they spent the first hour dissecting Rodgers and Hart or George Gershwin or studying Babbitt s favorites Buddy DeSylva Lew Brown and Ray Henderson They then proceeded to other forms of music such as Mozart s Jupiter Symphony critiquing them the same way 27 Babbitt and Sondheim fascinated by mathematics studied songs by a variety of composers especially Jerome Kern Sondheim told Secrest that Kern had the ability to develop a single motif through tiny variations into a long and never boring line and his maximum development of the minimum of material He said about Babbitt I am his maverick his one student who went into the popular arts with all his serious artillery 26 At Williams Sondheim wrote a musical adaption of Beggar on Horseback a 1924 play by George S Kaufman and Marc Connelly with permission from Kaufman which had three performances 28 A member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity 29 he graduated magna cum laude in 1950 30 A few painful years of struggle followed when Sondheim auditioned songs lived in his father s dining room to save money and spent time in Hollywood writing for the television series Topper 10 He devoured 1940s and 1950s films and called cinema his basic language 11 his film knowledge got him through The 64 000 Question contestant tryouts Sondheim disliked movie musicals favoring classic dramas such as Citizen Kane The Grapes of Wrath and A Matter of Life and Death Studio directors like Michael Curtiz and Raoul Walsh were heroes of mine They went from movie to movie to movie and every third movie was good and every fifth movie was great There wasn t any cultural pressure to make art 31 At age 22 Sondheim had finished the four shows requested by Hammerstein Screenwriters Julius and Philip Epstein s Front Porch in Flatbush unproduced at the time was being shopped around by designer and producer Lemuel Ayers Ayers approached Frank Loesser and another composer who both turned him down Ayers and Sondheim met as ushers at a wedding and Ayers commissioned Sondheim for three songs for the show Julius Epstein flew in from California and hired Sondheim who worked with him in California for four or five months After eight auditions for backers half the money needed was raised The show retitled Saturday Night was intended to open during the 1954 55 Broadway season however Ayers died of leukemia in his early forties The production rights transferred to his widow Shirley and due to her inexperience the show did not continue as planned 3 it opened off Broadway in 2000 Sondheim later said I don t have any emotional reaction to Saturday Night at all except fondness It s not bad stuff for a 23 year old There are some things that embarrass me so much in the lyrics the missed accents the obvious jokes But I decided leave it It s my baby pictures You don t touch up a baby picture you re a baby 11 Career Edit1954 1959 Early Broadway success Edit Burt Shevelove invited Sondheim to a party where Sondheim arrived before him but knew no one else well He saw a familiar face Arthur Laurents who had seen one of the auditions of Saturday Night and they began talking Laurents told him he was working on a musical version of Romeo and Juliet with Leonard Bernstein but they needed a lyricist Betty Comden and Adolph Green who were supposed to write the lyrics were under contract in Hollywood He said that although he was not a big fan of Sondheim s music he enjoyed the lyrics from Saturday Night and he could audition for Bernstein The following day Sondheim met and played for Bernstein who said he would let him know Sondheim wanted to write music and lyrics he consulted with Hammerstein who said as Sondheim related in a 2008 New York Times video interview Look you have a chance to work with very gifted professionals on a show that sounds interesting and you could always write your own music eventually My advice would be to take the job 3 West Side Story directed by Jerome Robbins opened in 1957 and ran for 732 performances Sondheim expressed dissatisfaction with his lyrics saying that they did not always fit the characters and were sometimes too consciously poetic Initially Bernstein was also credited as a co writer of the lyrics later however Bernstein offered Sondheim solo credit as Sondheim had essentially done all of them The New York Times review of the show never even mentioned the lyrics 32 Sondheim described the division of the royalties saying that Bernstein received three percent and he received one percent Bernstein suggested evening the percentage at two percent each but Sondheim refused because he was satisfied just getting the credit Sondheim later said he wished someone stuffed a handkerchief in my mouth because it would have been nice to get that extra percentage 3 After West Side Story opened Shevelove lamented the lack of low brow comedy on Broadway and mentioned a possible musical based on Plautus Roman comedies When Sondheim was interested in the idea he called a friend Larry Gelbart to co write the script The show went through a number of drafts and was interrupted briefly by Sondheim s next project 33 In 1959 Sondheim was approached by Laurents and Robbins for a musical version of Gypsy Rose Lee s memoir after Irving Berlin and Cole Porter turned it down Sondheim agreed but Ethel Merman cast as Mama Rose had just finished Happy Hunting with an unknown composer Harold Karr and lyricist Matt Dubey Although Sondheim wanted to write the music and lyrics Merman refused to let another first time composer write for her and demanded that Jule Styne write the music 34 Sondheim concerned that writing lyrics again would pigeonhole him as a lyricist called his mentor for advice Hammerstein told him he should take the job because writing a vehicle for a star would be a good learning experience Sondheim agreed Gypsy opened on May 21 1959 and ran for 702 performances 3 1962 1966 Music and lyrics Edit The first Broadway production for which Sondheim wrote the music and lyrics was A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum which opened in 1962 and ran for 964 performances 35 The book based on farces by Plautus was written by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart The show won six Tony Awards including Best Musical 36 and had the longest Broadway run of any show for which Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics 37 Sondheim had participated in three straight hits but his next show 1964 s Anyone Can Whistle was a nine performance bomb although it introduced Angela Lansbury to musical theater Do I Hear a Waltz based on Arthur Laurents 1952 play The Time of the Cuckoo was intended as another Rodgers and Hammerstein musical with Mary Martin in the lead A new lyricist was needed 38 and Laurents and Rodgers daughter Mary asked Sondheim to fill in Although Richard Rodgers and Sondheim agreed that the original play did not lend itself to musicalization they began writing the musical version 39 The project had many difficulties including Rodgers alcoholism Sondheim later called it the one project he ever truly regretted writing given that the reasons he wrote it as a favor to Mary as a favor to Hammerstein as an opportunity to work again with Laurents and as an opportunity to make money were all not reasons to write a musical He then decided to work only when he could write both music and lyrics 11 He asked author and playwright James Goldman to join him as bookwriter for a new musical Inspired by a New York Times article about a gathering of former Ziegfeld Follies showgirls it was entitled The Girls Upstairs and would later become Follies 40 In 1966 Sondheim semi anonymously provided lyrics for The Boy From a parody of The Girl from Ipanema in the off Broadway revue The Mad Show The song was credited to Esteban Rio Nido 41 Spanish for Stephen River Nest and in the show s playbill the lyrics were credited to Nom De Plume That year Goldman and Sondheim hit a creative wall on The Girls Upstairs and Goldman asked Sondheim about writing a TV musical The result was Evening Primrose with Anthony Perkins and Charmian Carr Written for the anthology series ABC Stage 67 and produced by Hubbell Robinson it was broadcast on November 16 1966 According to Sondheim and director Paul Bogart the musical was written only because Goldman needed money for rent The network disliked the title and Sondheim s alternative A Little Night Music 42 After Sondheim finished Evening Primrose Jerome Robbins asked him to adapt Bertolt Brecht s The Measures Taken despite the composer s general dislike of Brecht s work Robbins wanted to adapt another Brecht play The Exception and the Rule and asked John Guare to adapt the book Leonard Bernstein had not written for the stage in some time and his contract as conductor of the New York Philharmonic was ending Sondheim was invited to Robbins house in the hope that Guare would convince him to write the lyrics for a musical version of The Exception and the Rule according to Robbins Bernstein would not work without Sondheim When Sondheim agreed Guare asked Why haven t you all worked together since West Side Story Sondheim answered You ll see Guare said that working with Sondheim was like being with an old college roommate and he depended on him to decode and decipher their crazy way of working Bernstein worked only after midnight and Robbins only in the early morning Bernstein s score which was supposed to be light was influenced by his need to make a musical statement 43 Stuart Ostrow who worked with Sondheim on The Girls Upstairs agreed to produce the musical now entitled A Pray By Blecht and later The Race to Urga An opening night was scheduled but during auditions Robbins asked to be excused for a moment When he did not return a doorman said he had gotten into a limousine to go to John F Kennedy International Airport Bernstein burst into tears and said It s over Sondheim later said of this experience I was ashamed of the whole project It was arch and didactic in the worst way 44 He wrote one and a half songs and threw them away the only time he ever did that Eighteen years later Sondheim refused Bernstein and Robbins request to retry the show 43 Stephen Sondheim s House Turtle Bay New York City New York Sondheim lived in a Turtle Bay Manhattan brownstone from his writing of Gypsy in 1959 Ten years later while he was playing music he heard a knock on the door His neighbor Katharine Hepburn was in bare feet this angry red faced lady and told him You have been keeping me awake all night she was practicing for her musical debut in Coco I remember asking Hepburn why she didn t just call me but she claimed not to have my phone number My guess is that she wanted to stand there in her bare feet suffering for her art 45 1970 1981 Collaborations with Hal Prince Edit Sondheim in New York 1972 After Do I Hear a Waltz Sondheim devoted himself solely to writing both music and lyrics for the theater and in 1970 he began a collaboration with director Harold Prince resulting in a body of work that is considered one of the high water marks of musical theater history with critic Howard Kissel writing that the duo had set Broadway s highest standards 46 47 The first Sondheim show with Prince as director was 1970 s Company A show about a single man and his married friends Company with a book by George Furth lacked a straightforward plot and was instead centered around themes such as marriage and the difficulty of making an emotional connection with another person It opened on April 26 1970 at the Alvin Theatre running for 705 performances after seven previews and won Tony Awards for Best Musical Best Music and Best Lyrics 48 Company was revived on Broadway in 1995 2006 and 2020 2021 the last revival began previews in March 2020 but shut down until November 2021 due to the ongoing COVID 19 pandemic in this revival the main character was gender swapped 48 Follies 1971 with a book by James Goldman opened on April 4 1971 at the Winter Garden Theatre and ran for 522 performances after 12 previews 49 The plot centers on a reunion in a crumbling Broadway theater scheduled for demolition of performers in Weismann s Follies a musical revue based on the Ziegfeld Follies which played in that theater between the world wars The production also featured choreography and co direction by Michael Bennett who later created A Chorus Line 1975 The show was revived on Broadway in 2001 and 2011 50 51 A Little Night Music 1973 with a more traditional plot based on Ingmar Bergman s Smiles of a Summer Night and a score primarily in waltz time was among the composer s greatest commercial successes Time magazine called it Sondheim s most brilliant accomplishment to date 52 Send in the Clowns a song from the musical was a hit for Judy Collins and became Sondheim s best known song The show opened on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre on February 25 1973 and ran for 601 performances and 12 previews 53 It was revived on Broadway in 2009 54 Pacific Overtures 1976 with a book by John Weidman was one of Sondheim s most unconventional efforts it explored the westernization of Japan and was originally presented in a mock Kabuki style 55 The show closed after a run of 193 performances 56 and was revived on Broadway in 2004 57 Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street 1979 with a score by Sondheim and a book by Hugh Wheeler is based on Christopher Bond s 1973 stage play derived from the Victorian original 58 59 60 61 62 It was revived on Broadway in 1989 and 2005 there will be a Broadway revival at the Lunt Fontaine Theatre in the spring of 2023 with previews beginning in February and officially opening in March Merrily We Roll Along 1981 with a book by George Furth is one of Sondheim s more traditional scores songs from the musical were recorded by Frank Sinatra and Carly Simon According to Sondheim s music director Paul Gemignani Part of Steve s ability is this extraordinary versatility However the show was not the success their previous collaborations had been after a chaotic series of preview performances the show opened to widely negative reviews and closed after a run of less than two weeks Due to the high quality of Sondheim s score however the show has been repeatedly revised and produced in the ensuing years Martin Gottfried wrote Sondheim had set out to write traditional songs But despite that there is nothing ordinary about the music 63 Sondheim later said Did I feel betrayed I m not sure I would put it like that What did surprise me was the feeling around the Broadway community if you can call it that though I guess I will for lack of a better word that they wanted Hal and me to fail 45 An acclaimed feature documentary on the show and its aftermath Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened directed by Merrily cast member Lonny Price and produced by Bruce David Klein Kitt Lavoie and Ted Schillinger premiered at the New York Film Festival on November 18 2016 A film adaptation of Merrily We Roll Along directed by Richard Linklater began production in 2019 and is expected to continue periodically over the following two decades to allow the actors to age in real time 64 There will be an Off Broadway revival that is scheduled to run between November 2022 and January 2023 at the New York Theatre Workshop 1984 1994 Collaborations with James Lapine Edit Merrily s failure greatly affected Sondheim he was ready to quit theater and do movies create video games or write mysteries I wanted to find something to satisfy myself that does not involve Broadway and dealing with all those people who hate me and hate Hal 65 Following Merrily Sondheim and Prince did not collaborate again until their 2003 production of Bounce 66 However Sondheim decided that there are better places to start a show and found a new collaborator in James Lapine after he saw Lapine s Twelve Dreams off Broadway in 1981 I was discouraged and I don t know what would have happened if I hadn t discovered Twelve Dreams at the Public Theatre 45 Lapine has a taste for the avant garde and for visually oriented theatre in particular Their first collaboration was Sunday in the Park with George 1984 with Sondheim s music evoking Georges Seurat s pointillism Sondheim and Lapine won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the play 67 and it was revived on Broadway in 2008 and again in a limited run in 2017 68 69 They collaborated on Into the Woods 1987 a musical based on several Brothers Grimm fairy tales Although Sondheim has been called the first composer to bring rap music to Broadway with the Witch in the opening number of Into the Woods he attributed the first rap in theater to Meredith Willson s Rock Island from The Music Man 1957 27 Into the Woods was revived on Broadway in 2002 70 and at the St James Theatre in 2022 Sondheim and Lapine s last collaboration on a musical was the rhapsodic Passion 1994 adapted from Ettore Scola s Italian film Passione D Amore With a run of 280 performances Passion was the shortest running show to win a Tony Award for Best Musical 71 In 2013 Lapine directed the HBO feature length documentary Six by Sondheim which he executive produced with former New York Times theater critic Frank Rich an old friend and longtime champion of Sondheim s work 72 Sondheim himself acts and sings in the documentary as Joe the cynical theater producer in the song Opening Doors 73 1990 2021 Later work Edit Assassins opened off Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on December 18 1990 with a book by John Weidman The show explored in revue form a group of historical figures who tried either with success or without to assassinate the President of the United States The musical closed on February 16 1991 after 73 performances The Los Angeles Times reported the show has been sold out since previews began reflecting the strong appeal of Sondheim s work among the theater crowd 74 Frank Rich in his review for The New York Times wrote that Assassins will have to fire with sharper aim and fewer blanks if it is to shoot to kill 75 76 Assassins eventually had a Broadway run in 2004 77 Saturday Night was shelved until its 1997 production at London s Bridewell Theatre The following year its score was recorded a revised version with two new songs ran off Broadway at Second Stage Theatre in 2000 and at London s Jermyn Street Theatre in 2009 78 During the late 1990s Sondheim and Weidman reunited for Wise Guys a musical comedy based on the lives of colorful businessmen Addison and Wilson Mizner A Broadway production starring Nathan Lane and Victor Garber directed by Sam Mendes and planned for the spring of 2000 79 was delayed Renamed Bounce in 2003 it was produced at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and the Kennedy Center in Washington D C in a production directed by Harold Prince his first collaboration with Sondheim since 1981 80 Although after poor reviews Bounce never reached Broadway a revised version opened off Broadway as Road Show at the Public Theater on October 28 2008 Directed by John Doyle it closed December 28 2008 81 82 83 The production won the 2009 Obie Award for Music and Lyrics 84 and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics 85 Asked about writing new work Sondheim replied in 2006 No It s age It s a diminution of energy and the worry that there are no new ideas It s also an increasing lack of confidence I m not the only one I ve checked with other people People expect more of you and you re aware of it and you shouldn t be 86 In December 2007 he said that in addition to continuing work on Bounce he was nibbling at a couple of things with John Weidman and James Lapine 87 Lapine created a multimedia production originally entitled Sondheim a Musical Revue which was scheduled to open in April 2009 at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta however it was canceled due to difficulties encountered by the commercial producers attached to the project in raising the necessary funds 88 89 A revised version Sondheim on Sondheim was produced at Studio 54 by the Roundabout Theatre Company previews began on March 19 2010 and it ran from April 22 to June 13 The revue s cast included Barbara Cook Vanessa L Williams Tom Wopat Norm Lewis and Leslie Kritzer 90 Sondheim collaborated with Wynton Marsalis on A Bed and a Chair A New York Love Affair an Encores concert on November 13 17 2013 at New York City Center Directed by John Doyle with choreography by Parker Esse it consisted of more than two dozen Sondheim compositions each piece newly re imagined by Marsalis 91 The concert featured Bernadette Peters Jeremy Jordan Norm Lewis Cyrille Aimee four dancers and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra conducted by David Loud 92 In Playbill Steven Suskin described the concert as neither a new musical a revival nor a standard songbook revue it is rather a staged and sung chamber jazz rendition of a string of songs Half of the songs come from Company and Follies most of the other Sondheim musicals are represented including the lesser known Passion and Road Show 93 Stephen Sondheim 2014 For the 2014 film adaptation of Into the Woods Sondheim wrote the new song She ll Be Back sung by The Witch which was eventually cut from the film 94 In February 2012 it was announced that Sondheim would collaborate on a new musical with David Ives and he had about 20 30 minutes of the musical completed 95 96 97 98 99 The show tentatively called All Together Now was assumed to follow the format of Merrily We Roll Along Sondheim described the project as two people and what goes into their relationship We ll write for a couple of months then have a workshop It seemed experimental and fresh 20 years ago I have a feeling it may not be experimental and fresh any more 100 On October 11 2014 it was confirmed the Sondheim and Ives musical would be based on two Luis Bunuel films The Exterminating Angel and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and would reportedly open in previews at the Public Theater in 2017 101 In August 2016 a reading for the musical was held at the Public Theater and it was reported that only the first act was finished which cast doubt on the speculated 2017 start of previews 102 There was a workshop in November 2016 with the participation of Matthew Morrison Shuler Hensley Heidi Blickenstaff Sierra Boggess Gabriel Ebert Sarah Stiles Michael Cerveris and Jennifer Simard 103 The working title was reported to be Bunuel by the New York Post and other outlets but Sondheim later clarified that they still had no title 104 In June 2019 the Public Theatre denied reports that it would be part of its 2019 2020 season as it was still in development but would be produced when it is ready 105 On April 27 2021 it was reported that the musical was no longer in development 106 While appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on September 15 2021 Sondheim announced he was working on a new musical called Square One in collaboration with Ives 107 The same day Nathan Lane revealed that he and Bernadette Peters were involved in a reading of this new work 108 In Sondheim s final interview before his death he confirmed that Square One was adapted from the Bunuel films 109 Sondheim makes a posthumous cameo appearance as himself in the 2022 Netflix film Glass Onion A Knives Out Mystery 110 Other projects EditConversations with Frank Rich and others Edit The Kennedy Center staged a 15 week repertory festival of six Sondheim musicals Sweeney Todd Company Sunday in the Park with George Merrily We Roll Along Passion and A Little Night Music from May to August 2002 111 112 113 The Kennedy Center Sondheim Celebration also included Pacific Overtures a junior version of Into the Woods and Frank Rich of The New York Times speaking with the composer for Sondheim on Sondheim on April 28 2002 111 114 The two men took their discussion dubbed A Little Night Conversation with Stephen Sondheim on a West Coast tour of different U S cities 115 116 including Santa Barbara San Francisco Los Angeles 117 118 119 and Portland Oregon in March 2008 120 then to Oberlin College in September The Cleveland Jewish News reported on their Oberlin appearance Sondheim said Movies are photographs the stage is larger than life What musicals does Sondheim admire the most Porgy and Bess tops a list which includes Carousel She Loves Me and The Wiz which he saw six times Sondheim took a dim view of today s musicals What works now he said are musicals that are easy to take audiences don t want to be challenged 121 122 Sondheim and Rich had additional conversations January 18 2009 at Avery Fisher Hall 123 February 2 at the Landmark Theatre in Richmond Virginia 124 February 21 at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia 125 and April 20 at the University of Akron in Ohio 126 The conversations were reprised at Tufts and Brown University in February 2010 at the University of Tulsa in April 127 and at Lafayette College in March 2011 128 Sondheim had another conversation with Sean Patrick Flahaven associate editor of The Sondheim Review at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach on February 4 2009 in which he discussed many of his songs and shows On the perennial struggles of Broadway I don t see any solution for Broadway s problems except subsidized theatre as in most civilized countries of the world 129 On February 1 2011 Sondheim joined former Salt Lake Tribune theater critic Nancy Melich before an audience of 1 200 at Kingsbury Hall Melich described the evening He was visibly taken by the university choir who sang two songs during the evening Children Will Listen and Sunday and then returned to reprise Sunday During that final moment Sondheim and I were standing facing the choir of students from the University of Utah s opera program our backs to the audience and I could see tears welling in his eyes as the voices rang out Then all of a sudden he raised his arms and began conducting urging the student singers to go full out which they did the crescendo building their eyes locked with his until the final on an ordinary Sunday was sung It was thrilling and a perfect conclusion to a remarkable evening nothing ordinary about it 130 On March 13 2008 A Salon With Stephen Sondheim which sold out in three minutes was hosted by the Academy for New Musical Theatre in Hollywood 131 132 Work away from Broadway Edit Sondheim was an avid fan of puzzles and games He is credited with introducing cryptic crosswords a British invention to American audiences through a series of cryptic crossword puzzles he created for New York magazine in 1968 and 1969 133 In 1987 Time called his love of puzzlemaking legendary in theater circles adding that the central character of Anthony Shaffer s play Sleuth was inspired by the composer According to a rumor denied by Shaffer in a March 10 1996 New York Times interview Sleuth had the working title Who s Afraid of Stephen Sondheim 10 Sondheim s love of puzzles and mysteries is evident in The Last of Sheila an intricate whodunit written with longtime friend Anthony Perkins The 1973 film directed by Herbert Ross featured Dyan Cannon Joan Hackett Raquel Welch James Mason James Coburn Ian McShane and Richard Benjamin 134 Sondheim also wrote occasional music for film most notably he contributed five songs to Warren Beatty s 1990 film Dick Tracy including the ballad Sooner or Later I Always Get My Man sung in the film by Madonna which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song He also contributed to Reds 1981 both to the score and with the song Goodbye for Now The Seven Per Cent Solution 1976 The Madam s Song later recorded as I Never Do Anything Twice Stavisky 1974 writing the score and The Birdcage 1996 Little Dream and the eventually cut It Takes All Kinds For the 2014 movie adaptation of Into the Woods Sondheim wrote a new song for the character of The Witch played by Meryl Streep entitled She ll Be Back which was eventually cut from the film Sondheim collaborated with Company librettist George Furth to write the play Getting Away with Murder in 1996 though the Broadway production closed after 31 previews and only 17 performances 135 In 2003 he was invited to serve as guest curator for the Telluride Film Festival 136 Mentoring Edit After he was mentored by Oscar Hammerstein II 17 Sondheim returned the favor saying that he loved passing on what Oscar passed on to me 23 In an interview with Sondheim for The Legacy Project composer lyricist Adam Guettel son of Mary Rodgers and grandson of Richard Rodgers recalled how as a 14 year old boy he showed Sondheim his work Guettel was crestfallen since he had come in sort of all puffed up thinking he would be rained with compliments and things which was not the case since Sondheim had some very direct things to say Later Sondheim wrote and apologized to Guettel for being not very encouraging when he was actually trying to be constructive 137 Sondheim also mentored a fledgling Jonathan Larson attending Larson s workshop for his Superbia originally an adaptation of Nineteen Eighty Four In Larson s musical Tick Tick Boom the phone message is played in which Sondheim apologizes for leaving early says he wants to meet him and is impressed with his work After Larson s death Sondheim called him one of the few composers attempting to blend contemporary pop music with theater music which doesn t work very well he was on his way to finding a real synthesis A good deal of pop music has interesting lyrics but they are not theater lyrics A musical theatre composer must have a sense of what is theatrical of how you use music to tell a story as opposed to writing a song Jonathan understood that instinctively 138 Around 2008 Sondheim approached Lin Manuel Miranda to work with him translating West Side Story lyrics into Spanish for an upcoming Broadway revival 139 140 Miranda then approached Sondheim with his new project Hamilton then called The Hamilton Mixtape which Sondheim gave notes on 140 141 Sondheim was originally wary of the project saying he was worried that an evening of rap might get monotonous However Sondheim believed Miranda s attention to and respect for good rhyming made it work 141 Sondheim provided a voice cameo for the 2021 film adaptation of Tick Tick Boom directed by Miranda for the scene in which a fictionalized version of himself leaves a phone message Sondheim worked on a revised text of the message and voiced it himself after Bradley Whitford who portrays him was unavailable to re record the line 142 Dramatists Guild Edit A supporter of writers rights in the theater industry Sondheim was an active member of the Dramatists Guild of America In 1973 he was elected as the Guild s sixteenth president and he continued his presidency of the non profit organization until 1981 143 Unrealized projects EditAccording to Sondheim he was asked to translate Mahagonny Songspiel But I m not a Brecht Weill fan and that s really all there is to it I m an apostate I like Weill s music when he came to America better than I do his stuff before I love The Threepenny Opera but outside of The Threepenny Opera the music of his I like is the stuff he wrote in America when he was not writing with Brecht when he was writing for Broadway 144 He turned down an offer to musicalize Nathanael West s A Cool Million with James Lapine around 1982 145 146 Around 1960 Sondheim and Burt Shevelove considered making a musical of the film Sunset Boulevard and had sketched out the opening scenes when they approached the film s director Billy Wilder at a cocktail party on the possibility Wilder rejected the idea believing the story was more suited to opera than musical theater Sondheim agreed and resisted a later offer from Hal Prince and Hugh Wheeler to create a musical version starring Angela Lansbury This occurred several years before a musical version was produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber 147 Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein wrote The Race to Urga scheduled for Lincoln Center in 1969 but when Jerome Robbins left the project it was not produced 148 After writing The Last of Sheila together Sondheim and Anthony Perkins then went on to try to collaborate again two more times but the projects were ultimately unrealized In 1975 Tony Perkins said he and Sondheim were working on another script The Chorus Girl Murder Case It s a sort of stew based on all those Bob Hope wartime comedies plus a little Lady of Burlesque and a little Orson Welles magic show all cooked into a Last of Sheila type plot said Perkins 149 He later said other inspirations were They Got Me Covered The Ipcress File and Cloak and Dagger 150 They had sold the synopsis in October 1974 151 At one point Michael Bennett was to direct with Tommy Tune to star 152 In November 1979 Sondheim said they had finished it 153 However the film was never made 154 In the 1980s Perkins and Sondheim collaborated on another project the seven part Crime and Variations for Motown Productions In October 1984 they had submitted a treatment to Motown 155 It was a 75 page treatment set in the New York socialite world about a crime puzzle another writer was to write the script It too was never made 156 In 1991 Sondheim worked with Terrence McNally on a musical All Together Now McNally said Steve was interested in telling the story of a relationship from the present back to the moment when the couple first met We worked together a while but we were both involved with so many other projects that this one fell through The story follows Arden Scott a 30 something female sculptor and Daniel Nevin a slightly younger sexually attractive restaurateur Its script with concept notes by McNally and Sondheim is archived in the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin 157 Sondheim worked with William Goldman on Singing Out Loud a musical film in 1992 penning the song Water Under the Bridge 158 159 According to the composer Goldman wrote one or two drafts of the script and Sondheim wrote six and a half songs when director Rob Reiner lost interest in the project Dawn and Sand from the film were recorded for the albums Sondheim at the Movies and Unsung Sondheim 144 In August 2003 Sondheim expressed interest in the idea of creating a musical adaptation of the 1993 comedy film Groundhog Day 160 However in a 2008 live chat he said that to make a musical of Groundhog Day would be to gild the lily It cannot be improved 161 The musical was later created and premiered in 2016 with music and lyrics by Tim Minchin and book by Danny Rubin screenwriter of the film with Sondheim s blessing 162 Nathan Lane mentioned that he once approached Sondheim on the possibility of creating a musical based on the film Being There with Lane starring as the central character of Chance Sondheim declined on the basis that the central character is essentially a cipher whom an audience would not accept expressing himself through song 163 Major works EditMain article Works of Stephen Sondheim Year Title Music Lyrics Book Ref 1954 Saturday Night Stephen Sondheim Julius J Epstein 37 1957 West Side Story Leonard Bernstein Stephen Sondheim Arthur Laurents 37 1959 Gypsy Jule Styne Stephen Sondheim 37 1962 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Stephen Sondheim Burt Shevelove Larry Gelbart 37 1964 Anyone Can Whistle Arthur Laurents 37 1965 Do I Hear a Waltz Richard Rodgers Stephen Sondheim 37 1966 Evening Primrose Stephen Sondheim James Goldman 164 1970 Company George Furth 37 1971 Follies James Goldman 37 1973 A Little Night Music Hugh Wheeler 37 1974 The Frogs Burt Shevelove 165 1976 Pacific Overtures John Weidman 37 1979 Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Hugh Wheeler 37 1981 Merrily We Roll Along George Furth 37 1984 Sunday in the Park with George James Lapine 37 1987 Into the Woods 37 1990 Assassins John Weidman 37 1994 Passion James Lapine 37 2008 Road Show John Weidman 166 Honors and legacy EditMain article List of awards and nominations received by Stephen Sondheim Over Sondheim s prolific career in stage and film he received an Academy Award 8 Tony Awards and 8 Grammy Awards He also received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Sunday in the Park with George 1985 shared with James Lapine and was honored with the Kennedy Center Honors Lifetime Achievement 1993 67 He received the Hutchinson Prize for Music Composition 1950 and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters 1983 He was also awarded the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member James Earl Jones 2005 167 168 the Algur H Meadows Award from Southern Methodist University 1994 169 a Special Laurence Olivier Award 2011 in recognition of his contribution to London theatre 170 171 and a Critics Circle Theatre Award March 2012 which according to drama section chair Mark Shenton is effectively a lifetime achievement award 172 He became a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame 2014 173 In 2013 Sondheim was awarded The Edward MacDowell Medal by The MacDowell Colony for outstanding contributions to American culture 174 In November 2015 Sondheim was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in a ceremony at the White House a 176 177 Sondheim founded Young Playwrights Inc in 1981 to introduce young people to writing for the theater and was the organization s executive vice president 178 The Stephen Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts at the Fairfield Arts and Convention Center in Fairfield Iowa opened in December 2007 with performances by Len Cariou Liz Callaway and Richard Kind all of whom had participated in Sondheim musicals 179 180 The Stephen Sondheim Society was established in 1993 to provide information about his work with its Sondheim the Magazine provided to its membership The society maintains a database organizes productions meetings outings and other events and assists with publicity Its annual Student Performer of the Year Competition awards a 1 000 prize to one of twelve musical theatre students from UK drama schools and universities At Sondheim s request an additional prize is offered for a new song by a young composer Judged by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe each contestant performs a Sondheim song and a new song 181 182 183 Most episode titles of the television series Desperate Housewives refer to Sondheim s song titles or lyrics 184 185 186 187 and the series finale is entitled Finishing the Hat 188 In 1990 Sondheim as the Cameron Mackintosh chair in musical theater at Oxford 189 conducted workshops with promising musical writers including George Stiles Anthony Drewe Andrew Peggie Paul James Kit Hesketh Harvey and Stephen Keeling The writers founded the Mercury Workshop in 1992 which merged with the New Musicals Alliance to become MMD a UK based organization to develop new musical theater of which Sondheim was a patron 190 Signature Theatre in Arlington Virginia established its Sondheim Award which includes a 5 000 donation to a nonprofit organization of the recipient s choice as a tribute to America s most influential contemporary musical theatre composer The first award to Sondheim was presented at an April 27 2009 benefit with performances by Bernadette Peters Michael Cerveris Will Gartshore and Eleasha Gamble 191 192 193 The 2010 recipient was Angela Lansbury with Peters and Catherine Zeta Jones hosting the April benefit 194 The 2011 honoree was Bernadette Peters 195 Other recipients were Patti LuPone in 2012 196 Hal Prince in 2013 Jonathan Tunick in 2014 197 and James Lapine in 2015 198 The 2016 awardee was John Weidman 199 and the 2017 awardee was Cameron Mackintosh 200 Henry Miller s Theatre on West 43rd Street in New York City was renamed the Stephen Sondheim Theatre on September 15 2010 for the composer s 80th birthday In attendance were Nathan Lane Patti LuPone and John Weidman Sondheim said in response to the honor I m deeply embarrassed Thrilled but deeply embarrassed I ve always hated my last name It just doesn t sing I mean it s not Belasco And it s not Rodgers and it s not Simon And it s not Wilson It just doesn t sing It sings better than Schoenfeld and Jacobs But it just doesn t sing Lane said We love our corporate sponsors and we love their money but there s something sacred about naming a theatre and there s something about this that is right and just 201 In 2010 The Daily Telegraph wrote that Sondheim was almost certainly the only living composer with a quarterly journal published in his name 202 The Sondheim Review founded in 1994 chronicled and promoted his work It ceased publication in 2016 203 In 2019 it was observed in the media that three major films of that year prominently featured Sondheim songs Joker Wall Street businessmen sing Send In the Clowns on the subway 204 Marriage Story Adam Driver sings the song Being Alive Scarlett Johansson Merritt Wever and Julie Hagerty sing You Can Drive a Person Crazy 205 and Knives Out Daniel Craig sings Losing My Mind in the car 204 Sondheim s work is also referenced in television such as The Morning Show where Jennifer Aniston and Billy Crudup sing Not While I m Around 206 Sondheim at 80 Edit Main article Sondheim The Birthday Concert Several benefits and concerts were performed to celebrate Sondheim s 80th birthday in 2010 Among them were the New York Philharmonic s March 15 and 16 Sondheim The Birthday Concert at Lincoln Center s Avery Fisher Hall hosted by David Hyde Pierce The concert included Sondheim s music performed by some of the original performers Lonny Price directed and Paul Gemignani conducted performers included Laura Benanti Matt Cavenaugh Michael Cerveris Victoria Clark Jenn Colella Jason Danieley Alexander Gemignani Joanna Gleason Nathan Gunn George Hearn Patti LuPone Marin Mazzie Audra McDonald John McMartin Donna Murphy Karen Olivo Laura Osnes Mandy Patinkin Bernadette Peters Bobby Steggert Elaine Stritch Jim Walton Chip Zien and the 2009 Broadway revival cast of West Side Story A ballet was performed by Blaine Hoven and Maria Noel Riccetto to Sondheim s score for Reds and Jonathan Tunick paid tribute to his longtime collaborator 207 208 The concert was broadcast on PBS Great Performances show in November 209 and its DVD was released on November 16 Sondheim 80 a Roundabout Theatre Company benefit was held on March 22 The evening included a performance of Sondheim on Sondheim dinner and a show at the New York Sheraton A very personal star studded musical tribute featured new songs by contemporary musical theatre writers The composers who sang their own songs included Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey Michael John LaChiusa Andrew Lippa Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson Lopez Lin Manuel Miranda accompanied by Rita Moreno Duncan Sheik and Jeanine Tesori and David Lindsay Abaire Bernadette Peters performed a song which had been cut from a Sondheim show 210 211 An April 26 New York City Center birthday celebration and concert to benefit Young Playwrights among others featured in order of appearance Michael Cerveris Alexander Gemignani Donna Murphy Debra Monk Joanna Gleason Maria Friedman Mark Jacoby Len Cariou BD Wong Claybourne Elder Alexander Hanson Catherine Zeta Jones Raul Esparza Sutton Foster Nathan Lane Michele Pawk the original cast of Into the Woods Kim Crosby Chip Zien Danielle Ferland and Ben Wright Angela Lansbury and Jim Walton The concert directed by John Doyle was co hosted by Mia Farrow greetings from Sheila Hancock Julia McKenzie Milton Babbitt Judi Dench and Glynis Johns were read After Catherine Zeta Jones performed Send in the Clowns Julie Andrews sang part of Not a Day Goes By in a recorded greeting Although Patti LuPone Barbara Cook Bernadette Peters Tom Aldredge and Victor Garber were originally scheduled to perform they did not appear 212 213 A July 31 BBC Proms concert celebrated Sondheim s 80th birthday at the Royal Albert Hall The concert featured songs from many of his musicals including Send in the Clowns sung by Judi Dench reprising her role as Desiree in the 1995 production of A Little Night Music and performances by Bryn Terfel and Maria Friedman 214 215 On November 19 the New York Pops led by Steven Reineke performed at Carnegie Hall for the composer s 80th birthday Kate Baldwin Aaron Lazar Christiane Noll Paul Betz Renee Rakelle Marilyn Maye singing I m Still Here and Alexander Gemignani appeared and songs included I Remember Another Hundred People Children Will Listen and Getting Married Today Sondheim took the stage during an encore of his song Old Friends 216 217 Sondheim at 90 Edit Main article Take Me to the World A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration To honor Sondheim s 90th birthday The New York Times published a special nine page Theater supplement on March 15 2020 featuring comments by Critics Performers and Fans on the Bard of Broadway 218 Due to theater closures during the COVID 19 pandemic the Broadway revival of Company set to open March 22 2020 Sondheim s 90th birthday was ultimately delayed 219 However 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 Raul Esparza 220 221 222 After New York City theaters eventually 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 37 223 Sondheim s Old Friends Edit In 2022 Cameron Mackintosh presented a two hour concert tribute to the late Sondheim entitled Stephen Sondheim s Old Friends The concert happened on the West End in May and aired on BBC Two in December Those who performed at the event included Helena Bonham Carter Rob Brydon Petula Clarke Dame Judi Dench Damian Lewis Julia McKenzie Bernadette Peters and Imelda Staunton among others Highlights of the event include Judi Dench singing Send in the Clowns Bernadette Peters singing Children Will Listen and Imelda Staunton s Everything s Coming Up Roses Style and themes EditAccording 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 224 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 225 He 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 Sondheim 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 226 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 Frontain continues He incarnates the paradox of a highly intellectualized gay perspective that prizes ambivalence undercuts traditional American progressivism and rejects the musical s historically idealistic view of sex romance and the family but that at the same time eschews camp deconstructs the diva and is apparently oblivious to AIDS the post Stonewall struggle for civil equality and other socio political issues that concern most gay men of his generation 227 Luca Prono described Sondheim s work as rejecting the traditional image of the Western world typically presented in Broadway productions and instead depicting it as predatory and alienating His works have acquired a cult following with queer audiences and his songs have been adopted as life scores for successive generations of gays and have often had a primary role in AIDS fundraising events 228 Somewhere from West Side Story was informally adopted as a gay anthem before the start of the gay liberation movement but Sondheim rejected that reading saying If you think that s a gay song then all songs about getting away from the realities of life are gay songs 229 In an interview with Terry Gross for the Fresh Air program on NPR Sondheim stated I m interested in the theater because I m interested in communication with audiences Otherwise I would be in concert music I d be in another kind of profession I love the theater as much as music and the whole idea of getting across to an audience and making them laugh making them cry just making them feel is paramount to me 230 Matt Zoller Seitz characterized Sondheim s work for its bravery to express the truth in all its complexity compassionately but without sugarcoating anything devoid of the easy reassurances and neat resolutions typically demanded in the marketplace 231 Personal life and death EditSondheim was often described as introverted and solitary In an interview with Frank Rich he said The outsider feeling somebody who people want to both kiss and kill occurred quite early in my life Sondheim jokingly told the New York Times in 1966 I ve never found anybody I could work with as quickly as myself or with less argument although he described himself as naturally a collaborative animal 232 Sondheim opened up about being gay when he was about 40 11 233 He rarely discussed his personal life though he said in 2013 that he had not been in love before he turned 60 when he entered into a roughly eight year relationship with dramatist Peter Jones 234 235 Sondheim married Jeffrey Scott Romley a digital technologist in 2017 they lived in Manhattan and Roxbury Connecticut 232 In 2010 2011 Sondheim published in two volumes his autobiography Finishing the Hat Collected Lyrics 1954 1981 with Attendant Comments Principles Heresies Grudges Whines and Anecdotes 236 and Look I Made a Hat Collected Lyrics 1981 2011 with Attendant Comments Amplifications Dogmas Harangues Digressions Anecdotes and Miscellany 237 The memoir included Sondheim s lyrical declaration of principle stating that four principles underpinned everything I ve ever written These were Content Dictates Form Less is More God is in the Details all in the service of Clarity 232 In Six by Sondheim James Lapine s 2013 documentary film about the creative process Sondheim revealed that he liked to write his music lying down and would occasionally have a cocktail to help him write 238 Sondheim died of cardiovascular disease at his home in Roxbury on November 26 2021 at the age of 91 37 Collaborator and friend Jeremy Sams said Sondheim died in the arms of his husband Jeff 239 On December 8 2021 Broadway theaters dimmed their marquee lights for one minute as a tribute 240 Beneficiaries of the trust managing Sondheim s estate included the Smithsonian Institution the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts 241 Published works EditStephen Sondheim s Crossword Puzzles From New York Magazine 1980 ISBN 0 06 090708 8 Finishing the Hat Collected Lyrics 1954 1981 with Attendant Comments Principles Heresies Grudges Whines and Anecdotes 2010 ISBN 978 0 679 43907 3 Look I Made a Hat Collected Lyrics 1981 2011 with Attendant Comments Amplifications Dogmas Harangues Digressions Anecdotes and Miscellany 2011 ISBN 9780307593412Notes Edit Sondheim was named for this award for 2014 but was unable to attend the ceremony and thus was named again for the 2015 award and ceremony 175 References Edit Remarks by the President at Medal of Freedom Ceremony White House November 24 2015 Archived from the original on August 28 2017 Retrieved November 23 2019 via National Archives About Stephen Sondheim Everything Sondheim Archived from the original on August 12 2020 Retrieved November 23 2019 a b c d e Stephen Sondheim Biography and Interview achievement org American Academy of Achievement Archived from the original on December 19 2016 Retrieved April 16 2020 Weber Bruce July 31 2019 Hal Prince Giant of Broadway and Reaper of Tonys Dies at 91 The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Archived from the original on August 1 2019 Retrieved January 13 2020 The Bard of Ambivalence Jewish Currents Retrieved March 30 2022 Winners tonyawards com Archived from the original on October 3 2021 Retrieved October 3 2021 a b Secrest 1998 Ch 1 a b c A Stephen Sondheim Timeline John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Archived from the original on May 26 2021 Retrieved May 26 2021 Brown Mick September 27 2010 Still cutting it at 80 Stephen Sondheim interview The Daily Telegraph ISSN 0307 1235 Archived from the original on April 22 2018 Retrieved February 9 2018 a b c Henry William A III December 7 1987 Master of the Musical Stephen Sondheim Applies a Relentless Time Archived from the original on September 30 2007 Retrieved March 19 2007 a b c d e f Rich Frank March 12 2000 Conversations With Sondheim The New York Times Archived from the original on November 23 2006 Retrieved January 17 2007 King Robert A 1972 The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child Yale University Press p 310 ISBN 0 300 11996 8 Secrest 1998 p 30 Schiff Stephen 2010 Deconstructing Sondheim The Sondheim Review Sondheim Review Inc XVII 2 17 ISSN 1076 450X Kakutani Michiko March 20 1994 Sondheim s Passionate Passion The New York Times Archived from the original on May 15 2013 Retrieved April 7 2012 she wrote me a letter hand delivered because she thought she was going to die and she wanted to make sure I got it She said The night before I undergo open heart surgery underlined three times Open parenthesis My surgeon s term Close parenthesis The only regret I have in life is giving you birth Secrest 1998 p 272 Sondheim was in London when his mother died and did not return for her funeral a b Zadan 1986 p 4 Kaufman David October 5 1998 Book review Stephen Sondheim A Life The Nation Retrieved November 29 2021 Sondheim s Saturday Night at the Jermyn Street Theatre MusicalCriticism com Musical Theatre review MusicalCriticism com Archived from the original on October 28 2011 Retrieved October 18 2011 Secrest 1998 pp 78 79 Oscar Hammerstein 2d Is Dead Librettist and Producer Was 65 The New York Times August 23 1960 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved November 29 2021 Conversations With Sondheim The New York Times Archived from the original on March 18 2007 Retrieved February 9 2018 a b Stephen Sondheim with Adam Guettel December 7 2010 Archived from the original on June 1 2014 Retrieved July 4 2014 via YouTube Stephen Sondheim for Piano Guides musopen org in Portuguese Archived from the original on February 10 2018 Retrieved February 9 2018 Schiff Stephen 2010 Deconstructing Sondheim The Sondheim Review Sondheim Review Inc XVII 2 16 ISSN 1076 450X a b c An early influence The Sondheim Review Sondheim Review Inc XVII 4 6 2011 ISSN 1076 450X a b A Conversation with Stephen Sondheim May 9 2012 Archived from the original on April 9 2019 Retrieved December 9 2017 via YouTube Lipton James The Art of the Musical Stephen Sondheim The Paris Review Archived from the original on October 27 2010 Retrieved September 4 2013 Citron Stephen 2001 Sondheim and Lloyd Webber The New Musical Oxford University Press p 238 ISBN 978 0 19 509601 9 Citron 2001 p 47 Mitchell Elvis August 28 2003 Sondheim Film Aficionado Choices for Telluride Festival Show Nonmusical Side The New York Times Archived from the original on November 27 2021 Retrieved March 28 2008 Jesse Green March 15 2020 Isn t He Something The New York Times No Theater p AR 11 Dembin Russell M Forum at 50 It s possible Sondheim 101 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Archived July 14 2014 at the Wayback Machine sondheimreview com 2012 Zadan 1986 p 38 Skethway Nathan May 8 2021 Look Back at the Original Production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Playbill Retrieved November 28 2021 The Tony Award Nominations Tony Awards 1963 Retrieved November 28 2021 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Weber Bruce November 26 2021 Stephen Sondheim Titan of the American Musical Is Dead at 91 The New York Times Archived from the original on November 26 2021 Retrieved November 26 2021 Laurents Arthur Original Story By 2000 York Alfred A Knopf ISBN 0 375 40055 9 p 212 Secrest 1998 pp 174 175 Chapin Ted 2003 Everything Was Possible The Birth of the Musical Follies New York Alfred A Knopf ISBN 978 0 375 41328 5 The Mad Show A Musical Revue Based on Mad Magazine Samuel French Inc I Remember Original Evening Primrose Director Recalls Making of TV Musical Playbill October 22 2010 Archived from the original on July 14 2014 Retrieved July 4 2014 a b Secrest Meryle 2011 Being Alive Stephen Sondheim A Life Vintage Books pp 1188 ISBN 978 0 307 94684 3 Abernathy June Sondheim s Lost Musical Archived March 20 2012 at the Wayback Machine sondheim com Retrieved February 5 2012 a b c Wolf Matt Stephen Sondheim An audience with a theatre legend Archived September 27 2017 at the Wayback Machine The Independent April 2013 Ilson Carol 1989 Harold Prince A Director s Journey Limelight Editions p 239 ISBN 978 0879102968 Romano Aja August 1 2019 Broadway director Harold Prince left an unparalleled legacy of masterworks Vox Retrieved November 28 2021 a b Franklin Marc J April 26 2021 Look Back at the Original Production of Company on Broadway Playbill Retrieved November 28 2021 Everett Todd April 7 1994 THEATER REVIEW Conejo Follies Not Same Old Song Dance The Sondheim musical may have fizzled on Broadway but the local production spotlights the show s strengths Los Angeles Times Retrieved November 28 2021 Follies Playbill 2001 Retrieved November 28 2021 Brantley Ben September 13 2011 Darkness Around the Spotlight The New York Times Retrieved November 28 2021 A Precious Fancy Time March 19 1973 Archived from the original on September 30 2007 Retrieved March 19 2007 A Little Night Music Internet Broadway Database The Broadway League Retrieved November 28 2021 Brantley Ben December 14 2009 A Weekend in the Country With Eros and Thanatos The New York Times Retrieved November 28 2021 Swed Mark July 15 2002 Cultural Fine Tuning of Pacific Overtures Los Angeles Times Retrieved November 28 2021 Pacific Overtures Internet Broadway Database The Broadway League Retrieved November 28 2021 Brantley Ben December 3 2004 Repatriating the Japanese Sondheim The New York Times Retrieved November 28 2021 Berkvist Robert Stephen Sondheim Takes a Stab at Grand Guignol Archived September 29 2017 at the Wayback Machine The New York Times February 25 1979 Sweeney Todd Sondheim com Archived from the original on November 16 2014 Retrieved September 28 2014 Wheeler Hugh Sondheim Stephen Sweeney Todd script Introduction by Christopher Bond Hal Leonard Corporation 1991 ISBN 1 55783 066 5 p 1 Sweeney Todd listing Based on a Version of Sweeney Todd by Christopher Bond Sondheimguide com Archived from the original on May 25 2016 Retrieved September 28 2014 Brown Larry Sweeney Todd Notes Archived March 7 2009 at the Wayback Machine Larryavisbrown homestead com Retrieved March 22 2010 Gottfried Martin photos By Martha Swope Sondheim New York Harry N Abrams Inc 1993 pgs 146 147 ISBN 978 0 8109 3844 1 ISBN 0 8109 3844 8 Galuppo Mia August 29 2019 Richard Linklater Musical to Be Filmed Over 20 Year Span The Hollywood Reporter Retrieved November 28 2021 Gottfried 1993 p 153 Simonson Robert Jones Kenneth June 30 2003 Sondheim and Prince Bounce Back After 20 Years with Goodman Theatre Premiere June 30 Playbill Retrieved November 29 2021 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint url status link a b 1985 Pulitzer Prizes pulitzer org Retrieved November 29 2021 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint url status link Zinoman Jason February 17 2008 Who s That Kid Staging Sondheim The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Archived from the original on February 18 2008 Retrieved November 29 2021 McPhee Ryan February 23 2017 Jake Gyllenhaal Led Sunday in the Park With George Opens on Broadway Feb 23 Playbill Retrieved November 29 2021 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint url status link Pressley Nelson May 1 2002 A Spruced Up Into the Woods Grows on Broadway The Washington Post Retrieved November 29 2021 Simon Lizzie February 26 2013 A Theater Group Breaks Into Song The Wall Street Journal Archived from the original on November 11 2017 Retrieved August 9 2013 Rooney David December 2 2013 Six by Sondheim TV Review The Hollywood Reporter Archived from the original on November 29 2021 Retrieved November 29 2021 Wontorek Paul December 8 2013 James Lapine on Making Six by Sondheim His Hollywood Dreams for Sunday in the Park and Getting Sondheim to Actually Sing on Screen Broadway com Archived from the original on December 11 2013 Retrieved November 29 2021 Fox David Critics Say Assassins Will Have to Bite the Bullet Stage Some reviewers find Stephen Sondheim s Off Broadway musical fails to hit the target Los Angeles Times January 29 1991 Evans Greg Crix Hang Assassins B way Out of Range Variety February 4 1991 95 Rpt in Contemporary Literary Criticism Ed Jeffrey W Hunter Vol 147 Detroit Gale Group 2002 Rich Frank Review Theater Sondheim and Those Who Would Kill The New York Times January 28 1991 Grady Constance November 26 2021 In Sondheim s Assassins cornball Americana can t cover a seething mass of violent rage Vox Retrieved November 29 2021 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint url status link Sondheim s Saturday Night to Play London s Jermyn Street Theatre in 2009 Playbill Archived from the original on December 27 2011 Retrieved October 18 2011 Bahr David October 12 1999 Everything s coming up Sondheim The Advocate Archived from the original on August 7 2013 Retrieved March 19 2007 Jones Kenneth June 20 2003 Sondheim and Prince Reunite for Musical Comedy Bounce Bowing in Chicago Prior to DC Playbill Retrieved December 5 2021 Jones Kenneth August 12 2008 Sondheim amp Weidman s Bounce Is Now Called Road Show Cast Announced Playbill Retrieved June 24 2019 Public Theater 2008 09 listing The Public Theater Archived from the original on August 1 2008 Retrieved August 2 2008 Hetrick Adam October 28 2008 Sondheim and Weidman s Road Show Pulls Into the Public Oct 28 Playbill Jones Kenneth May 19 2009 Groff Nottage Sondheim Cromer Pisoni Korins Among 2009 OBIE Award Winners Playbill Retrieved June 24 2019 Gans Andrew May 18 2009 Ruined and Billy Elliot Win Top Honors at Drama Desk Awards Playbill Retrieved April 27 2019 Edwardes Jane May 9 2006 Stephen Sondheim Interview Time Out Archived from the original on December 28 2008 2007 Interview Stephen Sondheim for Sweeney Todd Darkhorizons com Archived from the original on December 14 2007 Retrieved September 28 2014 Hetrick Adam Liz Callaway Cast in World Premiere of iSondheim a Musical Revue Archived April 12 2009 at the Wayback Machine Playbill com February 4 2009 Gans Andrew and Hetrick Adam Atlanta s Alliance Theatre Cancels Sondheim Revue Brel Will Play Instead Archived May 1 2009 at the Wayback Machine Playbill com February 26 2009 Jones Kenneth Sondheim on Sondheim a New Musical Reflection of a Life in Art Begins on Broadway Archived March 1 2014 at the Wayback Machine Playbill com March 19 2010 Stephen Sondheim and Wynton Marsalis Collaboration for City Center Has New Title Parker Esse Will Choreograph Playbill Archived from the original on November 9 2013 Retrieved September 28 2014 Champion Lindsay Meet the Jazzy Cast of Sondheim amp Marsalis A Bed and a Chair Starring Bernadette Peters amp Jeremy Jordan Archived November 9 2013 at the Wayback Machine broadway com November 7 2013 Suskin Steven Stephen Sondheim and Wynton Marsalis Offer a Comfortable Bed and a Chair at City Center Archived December 12 2013 at the Wayback Machine playbill com November 14 2013 Robbins Caryn February 27 2015 VIDEO Meryl Streep Performs INTO THE WOODS Deleted Song She ll Be Back BroadwayWorld Retrieved November 27 2021 Powerhouse Scribes Stephen Sondheim amp David Ives at Work on New Musical BroadwayWorld com Archived from the original on October 21 2014 Retrieved September 28 2014 Kepler Adam W and Healy Patrick Rolling Along Sondheim Discloses He s Working on a New Show Archived July 26 2014 at the Wayback Machine The New York Times artsbeat blogs February 29 2012 Wappler Margaret Stephen Sondheim has 20 or 30 minutes written of a new musical Archived March 4 2012 at the Wayback Machine Los Angeles Times blogs February 2012 BWW Exclusive Stephen Sondheim Drops Hint About New Musical with David Ives BroadwayWorld com Archived from the original on October 21 2014 Retrieved September 28 2014 Jones Kenneth Stephen Sondheim Collaborating With David Ives on New Musical Archived July 26 2014 at the Wayback Machine Playbill com February 29 2012 Stephen Sondheim Reveals New Details on David Ives Collaboration BroadwayWorld com Archived from the original on October 21 2014 Retrieved September 28 2014 Stephen Sondheim and David Ives at Work on New Musical Based on Films of Luis Bunuel Playbill October 12 2014 Archived from the original on November 15 2014 Retrieved November 29 2014 Riedel Michael Stephen Sondheim is halfway done with his new musical Archived February 9 2018 at the Wayback Machine New York Post August 26 2016 Viagas Robert Matthew Morrison Says Sondheim s New Bunuel Musical Is Challenging Archived January 16 2018 at the Wayback Machine Playbill January 4 2017 Wong Wayman BWW Exclusive Sondheim Knocks Riedel s Reporting Says His New Musical Was Never Called Bunuel Archived February 9 2018 at the Wayback Machine BroadwayWorld com April 26 2017 Paulson Michael June 6 2019 For Colored Girls and Soft Power Will be Part of Public Theater Season The New York Times Archived from the original on July 24 2019 Retrieved July 24 2019 Gans Andrew April 27 2021 Stephen Sondheim Musical Bunuel No Longer in Development Playbill Archived from the original on May 1 2021 Retrieved May 2 2021 Stephen Sondheim Is Still Writing New Works As Company Returns To Broadway archived from the original on October 30 2021 retrieved September 16 2021 Major Michael VIDEO Nathan Lane Talks Reading of a New Sondheim Musical With Bernadette Peters BroadwayWorld com Archived from the original on September 16 2021 Retrieved September 16 2021 Paulson Michael November 27 2021 Days Before Dying Stephen Sondheim Reflected I ve Been Lucky The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved November 29 2021 Lee Lenker Maureen November 25 2022 Angela Lansbury filmed her Glass Onion role on a laptop Inside all the Knives Out 2 cameos Entertainment Weekly Retrieved November 25 2022 a b Sondheim Guide listing for Kennedy Center Celebration 2002 Sondheimguide com Archived from the original on September 29 2011 Retrieved October 18 2011 Jones Kenneth It s a Hit Kennedy Center s Sondheim Celebration Is Already Half Sold Archived September 24 2015 at the Wayback Machine playbill com February 13 2002 Sondheim Cast Archived October 16 2015 at the Wayback Machine kennedy center org Retrieved May 17 2015 Kennedy Center Sondheim Celebration Kennedy center org Archived from the original on January 12 2019 Retrieved October 18 2011 A M Homes February 22 2008 On the Road Rich evenings with Sondheim Vanity Fair Archived from the original on November 29 2011 Retrieved October 18 2011 Santa Barbara Independent Interview with Sondheim about the talks March 6 2008 Santa Barbara Independent March 6 2008 Archived from the original on December 27 2011 Retrieved October 18 2011 Student Affairs Information Systems webmaster sa ucsb edu UCSB listing Artsandlectures sa ucsb edu Archived from the original on October 9 2011 Retrieved October 18 2011 UCLA listing Magazine ucla edu Archived from the original on August 7 2011 Retrieved October 18 2011 Rich schedule Frankrich com Archived from the original on October 5 2011 Retrieved October 18 2011 Webb Rebecca Stephen Sondheim KINK Archived from the original on December 26 2008 1 Archived July 5 2009 at the Wayback Machine Heller Fran Sondheim scores a hit at Oberlin College Archived April 24 2009 at the Wayback Machine Cleveland Jewish News October 10 2008 Gans Andrew Sondheim and Rich Will Discuss A Life in the Theater in January 2009 Archived January 7 2009 at the Wayback Machine Playbill com November 11 2008 2 dead link 3 Archived December 27 2008 at the Wayback Machine Stephen Sondheim with Frank Rich listing Ejthomashall com Retrieved September 28 2014 permanent dead link Sondheim conversation set for TU Tulsa World April 18 2010 Archived from the original on January 19 2012 Retrieved October 18 2011 A Life in the Theater Broadway Legend Stephen Sondheim Visits Campus About Lafayette College Lafayette edu March 9 2011 Archived from the original on March 8 2012 Retrieved October 18 2011 Maupin Elizabeth Sondheim talks And talks And talks Archived August 26 2013 at the Wayback Machine Orlandosentinel com February 5 2009 More from Sondheim The Sondheim Review Sondheim Review Inc XVII 4 6 2011 ISSN 1076 450X Sondheim salon is a hot ticket Los Angeles Times April 2 2009 Archived from the original on March 6 2016 Retrieved July 4 2014 A Salon with Stephen Sondheim at ANMT June 20 2008 Archived from the original on May 23 2015 Retrieved July 4 2014 via YouTube Healy Patrick September 16 2011 This Time It s Crosswords Not Cross Words That Surface From Sondheim The New York Times Archived from the original on November 11 2020 Retrieved November 27 2021 Stephenson Hugh April 16 2015 The story of how cryptic crosswords crossed the Atlantic The Guardian Retrieved November 27 2021 Parr Andrew May 2021 Call Me Steve PDF Games World of Puzzles Vol 45 no 4 pp 33 37 Pender Rick 2021 Puzzles Games and Mysteries The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia Lanham Rowman amp Littlefield pp 423 425 ISBN 9781538115862 Zimmer Ben December 4 2021 Stephen Sondheim Didn t Just Change Musicals He Changed Crosswords Slate Gordon Joanne 2014 Stephen Sondheim A Casebook Routledge pp 85 88 ISBN 978 1 135 70210 6 Retrieved December 7 2021 Getting Away With Murder Internet Broadway Database The Broadway League Retrieved November 28 2021 Mitchell Elvis August 28 2003 Sondheim Film Aficionado Choices for Telluride Festival Show Nonmusical Side The New York Times Retrieved December 2 2021 Stephen Sondheim Adam Guettel 2011 The Legacy Project Stephen Sondheim In Conversation with Adam Guettel Educational Version with Public Performance Rights DVD Transient Pictures Anthony Tommasini February 11 1996 THEATER A Composer s Death Echoes in His Musical New York Times The New York Times Archived from the original on April 6 2017 Retrieved July 4 2014 McCarter Jeremy August 24 2008 This Could Drive a Person Crazy New York Archived from the original on March 18 2016 Retrieved April 17 2016 a b Rebecca Mead February 9 2015 All About The Hamiltons The New Yorker Archived from the original on September 30 2017 Retrieved June 15 2016 a b Rosen Jody July 8 2015 The American Revolutionary The New York Times Style Magazine Archived from the original on June 17 2016 Retrieved June 15 2016 Lin Manuel Miranda Reveals That Stephen Sondheim Rewrote His Voicemail Scene in Tick Tick BOOM Decider November 29 2021 Retrieved December 2 2021 Stephen Sondheim Dramatists Guild Foundation dgf org Archived from the original on November 28 2021 Retrieved November 28 2021 a b Cerasaro Pat Stephen Sondheim Talks Past Present Future Archived November 14 2010 at the Wayback Machine broadwayworld com November 3 2010 Bixby Suzanne 2008 Jumping In The Sondheim Review Sondheim Review Inc XVI 4 28 ISSN 1076 450X Isenberg Barbara Meet Mr Plucky To James Lapine directing his new play Luck Pluck amp Virtue means booting Horatio Alger smack dab into the 90s Archived March 6 2016 at the Wayback Machine LA Times August 1 1993 Sondheim Stephen 2011 Look I Made a Hat Collected Lyrics 1981 2011 with Attendant Comments Amplifications Dogmas Harangues Digressions Anecdotes and Miscellany Alfred A Knopf p 146 Long Robert Broadway The Golden Years Jerome Robbins And The Great Choreographer Directors 1940 To The Present 2003 Continuum International Publishing Group ISBN 0 8264 1462 1 pp 133 134 Flatley Guy December 28 1975 It s Been One of Tony Perkins Better Years A Good Year for Tony Perkins Los Angeles Times p O27 Flatley Guy February 19 1978 Perkins Film sickie turns to reel bigamy Chicago Tribune p E23 Winer Linda October 20 1974 Filling blanks in the puzzle of Sondheim Chicago Tribune p E3 Winecoff Charles 1996 Split image the life of Anthony Perkins Dutton p 327 Mann Roderick November 29 1979 Cool Down on Rough Cut Los Angeles Times p G25 Side by Side With Stephen Sondheim sondheim com Archived from the original on September 22 2020 Retrieved September 10 2021 Mann Roderick October 7 1984 TONY PERKINS THE CRIMES OF HIS HEART Los Angeles Times p X24 Zadan 1986 pp 352 53 Frontain Raymond Jean 2011 Mutual admiration The Sondheim Review Sondheim Review Inc XVII 3 30 33 ISSN 1076 450X Robert Gordon 2014 The Oxford Handbook of Sondheim Studies Page 294 019990927X Omitted from this survey are the song Water under the Bridge composed for the film Singing out Loud which was never produced Singing Out Loud listing Sondheimguide com Archived from the original on July 14 2014 Retrieved September 28 2014 Sondheim Talks About Bounce Revisions in Works Playbill August 26 2003 Archived from the original on April 25 2017 Retrieved May 16 2015 Roundabout Live Chat Roundabout Theatre May 5 2008 Archived from the original on May 10 2008 Retrieved May 19 2015 Tim Minchin Groundhog Day A new stage musical by us Tim Minchin Archived from the original on September 17 2017 Retrieved May 1 2017 criterioncollection June 10 2021 Nathan Lane s Closet Picks Archived from the original on October 30 2021 Retrieved August 25 2021 via YouTube Bianculli David October 26 2010 Primrose 44 Years Later Still Sharp As Thumbtacks NPR Retrieved November 27 2021 The Frogs 1974 Yale University Production Sondheimguide com Archived from the original on August 26 2014 Retrieved September 28 2014 McKinley Jesse November 19 2003 Confirmed No Bounce To Broadway This Season The New York Times Archived from the original on December 26 2017 Retrieved March 31 2021 Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement achievement org American Academy of Achievement Archived from the original on June 8 2020 Retrieved April 16 2020 Summit Overview Photo 2005 Archived from the original on September 5 2021 Retrieved December 28 2020 Composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim receives the Academy s Gold Medal from Awards Council member James Earl Jones at the 2005 International Achievement Summit during a Broadway symposium in New York City Television and Radio listings Sondheimguide com Archived from the original on February 6 2015 Retrieved September 28 2014 Stephen Sondheim to receive special Olivier Award BBC News March 4 2011 Archived from the original on October 16 2015 Retrieved September 28 2014 Bennett Ray Olivier Awards 2011 Legally Blonde Stephen Sondheim Dominate Archived April 1 2019 at the Wayback Machine HollywoodReporter com March 13 2011 Gans Andrew Stephen Sondheim Receives UK Critics Circle 2011 Award for Distinguished Services to the Arts Archived September 6 2013 at the Wayback Machine Playbill com March 9 2012 Theater Hall of Fame members Archived from the original on January 18 2015 Retrieved February 9 2014 Macdowell Medalists Retrieved August 22 2022 Ledbetter Lucie Stephen Sondheim Barbra Streisand and More to Receive Presidential Medal of Freedom Archived November 25 2015 at the Wayback Machine theatermania com November 17 2015 President Obama Announces the Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipients White House November 10 2014 Archived from the original on January 21 2017 Retrieved November 11 2014 via National Archives Phil Helsel Obama honoring Spielberg Streisand and more with medal of freedom Archived November 25 2015 at the Wayback Machine NBC News November 24 2015 Retrieved November 25 2015 Young Playwrights site Youngplaywrights org Archived from the original on November 4 2011 Retrieved October 18 2011 Jones Kenneth Near Cornfields Worthy of Hammerstein a Theatre Named for Sondheim Rises in Midwest Archived December 29 2008 at the Wayback Machine Playbill com May 31 2007 Hetrick Adam Original Cast Members Fete Sondheim at New Midwest Arts Center Dec 7 9 Archived December 29 2008 at the Wayback Machine Playbill com December 4 2007 Stephen Sondheim Society Archive Archives Hub The Stephen Sondheim Society Student Performer of the Year June 10 2019 Final Judges And Guest Performers Announced For The 2019 West End Gala Of The Stephen Sondheim Society Student Performer Of The Year And Stiles Drewe Prize May 31 2019 Hetrick Adam Tomlin to Join Fifth Season of Desperate Housewives Archived December 29 2008 at the Wayback Machine Playbill com September 12 2008 Episode list Desperate Housewives IMDb Archived from the original on July 19 2014 Retrieved September 28 2014 Widdicombe Ben Gossip Daily News New York March 23 2005 p 22 Desperate Housewives writer Marc Cherry who congratulated Sondheim in a filmed statement admitted the composer was such an inspiration that each episode of his blockbuster show is named after a Sondheim song Chang Justin Variety Sondheim Streisand infuse Wisteria Lane December 20 26 2004 p 8 Broadway literate fans may have noticed the skein s first three post pilot episodes are all named after classic Stephen Sondheim showtunes Sperling Daniel Desperate Housewives final episode title revealed Archived April 27 2012 at the Wayback Machine digitalspy com April 19 2012 Sondheim Will Teach at Oxford Chicago Tribune Archived from the original on July 2 2019 Retrieved July 2 2019 Welcome to MMD Mercury Musical Developments Jones Kenneth Signature Creates Sondheim Award to Be Presented at April 2009 Gala Archived December 29 2008 at the Wayback Machine Playbill com October 6 2008 Horwitz Jane Backstage column Archived March 22 2017 at the Wayback Machine Washington Post October 8 2008 Jones Kenneth Peters and Cerveris Celebrate Sondheim at DC Sondheim Award Gala April 27 Playbill April 27 2009 Jones Kenneth Garber Mazzie Danieley and More Celebrate Lansbury in DC Gala April 12 Archived March 17 2014 at the Wayback Machine Playbill com April 12 2010 Jones Kenneth Bernadette Peters Gets Sondheim Award April 11 Stephen Buntrock Rebecca Luker Euan Morton Sing Archived April 8 2014 at the Wayback Machine Playbill com April 11 2011 Jones Kenneth Laura Benanti Howard McGillin and More Sing the Praises of Patti LuPone in DC Sondheim Award Gala April 16 Archived April 8 2014 at the Wayback Machine Playbill com April 16 2012 Purcell Carey Signature s Sondheim Award Gala Featuring Ron Raines Heidi Blickenstaff and Pamela Myers Honors Jonathan Tunick April 7 Archived April 12 2014 at the Wayback Machine playbill com April 7 2014 James Lapine to Receive Signature Theatre s 2015 Stephen Sondheim Award Archived March 23 2017 at the Wayback Machine broadwayworld com November 19 2014 Ritzel Rebecca A two time Tony Award winner headlines Signature Theatre s annual gala Archived April 13 2017 at the Wayback Machine The Washington Post April 8 2016 McBride Walter Photo Coverage Signature Theatre Honors Cameron Mackintosh with Stephen Sondheim Award Archived March 23 2017 at the Wayback Machine broadwayworld com March 21 2017 It might not sing but it s right and just The Sondheim Review Sondheim Review Inc XVII 3 4 2011 ISSN 1076 450X Brown Mick September 27 2010 Still cutting it at 80 Stephen Sondheim interview The Daily Telegraph Archived from the original on April 22 2018 Retrieved July 10 2014 The Sondheim Review Sondheimreview com Archived from the original on October 17 2014 Retrieved September 28 2014 a b Dry Jude November 9 2019 Sondheim Is All Over the Movies This Year but Joker and Marriage Story Don t Do Him Justice IndieWire Archived from the original on July 15 2020 Retrieved April 25 2020 If Adam Driver s Song In Marriage Story Destroyed You Read This Refinery29 com Archived from the original on May 15 2020 Retrieved April 25 2020 The Morning Show Did a Surprise Jennifer Aniston Billy Crudup Sweeney Todd Duet Vulture November 15 2019 Archived from the original on August 10 2020 Retrieved April 25 2020 Gans Andrew Benanti Gleason Pierce Stritch Walton Zien Join Philharmonic Sondheim Celebration Archived August 26 2013 at the Wayback Machine Playbill com January 8 2010 Ross Blake About Last Night The Stars on Sondheim Archived October 16 2015 at the Wayback Machine Playbill March 16 2010 Hetrick Adam Starry Sondheim The Birthday Concert Airs on Great Performances Nov 24 Archived August 26 2013 at the Wayback Machine Playbill November 24 2010 Jones Kenneth Everybody Rise Roundabout s Sondheim 80 Celebrates a Master s Milestone Archived July 26 2014 at the Wayback Machine Playbill com March 22 2010 Ross Blake About Last Night Inside Sondheim s Birthday Archived January 1 2016 at the Wayback Machine Playbill com Retrieved March 23 2010 Hetrick Adam Lansbury Zeta Jones Lane Cariou Gleason Zien Sing Sondheim at City Center April 26 Playbill April 26 2010 Gardner Elysa Broadway stars salute Stephen Sondheim Archived January 29 2011 at the Wayback MachineUSA Today April 27 2010 BBC Proms Programme BBC Proms Archived from the original on August 4 2010 Retrieved September 28 2014 Judi Dench Sings Send in the Clowns for Sondheim s 80th BroadwayWorld com Archived from the original on June 21 2012 Retrieved September 28 2014 Rafter Keddy Genevieve Photo Coverage The New York Pops Celebrate Stephen Sondheim s 80th Birthday Archived November 24 2010 at the Wayback Machine broadwayworld com November 21 2010 Jones Kenneth Sondheim at Carnegie Hall Archived December 27 2011 at the Wayback Machine playbill com November 21 2010 What Are the Stephen Sondheim Songs Close to Your Heart The New York Times March 13 2020 Archived from the original on March 19 2020 Retrieved April 25 2020 Fierberg Ruthie March 22 2020 Watch This Epic Video of Broadway Stars Singing Birthday Wishes and Sondheim Tunes to Wish Stephen Sondheim a Happy Birthday Playbill com Archived from the original on March 30 2020 Retrieved April 26 2020 More Stars Take Me to the World A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration Just Got Even Bigger Broadway com Archived from the original on April 26 2020 Retrieved April 25 2020 How Take Me to the World Became One of the Best Sondheim Concerts Ever IndieWire July 13 2020 Archived from the original on December 22 2020 Retrieved December 30 2020 Watch Live Meryl Streep Patti LuPone and More Stars Pay Tribute to Stephen Sondheim The Hollywood Reporter April 26 2020 Archived from the original on May 27 2020 Retrieved December 30 2020 Days Before Dying Stephen Sondheim Reflected I ve Been Lucky The New York Times November 27 2021 Retrieved November 28 2021 Horowitz Mark Eden Sondheim on Music New York Scarecrow Press 2003 p 117 ISBN 978 0 8108 4437 7 ISBN 0 8108 4437 0 Tommasini Anthony November 28 2021 Stephen Sondheim as Great a Composer as He Was a Lyricist The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Archived from the original on December 28 2021 Retrieved November 29 2021 interview on Sunday Arts ABC Australia TV August 5 2007 An Audience With Stephen Sondheim2007 ABC Australia TV interview Archived April 3 2015 at the Wayback Machine downloadable Episode 26 Archived July 16 2007 at the Wayback Machine Frontain Raymond Jean 2015 Sondheim Stephen b 1930 PDF GLBTQ An Encyclopedia of Gay Lebian Bisexual Transgender and Queer Culture p 1 Retrieved November 29 2021 Encyclopedia of Gay and Lesbian Popular Culture ABC CLIO 2008 p 239 ISBN 978 0 313 33599 0 Kaiser Charles 2007 The Gay Metropolis The Landmark History of Gay Life in America Grove Press p 93 ISBN 978 0 8021 4317 4 Gross Terry April 21 2010 On Sondheim The Musical Theater Legend At 80 NPR org Archived from the original on May 13 2011 Retrieved November 29 2021 Seitz Matt Zoller November 28 2021 Being Alive Stephen Sondheim 1930 2021 RogerEbert com Retrieved December 31 2021 a b c Lawson Mark November 26 2021 Stephen Sondheim a daring and dazzling musical theatre icon The Guardian Archived from the original on November 26 2021 Retrieved November 28 2021 Brown Mick September 27 2010 Still cutting it at 80 Stephen Sondheim interview The Telegraph UK Archived from the original on April 22 2018 Retrieved November 19 2013 Sondheim has spoken in the past of feeling like an outsider somebody who people want to both kiss and kill from quite early on in his life He spent some 25 years from his thirties through his fifties in analysis did not come out as gay until he was about 40 and did not live with a partner a dramatist named Peter Jones until he was 61 They separated in 1999 Cooper Alex November 26 2021 Stephen Sondheim Musical Theater Legend Dead at 91 The Advocate Archived from the original on November 27 2021 Retrieved November 29 2021 Schanke Robert A 2005 The Gay amp Lesbian Theatrical Legacy A Biographical Dictionary of Major Figures in American Stage History in the Pre Stonewall Era University of Michigan Press pp 362 363 ISBN 978 0 472 09858 3 Sondheim Stephen 2010 Finishing the Hat Collected Lyrics 1954 1981 with Attendant Comments Principles Heresies Grudges Whines and Anecdotes Knopf p iv ISBN 978 0 679 43907 3 Sondheim Stephen 2011 Look I Made a Hat Collected Lyrics 1981 2011 With Attendant Comments Amplifications Dogmas Harangues Digressions Anecdotes and Miscellany Alfred A Knopf p iii ISBN 978 0 307 59341 2 Seitz Matt Zoller December 9 2013 Seitz Six by Sondheim Is One of the Best Films About the Artistic Process I ve Seen Vulture Archived from the original on December 11 2013 Sams Jeremy December 4 2021 Jeremy Sams remembers Stephen Sondheim and Braille music with Ria Andriani The Music Show Interview Interviewed by Ford Andrew Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio National 42 22 Retrieved December 18 2021 Paulson Michael December 8 2021 A Sondheim Surge Interest in His Work Soars After His Death The New York Times Retrieved December 9 2021 Stephen Sondheim Leaves Rights to His Works to a Trust The New York Times January 24 2022 Archived from the original on January 24 2022 Sources EditGottfried Martin 1993 Sondheim New York Harry N Abrams Inc ISBN 0 8109 3844 8 Secrest Meryle 1998 Stephen Sondheim A Life New York Alfred A Knopf ISBN 0 679 44817 9 Zadan Craig 1986 Sondheim amp Co 2 ed New York Harper amp Row ISBN 0 06 015649 X Further reading EditGuernsey Otis L Editor Broadway Song and Story Playwrights Lyricists Composers Discuss Their Hits 1986 Dodd Mead ISBN 0 396 08753 1External links Edit Wikiquote has quotations related to Stephen Sondheim Wikimedia Commons has media related to Stephen Sondheim The Stephen Sondheim Society Web site of The Stephen Sondheim Society Stephen Sondheim Papers at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research Stephen Sondheim at Playbill Vault Stephen Sondheim at the Internet Broadway Database Stephen Sondheim at the Internet Off Broadway Database Stephen Sondheim at IMDb Stephen Sondheim discography at Discogs Stephen Sondheim online with Finishing The Chat The Stephen Sondheim Reference Guide Comprehensive listings of productions and recordings information James Lipton Spring 1997 Stephen Sondheim The Art of the Musical The Paris Review Spring 1997 142 Fresh Air NPR radio interview with Sondheim from 2000 20 minutes streaming audio Kennedy Center interview with Sondheim conducted by Frank Rich in 2002 90 minutes streaming video Stephen Sondheim Center for Performing Arts MMD developing new musical theatre with Sondheim as patron News article Sondheim Story So Far available 9 30 including previously unreleased tracks BroadwayWorld com Review Sondheim has more story to tell USA Today October 8 2008 Stephen Sondeim Alumni of Distinction New York Military Academy archives page Stephen Sondheim symposium held at Goldsmiths University of London in 2005 BroadwayWorld com interview with Stephen Sondheim December 20 2007 Review of Finishing the Hat Collected Lyrics 1954 1981 November 2010 Stephen Sondheim interview on BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs August 22 1980Awards and achievementsPreceded byHarold Prince Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre2008 Succeeded byJerry Herman Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Stephen Sondheim amp oldid 1133357190, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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