Stephen Sondheim
Composer and lyricist
(March 22, 1930 - November 27, 2021)
Biography by Lauren Elens Bromfield
Stephen Joshua Sondheim was born on March 22, 1930, in New York City. Sondheim showed early musical aptitude at the piano, but received little support from his largely disinterested parents. Though home life was difficult, Sondheim found encouragement from his neighbor and family friend, Oscar Hammerstein II, the renowned Broadway lyricist known for hit shows such as "Oklahoma" (1943), "Carousel" (1945), and "South Pacific" (1949). Hammerstein became 15 year old Stephen Sondheim’s mentor and remained so until Hammerstein’s death in 1960.
Sondheim first made a name for himself at age 27 as the lyricist for "West Side Story" (1957). Concerned of being pigeonholed by the industry as only a lyricist, he was initially reluctant to join the all-star team of composer Leonard Bernstein, playwright Arthur Laurents, and director and choreographer Jerome Robbins. Hammerstein convinced him that working with three titans of Broadway would be not only an invaluable learning opportunity, but would open doors for future projects. Following "West Side Story," Sondheim signed on to write lyrics again, this time for "Gypsy" (1959) with composer Jule Styne. Sondheim had been part of the creative teams of two of the most famous musicals of all time, all before the age of 30. His mentor was right.
Finally holding the reins of both lyrics and composition, Sondheim debuted "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" in 1962. The musical farce took Broadway by storm with its hilarious situational comedy, clever writing, and star turn by actor Zero Mostel. The Tony-winning production was also quickly and successfully adapted to the screen in 1968. Sondheim proved his talent as not only a genius wordsmith, but as a fully-fledged musical composer.
In the ensuing decade, Sondheim teamed with esteemed director Hal Prince, thus beginning his most prolific creative era. Both artists believed that a musical could do more than merely entertain audiences; it could analyze human behavior and provide honest self reflection. With "Company" (1970), the team proved that a “concept musical,” where the musical centers around a theme rather than a narrative plot, could become a commercial success. Sondheim continued to revolutionize the musical artform by being the first to examine the emotional experience of aging in "Follies" (1973), and by composing an entire score in variations of a waltz theme in "A Little Night Music" (1976), which also produced Sondheim’s biggest commercial song success in “Send in the Clowns.” The Sondheim-Prince collaboration is also responsible for Sondheim’s largest musical in terms of scale and complexity, "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (1979).
His work with writer/director James Lapine in the 1980s was more cerebral and earnest than Sondheim’s earlier compositions. Though still grappling with difficult themes and situations, shows like "Sunday in the Park with George" (1984) and "Into the Woods" (1987) left audiences with a sense of profound hope. Though he rarely wrote musical chorus numbers as he usually found it unbelievable that a group of people would speak the exact same words at the exact same time, Sondheim proved his immense talent for choral composition with the Act I finale “Sunday,” now recognized as one of the greatest choral moments in the musical theatre canon. "Sunday and the Park with George" earned the writing pair of Sondheim and Lapine the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The more widely known "Into the Woods," with its entertaining twist on familiar fairy tales and slightly simpler score, is still his most produced musical to date.
Overall, Stephen Sondheim composed 12 major works in his lifetime and served as lyricist for seven more. His other musical contributions to stage and screen are even more numerous. His career earned him eight Tony Awards, eight Grammy Awards, and an Academy Award. He was honored with the Kennedy Center Honors Lifetime Achievement Award, received the Hutchinson Prize for Music Composition, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He received a Special Olivier Award in recognition of his contribution to London theatre, and a Critics' Circle Theatre Award. He became a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2014, and in November 2015, Sondheim was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. Broadway’s Henry Miller Theatre on West 43rd St. was renamed The Stephen Sondheim Theatre in 2010.
But perhaps Sondheim’s greatest legacy to the American Theatre was his dedication to a new generation of composers. With a mission of, “...passing on what Hammerstein passed to me,” Sondheim acted as teacher and mentor to numerous up and coming composers and writers. He was known to quietly enter into the back of workshops of new musicals and then follow up with the young, aspiring composer with a phone call or one of his famous typewriter letters. He regularly participated in college masterclasses and new work festivals, was the University of Oxford’s first Visiting Professor of Drama and Musical Theatre, and founded Young Playwrights, Inc. to introduce young people to writing for the theatre. Some of the most famous composers mentored by Sondheim include Jonathan Larson, Tony-winning creator of "RENT" (1996), and Lin-Manuel Miranda, Tony-winning composer/lyricist of "In the Heights" (2011) and "Hamilton" (2015).
Stephen Sondheim died suddenly last year on November 26, 2021 at age 91. Still as sharp as ever, he had recently announced that he was in the process of creating a brand new musical with playwright David Ives. Touched by his work, his tutelage, or both, the international theatre community mourned his death immensely. Following his passing, Broadway dimmed its lights and hundreds of artists came together in Times Square to sing his choral masterpiece “Sunday” in his honor.
Playwrights and theatre historians often wax philosophical on what it must have been like to live during the time of Shakespeare. Centuries from now, perhaps theatre scholars will look back and ponder, “What must it have been like to live during the time of Sondheim?”
“Look, I made a hat…Where there never was a hat.”
- "Sunday in the Park with George"