STEPHEN SONDHEIM Stephen Joshua Sondheimis an American composer and lyricist known for his immense contributions to musical theatre for over 50 years. He is the winner of anAcademy Award, eightTony Awards(more than any other composer) including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre,eightGrammy Awards, aPulitzer Prizeand the Laurence Olivier Award. Described byFrank Richof theNew York Timesas "now the greatest and perhaps best-known artist in the American musical theater",his most famous works include (as composer and lyricist)A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,Company,Follies,A Little Night Music,Sweeney Todd,Sunday in the Park with GeorgeandInto the Woods. He also wrote the lyrics forWest Side StoryandGypsy.Sondheim has written material for movies, including the 1981 Warren Beatty filmReds, for which he contributed the song "Goodbye For Now". He also wrote five songs for the 1990 movieDick Tracy, including "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)" which won the Academy Award forBest Song.He was president of theDramatists Guildfrom 1973 to 1981. In celebration of his 80th birthday, the former Henry Miller's Theatre was renamed theStephen Sondheim Theatreon September 15, 2010, and theBBC Promsstaged a concert in his honor.Cameron Mackintoshhas described Sondheim as "possibly the greatest lyricist ever."He grew up on theUpper West SideofManhattanand later, after his parents divorced, on a farm nearDoylestown, Pennsylvania. At about the age of ten, around the time of his parents' divorce, Sondheim became friends withJames Hammerstein, son of the lyricist and playwrightOscar Hammerstein II. His parents divorce was messy. His father left his mother for a younger woman and was out of the picture completely. As a result his mother allegedly abused Sondheim as a substitute for his father.

Oscar Hammerstein II became Sondheim's surrogate parent, and had a profound influence on him, especially in developing a love for musical theatre. It was at the opening ofSouth Pacific, the musical Hammerstein wrote withRichard Rodgers, that Sondheim metHarold Prince, who would later direct many of Sondheim's shows.

While atGeorge School (the local private high school), Sondheim wrote a comic musical based on the goings-on of his school, entitledBy George. It was a major success among his peers, and it considerably buoyed the young songwriter's ego; he took it to Hammerstein, and asked him to evaluate it as though he had no knowledge of its author. Hammerstein said it was the worst thing he had ever seen. "But if you want to know why it's terrible," Hammerstein offered, "I'll tell you." The rest of the day was spent going over the musical, and Sondheim would later say that "in that afternoon I learned more about songwriting and the musical theater than most people learn in a lifetime.Thus began one of the most famous apprenticeships in the musical theatre, as Hammerstein designed a kind of course for Sondheim on the construction of a musical. This training primarily involved having Sondheim write four musicals, each with one of the following preconditions: Based on a play he admired (which becameAll That Glitters); Based on a play he liked but thought was flawed, choosing theMaxwell AndersonplayHigh Tor; Based on an existing novel or short story not previously dramatized (which became his unfinishedMary PoppinsentitledBad Tuesday,[13]not connected to themusical filmandstage playscored by theSherman Brothers); An original (which becameClimb High).

Attracted to the school's theatre program, Sondheim began attendingWilliams College, a prominentliberal arts collegeinWilliamstown, Massachusetts. His first teacher at Williams was Robert Barrow, and according to Sondheim...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.' Never occurred to me that art was something worked out. And suddenly it was skies opening up. As soon as you find out what aleading toneis, you think, Oh my God. What adiatonic scaleisOh 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'tHe went on to study composition with the composerMilton Babbitt. Sondheim told biographerMeryle 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. Milton, who was a frustrated show composer, was a perfect combination. Babbitt and Sondheim were both fascinated with mathematics and together they studied songs by various composers, especiallyJerome 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." Sondheim then said of Babbitt, "I am his maverick, his one student who went into the popular arts with all his serious artillery.Sondheim says that when he asked Babbitt if he could studyatonality, Babbitt replied "You havent exhaustedtonalresources for yourself yet, so Im not going to teach you atonal."[17]Sondheim agreed, and despite frequentdissonanceand a highly chromatic style, his music remains resolutelytonal.While at Williams, Sondheim wrote a musical adaption ofBeggar on Horseback, a 1924 play byGeorge S. KaufmanandMarc Connelly, with permission from Kaufman and it had three performances."A few painful years of struggle" followed for Sondheim, during which he continually auditioned songs, living in his father's dining room to save money.In 1954, Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics forSaturday Night, which was never produced on Broadway and was shelved until a 1997 production at London's Bridewell Theatre. "I don't have any emotional reaction to 'Saturday Night' at all except fondness," Sondheim says. "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!"Sondheim's big break came when he wrote the lyrics toWest Side Story, lyricizingLeonard Bernstein's music andArthur Laurents's book. When he was 25, Sondheim was introduced to Bernstein, who had heardSaturday Nightand quickly hired him to write the lyrics toWest Side Story. The 1957 show, directed byJerome Robbins, ran for 732 performances. While this may be one of the best-known shows Sondheim ever worked on, he has expressed dissatisfaction with his lyrics, stating they do not always fit the characters and are sometimes too consciously poetic. It has been rumored that while Bernstein was off trying to fix the musicalCandide, Sondheim wrote some of the music forWest Side Story, and that Bernsteins co-lyricist billing credit mysteriously disappeared from the credits ofWest Side Storyduring the tryout, presumably as a trade-off. Sondheim himself insisted that Bernstein told the producers to list Sondheim as the sole lyricist.

HOMEWORK: Write down all of the shows Sondheim contributed to in his career and in what capacity. Ie. West Side Story (1957) Co-wrote the lyrics.