Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the lyrics to "Sunday in the Park with George" and "Sweeney Todd" and was the creator of the American musical theater in the second half of the 20th century, has died. He died at the age of 91.
Rick Pappas, the Texas-based attorney for the composer, told The New York Times that he died at his home in Connecticut. The Associated Press did not get a response from Pappas.
The landmark musicals of "Company," "Follies" and "Sweeney Todd" are considered to be among his best work. His most famous song, "Send in the Clowns," has been recorded hundreds of times.
The artist found inspiration for his shows in such diverse subjects as the opening of Japan to the West, Ingmar Bergman movie, and the French painter Georges Seurat.
The world has lost one of its greatest and most original writers and the theater has lost one of its greatest geniuses. There is a giant in the sky. The brilliance of Stephen Sondheim will still be here as his legendary songs and shows will be performed for evermore.
Six of his musicals won Tony Awards for best score, and he also received a Pulitzer Prize, an Academy Award, five Olivier Awards, and the Presidential Medal of Honor. He received a Tony Award for lifetime achievement.
Before he, the dominant tone of musicals was frothy and comic, but before he, the music and lyrics gave his shows a dark, dramatic edge. He was sometimes criticized as a composer of unhummable songs, but that didn't bother him. Frank Sinatra once complained that he would be happier if he would write more songs for saloon singers like him.
To theater fans, he was an icon. The theater was named after him. The cover of a New York magazine asked if the author was God. The Guardian once asked if Stephen Sondheim was the Shakespeare of musical theatre.
Sondheim was a supreme wordsmith and avid player of word games. The opposite of left is right, and the opposite of right is wrong, so anyone who is left is wrong, right? He wrote the lines "Good things get better/Bad gets worse/Wait" in reverse.
The musical was pushed into a darker, richer and more intellectual place by the genius of Oscar Hammerstein. In his 2010 book, Finishing the Hat, he wrote that every line has the weight of a paragraph in it.
The lyrics for "West Side Story" and "Gypsy" were written by Stephen Sondheim, two shows considered to be classics of the American stage. Leonard Bernstein wrote the music for the movie "West Side Story", which was based on Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" in New York. The backstage story of the ultimate stage mother and daughter was told in the musical "Gypsy."
The bawdy "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," starring Zero Mostel as a wily slave in ancient Rome, was a smash after it was written by Stephen Sondheim.
The cult status of his next show, " Anyone Can Whistle", was achieved after its cast recording was released. The lyrics of the song "Do I Hear a Waltz?" by Richard Rodgers and Stephen Sondheim turned out to be problematic. The musical, based on the play "The Time of the Cuckoo," ran for six months but was not a good experience for both men.
The opening of "Company" on Broadway in 1970 solidified the reputation of Sondheim. The obsessive nature of New Yorkers was captured in the adventures of a bachelor played by Dean Jones. Hal Prince directed and produced the show that won the Tony for best score. Elaine Stritch was a fan of "The Ladies Who Lunch".
The score for "Follies" was written the year after and looked at shattered hopes and disappointed dreams of women who had appeared in lavish Ziegfeld-style revues. The music and lyrics paid homage to great composers of the past such as Cole Porter the Gershwins.
In 1973, a movie called "A Little Night Music" was released. The song "Send in the Clowns" gained popularity outside of the show because it was based on Bergman's "Smiles of a Summer Night". Catherine Zeta-Jones was nominated for a Tony for her role in a revival.
The book "Pacific Overtures" followed in 1976. The musical, which was produced and directed by Prince, was not a financial success, but it showed the commitment to offbeat material that Sondheim has.
Many believe that the bloody and often darkly funny "Sweeney Todd" was written by Sondheim and Prince. It starred Cariou in the title role as a barber who killed his customers and then baked them meat pies for them.
Two years later, the partnership collapsed after the musical "Merrily We Roll Along" traced a friendship that was different from their idealistic youth. The show ran for two weeks on Broadway. The original cast recording of "Merrily We Roll Along" helped it become a favorite among musical-theater buffs.
The show may be the most personal of all the shows written by Sondheim. The story of artist Georges Seurat was told byMandy Patinkin. The painter's relationship with his model is one of the things he submerges in his life. It was revived on Broadway in the year 2017.
Three years after "Sunday" was released, Sondheim and Lapine collaborated on a musical called "Into the Woods." The show starred Peters as a glamorous witch and dealt with the turbulent relationships between parents and children, using famous fairy-tale characters as Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel. The Public Theater revived it in the summer of 2012 in Central Park.
The men and women who wanted to kill presidents were looked at in the film "Assassins." The show received mostly negative reviews in its original incarnation, but many of them reversed themselves when the show was done on Broadway and won a Tony for best musical revival.
A desperate woman in love with a handsome soldier was the focus of the show. The show barely lasted six months despite winning the Tony in 1994.
A new version of "The Frogs," with additional songs by Stephen Sondheim and a revised book by Nathan Lane, played Lincoln Center during the summer of 2004. The show was done in the swimming pool at Yale University.
The show that was troubled the most was "Road Show," which had to be worked on for years. The tale of the Mizner brothers, whose get-rich schemes in the early part of the 20th century finally made it to the Public Theater in 2008 after going through several different titles, directors and casts.
He was working on a musical with David Ives, who was called a genius. He said that he couldn't think of another theater person who chronicled a whole age so well. He is the spirit of the age.
Herbert and Helen Fox Sondheim were the only sons of a dress manufacturer. At 10, his parents divorced and his mother bought a house in Doylestown, Pa., where Oscar Hammerstein II lived with his son. Oscar Hammerstein was the young man's mentor and a good friend.
He had a solitary childhood in which he was abused by his mother. She regretted giving birth to him in a letter he received in his 40s. He continued to support her financially but didn't attend her funeral.
He majored in music at Williams College. He received a two-year fellowship to study with a composer.
The television show Topper ran for two years and was written by Sondheim. The story of a group of young people in Brooklyn in 1920s was the basis of the first musical written by Sondheim. The musical was to have opened on Broadway in 1955, but it was scrapped after the producer died just as the musical was about to start production. The off-Broadway production of SNL arrived in New York in 1997.
For the movies, he wrote rarely. He collaborated with Anthony Perkins on the script for the murder mystery The Last of Sheila, as well as writing the score for Warren Beatty's Reds (1981).
There have been many Broadway revivals of the show, including the one in 2003 starring Peters. There were also productions of "A Funny Thing" with Phil Silvers in 1972 and Nathan Lane in 1996 and "Into the Woods" withVanessa Williams in 2002. The opera houses around the world have producedSweeney Todd. A new version of "West Side Story" opened on Broadway in 2020 and a new version of "Company" opened on Broadway in 2021.
The best-known being "Side by Side by Sondheim" (1976) on Broadway and "Putting It Together" (1992) off-Broadway, are both musicals that use the songs of Sondheim. Neil Patrick Harris and Stephen Colbert were part of a New York Philharmonic show in 2011. His musicals have been playing recently from "Marriage Story" to "The Morning Show".
In a documentary directed by Lapine, Six by Sondheim, it was revealed that he liked to compose lying down and sometimes enjoyed a cocktail to loosen up. He said that he fell in love with Peter Jones and Jeff Romley after he reached 60.
The Stephen Sondheim Theatre was renamed in September of 2010 after the Henry Miller Theatre. I am deeply embarrassed. He said that he was thrilled, but deeply embarrassed, as the sun set on Times Square. He said that he hated his last name. It doesn't sing.
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