RIP Stephen Sondheim

[JH4HJ]

Stephen Sondheim Dead at 91 - Stars Pay Tribute to Legendary Broadway Composer

Needless to say, social media comments are popping up all over.

wide collection of tributes here

Towering musical theater master Stephen Sondheim dies at 91

NEW YORK (AP) — Stephen Sondheim, the songwriter who reshaped the American musical theater in the second half of the 20th century with his intelligent, intricately rhymed lyrics, his use of evocative melodies and his willingness to tackle unusual subjects, has died. He was 91.

Sondheim’s death was announced by Rick Miramontez, president of DKC/O&M. Sondheim’s Texas-based attorney, Rick Pappas, told The New York Times the composer died Friday at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut.

Full article here

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Now I need to get a hanky and decide which OCR to listen to first. It's gonna be a long evening of music.

Rest in Peace - and THANK YOU for all the wonderful shows!

[jo]

Yes, much contemplation  on his accomplishments and sadness on his passing!  He wrote so many shows  beloved in the theatre.

And his "Send In the Clowns" is universally loved. Somehow sad that he would not see the new West Side Story film remake that will debut in a few weeks time!

I've only seen a few of his stage successes ( Into The Woods, Passion, Sweeney Todd, West Side Story, etc) but I have DVDs of Sunday in the Pak, Follies concert, and many recordings of his songs ( including Company, etc)

The song I love most which he composed did not come from a stage show -- but a TV show called Evening Primrose -- "I remember Sky "

Now that the winter/holiday season is coming, it has become even more poignant now when I listen to its lyrics. It is a simple song but achingly haunting and sad.

And of course, everyone loves " Broadway Baby!"


Jo

[jo]

Broadway Baby

HATTIE:
I'm just a
Broadway Baby.
Walking off my tired feet.
Pounding Forty-Second Street
To be in a show.

Oh...
Broadway Baby,
Learning how to sing and dance,
Waiting for that one big chance
To be in a show.Oh...Gee.'
I'd like to be
On some marquee,
All twinkling lights,
A spark
To pierce the dark
From Battery Park
To Washington Heights.
Someday, maybe,
All my dreams will be repaid.
Heck, I'd even play the maid
To bc in a show.

Hey, Mr. Producer,
I'm talking to you, sir;
I don't need a lot,
Only what I got,
Plus a tube of greasepaint
And a follow-spot!
I'm a Broadway Baby,
Slaving at the five-and-ten,
Dreaming of the great day whcn
I'll be in a show.Oh...

Broadway Baby,
Making rounds all afternoon,
Eating at a greasy spoon
To have on my dough.
Oh...AtMy tiny flat
There's just my cat.
A bed and o chair
Still
I'll stick it till
I'm on a bill
All over Times Square.

Someday, maybe,
If I stick it long enough,
I may get to strut my stuff
Working for a nice man
Like a Ziegfeld or a Weismann
HATTIE, THE WHITMANS, SOLANGE:
In a great big
Broadway show!

[jo]

Do you remember Hugh's initial appearance on INSIDE THE ACTOrS STUDIO?

During the session when he directly answered student questions - he talked about how he learned to sing THE SOLILOQUY ( composed by rodgers & Hammerstein) from Carousel  ( he did the concert before TBFO). He said Philip Quast taught him how to do it... who learned it from Sondheim. Sondheim was a close family friend of Oscar Hammerstein and he influenced his own talent development when he was young.

The song has become one of the songs that Hugh Jackman has sung in his variety shows, honoring his own father!

[jo]

[jo]

[jo]

variety.com/2021/theater/news/stephen-sondheim-dead-91-tribute-lea-salonga-josh-gad-1235120396/

They all pay homage to Stephen Sondheim!

Including --

Versatile stage and screen actor Hugh Jackman hailed Sondheim as someone whose talent and body of work was strong enough to “fundamentally shift(s) an art form.”

“As millions mourn his passing I also want to express my gratitude for all he has given to me and so many more,” Jackman wrote.

[jo]

Sondheim even changed some of the lyrics to fit in with the theme of the album!

[jo]

remember that duet by Sondheim & Lloyd-Webber in the Hey, Mr Producer concert, honoring Cameron Mackintosh?





They share the same birthday - March 22!

[jo]

His last major interview, with NYTimes --

Days Before Dying, Stephen Sondheim Reflects: ‘I’ve Been Lucky’

In an interview on Sunday, the revered composer and lyricist, 91, contentedly discussed his shows running on Broadway and off, as well as a new movie about to be released.

In a 90-minute interview on Sunday, Stephen Sondheim was engaged and playfully pugnacious, and gave little indication of being in ill health.


By Michael Paulson
Nov. 26, 2021
Updated 8:02 p.m. ET


ROXBURY, Conn. — Stephen Sondheim stood by the gleaming piano in his study, surrounded by posters of international productions of his many famous musicals, and smiled as he inquired whether a visitor might be interested in hearing songs from a show he had been working on for years, but hadn’t finished yet.

“And now would you like to hear the score?” he asked. Of course, the answer was yes. “You got some time?” he asked, before laughing, loudly, with a sense of mischief: “It’s from a show called ‘Fat Chance’!”

That was Sunday afternoon, five days ago, when Mr. Sondheim, 91, had welcomed me to his longtime country house for a 90-minute interview with him and the theater director Marianne Elliott about a revival of “Company” that is now in previews on Broadway. It would turn out to be his final major interview.

There was little indication that Mr. Sondheim, one of the greatest songwriters in the history of musical theater, was unwell. He was engaged and lucid, with strong opinions and playfully pugnacious, as with the tease about his long-gestating, unfinished final musical. At one moment he complained that his memory wasn’t as strong as it had been, but he was also telling anecdotes from a half-century earlier with ease.


He was having a little trouble getting around — using a cane, seeking assistance to get in and out of chairs, and in obvious pain when walking — which he attributed to an injury. Asked about the state of his health, he answered by knocking on a wood table and saying, “Outside of my sprained ankle, OK.”

He was busy right until the end. On Nov. 14 he attended the opening of an Off Broadway revival of his musical “Assassins,” directed by John Doyle at Classic Stage Company. The next night he went to the first post-shutdown preview for the Broadway revival of “Company” — a reimagined production, opening Dec. 9, in which the protagonist, who has traditionally been played by a man, is now played by a woman. And just this week, two days before he died, he did a doubleheader, seeing a Wednesday matinee of “Is This a Room” and an evening performance of “Dana H.,” two short documentary plays on Broadway.

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“I can’t wait,” he said as he anticipated seeing those shows. “I can smell both of those and how much I’m going to love them.”

He was not inclined to make any grand pronouncements on the state of Broadway. “I don’t take overviews — I never have taken overviews,” he said. “Whither Broadway? I don’t answer the question. Who knows. I don’t really care. That’s the future. Whatever happens will happen.”


One thing he was hoping would happen: one more musical. For years he had been collaborating with the playwright David Ives and the director Joe Mantello on a new musical, most recently titled “Square One,” adapted from two movies directed by Luis Buñuel.

“The first act is based on ‘The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie,’ and the second act is based on ‘The Exterminating Angel,’ ” he explained during the interview. “I don’t know if I should give the so-called plot away, but the first act is a group of people trying to find a place to have dinner, and they run into all kinds of strange and surreal things, and in the second act, they find a place to have dinner, but they can’t get out.”

Asked if he had any sense when it might be finished, Mr. Sondheim said, “No.”

Why did he hope to keep working when he could just bask in appreciation?

“What else am I going to do?” he asked. “I’m too old now to do a lot of traveling, I’m sorry to say. What else would I do with my time but write?”

And did he write daily in his final weeks? “No, I’m a procrastinator,” he said. “I need a collaborator who pushes me, who gets impatient.”

When it was pointed out that he had been a procrastinator throughout his career, and that it had seemed to work for him, he said, “Yes, I have. Yeah, I think forever. Not when I was a hungry teenager — when I wanted so much to have a show done, I don’t think I was a procrastinator then. But once I had a show done, I think part of me got lazy.”


But with his shows running on Broadway and off, and a major film adaptation of “West Side Story” about to be released, Mr. Sondheim was clearly feeling good about the current reception of his work.


He confirmed his longstanding lack of interest in movie musicals, saying, “Growing up, I was a huge fan of movies, and the only genre that I wasn’t a fan of was musicals — I loved the songs, but not the musicals.”

But he was obviously delighted about the Steven Spielberg-directed film adaptation of “West Side Story,” a musical for which Mr. Sondheim wrote the lyrics, that is scheduled to be released next month. “I think it’s just great,” he said. He added, “The great thing about it is people who think they know the musical are going to have surprises.”

He was looking forward to even more in the months to come: a new production of “Into the Woods,” for which Mr. Sondheim wrote the music and lyrics, is scheduled to be staged by the Encores! program at New York City Center next May. Also, Mr. Sondheim revealed, New York Theater Workshop is hoping to stage an Off Broadway revival of “Merrily We Roll Along,” for which he wrote the music and lyrics, directed by Maria Friedman, who has previously directed well received productions in London and Boston.

Asked which of his shows he’d most like to see revived next, he appeared stumped. “What would I like to see again that I haven’t seen in a while? I’d have to think about it, because an awful lot of the shows I’ve been a writer of have been done in the last few years.” He added, “I’ve been lucky. I’ve had good revivals of the shows that I like.”

[jo]

ELLA:

I remember sky
It was blue as ink
Or at least I think
I remember sky
I remember snow
Soft as feathers
Sharp as thumb tacks
Coming down like lint

And it made you squint
When the wind would blow
And ice like vinyl on the streets
Cold as silver, white as sheets
Rain like strings and changing things
Like leaves

I remember leaves
Green as spearmint
Crisp as paper
I remember trees
Bare as coat racks
Spread like broken umbrellas

And parks and bridges
Ponds and zoos
Ruddy faces, muddy shoes
Light and noise and bees and boys
And days

I remember days
Or at least I try
But as years go by
They're sort of haze
And the bluest ink
Isn't really sky
And at times I think
I would gladly die
For a day of sky

Evening Primrose (musical)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Evening Primrose
EveningPrimroseCastRecording.jpg
Original television soundtrack recording
Music Stephen Sondheim
Lyrics Stephen Sondheim
Book James Goldman
Basis John Collier's short story


Evening Primrose is a musical film with a book by James Goldman and lyrics and music by Stephen Sondheim. It is based on a John Collier short story published in the 1951 collection Fancies and Goodnights.

Written originally for television, the musical focuses on a poet who takes refuge from the world by hiding out in a department store after closing. He meets a community of night people who live in the store and falls in love with a beautiful young girl named Ella. Bizarre complications arise when the leader of the group forbids their relationship.

The night people - mannequins!

[jo]

The mannequin who comes alive at night sings --



So poignant and haunting. In the Streisand version for a Christmas album, Sondheim changed some of the lyrics to suit the holiday mood.

Btw, Charmian Carr, was Liezl in The Sound Of Music.

There is a version of the song from Anthony Perkins( lead in the show Evening Primrose) which I find even more haunting - it was this version that I first heard which made me take notice!)

[jo]

[jo]

When i saw PASSION in London - it has been extended to 2 acts ( vs Bway w/ DonnaM & JShea) and one song was an extended one -- Sondheim gave Michael Ball a chance to show off his voice

[jo]

Another Hugh Jackman song with Sondheim lyrics, in a duet with Aretha Franklin --

[jo]

Jayne Houdyshell, who will play Mrs Shinn in The Music Man sings BrOADWAY BABY!

[jo]

[jo]

She's the leading lady that I want most to see in another movie with Hugh Jackman again!

Best chemistry ever... and best romantic & acting duo!

Jo

[jo]

If this is just a short repertory engagement ( with other troupes doing other Sondheims - maybe a few weeks each ?), can they entice Meryl Streep to be Mrs Lovett?

It could be a festival of Sondheim shows


Jo

[jo]

Nov 26, 2021 19:37:59 GMT -5 jo said:

Do you remember Hugh's initial appearance on INSIDE THE ACTOrS STUDIO?

During the session when he directly answered student questions - he talked about how he learned to sing THE SOLILOQUY ( composed by rodgers & Hammerstein) from Carousel  ( he did the concert before TBFO). He said Philip Quast taught him how to do it... who learned it from Sondheim. Sondheim was a close family friend of Oscar Hammerstein and he influenced his own talent development when he was young.

The song has become one of the songs that Hugh Jackman has sung in his variety shows, honoring his own father!

The NY Magazine is quoted --

Frank Rich on His Friendship With Stephen Sondheim

In keeping with his downbeat mood, he was full of fatalistic prognoses about the future of the theater and his own creative powers. What was most striking to me, however, was his love for Oscar Hammerstein II, the surrogate father he found as a teenager when his mother and the Hammerstein family were neighbors in the summer enclave of Bucks County. I had never quite understood how Sondheim, the most urbane and least sentimental of lyricists, could identify with someone who wrote “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’ ” and “Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.” Steve explained that it wasn’t Hammerstein’s lyrics that mattered to him so much as his “huge and imaginative and exploratory” vision as a librettist. Two Hammerstein musicals—Show Boat, which opened on Broadway three years before Steve was born, and Oklahoma!, which arrived just as Steve was entering his teens—were among the first major efforts to push a frivolous theatrical form into more serious dramatic territory.

Hammerstein’s daring had been im­­printed on Steve at age 17, when he served as a gofer on Allegro, a 1947 musical about a successful but disillusioned doctor told through innovative techniques that included a Greek chorus. It was a rare flop for the golden team of Hammerstein and Richard Rodgers, and its out-of-town crises allowed Steve to witness the ambitions and perils of artistic experimentation close-up. “I’ve been trying to fix Allegro all my life,” Steve told me.

No less revealing was his account of seeing the previous Rodgers-and-­Hammerstein musical, the 1945 Carousel, at its pre-Broadway premiere in New Haven when he was 15. Steve is hardly a “When You Walk Through a Storm” kind of guy, and the song that stuck with him instead was Julie Jordan’s sorrowful premonition of her ne’er-do-well husband Billy Bigelow’s tragic death: “What’s the use of wond’rin’ / If the endin’ will be sad?” The character Steve identified with in the show was also dark—the villain, a criminal misfit named Jigger. “I remember how everyone goes off to the clambake at the end of Act One and Jigger just follows, and he was the only one walking onstage as the curtain came down,” he recalled 55 years later. “I was sobbing.” So much so that when he hugged Hammerstein’s wife, Dorothy, who was sitting next to him, he left a stain on the lucky fur stole she wore to all of her husband’s openings. The impression of Steve I came away with for my profile was that of a ­Jigger-esque outcast—an only child who’d gone his own way across the stage of life and art, the kind of loner I imagined writing “If Momma Was Married” and “Finishing the Hat.” As I have since learned, my portrait was facile and incomplete.

[njr]

Paul McCartney’s tribute on Twitter: