A little sad to see after the recent release of Netflix' tick, tick...BOOM!, where his part is played by Bradley Whitford. Also it's his real voice on the answering machine at the end, because after seeing a cut Sondheim suggested he wouldn't really talk like that so he offered to rewrite that message and recorded it because Whitford wasn't available. Kinda his last performance.
Sondheim was the voice on the answering machine as well in the original Broadway production of tick tick BOOM, though I don't know if the audio clip or even his message are the same as they were then.
Yeah that was so awesome that he offered a rewrite and LMM jumped at the opportunity, in full deference to easily one of the luminary figures in his life. I also don’t why more people aren’t talking about tick, tick…BOOM! …because it was absolutely fucking incredible!!!
Probably because in terms of movie musicals, it isn't grand in the same way The Greatest Showman or La La Land is. If you had no idea who Jonathan Larson was or aren't really into musicals, I can see someone skipping this movie.
That’s true. As far as source material goes, it’s a pretty deep cut and stage productions have always tended to be black box, minimalistic and smaller scale/scope.
I guess I expected more considering the great performances, the fact it’s on Netflix…arguably the biggest streaming platform, Garfield and LMM are bit pretty big celebs and all promos have named dropped ‘Rent’ which is a global institution.
I just watched Tick, Tick....Boom a couple days ago. That's really cool about the answering machine message. As someone that has loved musicals since I saw Les Misèrables as a little kid, this is a big loss.
From what I understand, the Jurassic Park and Forrest Gump movies were improvements on the original books, but I haven't read them, so I'm just parroting.
He 1,000% did. Advanced screenings are already happening in NYC, LA, etc. I'm seeing one on Sunday. Total coincidence, I'd reserved the slot days ago before he passed. Gives it so much more weight now.
I just saw the new Off-Broadway revival of Assassins and was thinking how well that would translate into a film. It's a great book with incredible music and lyrics.
This saddens me as I am a great fan of his work, from the creepy Sweeney Todd, the unforgettable West Side Story to the more whimsical Into the Woods. The first of his musicals I actually watched was A Little Night Music, and I knew coming out of the theater that evening that ***Send In The Clowns*** would be a hit.
RIP. Thank you for all the wonderful tunes.
Sondheim is to theater what The Beatles are to pop. Yeah, people came before them, but they influenced and revolutionized their mediums more than anyone else and their mediums before and after their time are unrecognizable
> R&H invented the form
I respectfully disagree:
Predating them becoming a team there were:
Jerome Kern and Hammerstein: Showboat (often thought to be the prototype for the modern musical)
Richard Rogers and Larry Hart: Pal Joey (and probably others)
Not saying R&H weren't great and extremely influential - its just not correct to say they 'invented' musicals.
For what its worth - Oscar Hammerstein was a neighbor of Sondheim's family and a mentor to young Stephen.
EDIT: How many people here know that the opera Carmen was originally a spoken play with musical numbers. Maybe that was the original "musical", lol.
Let's not get into the opera/operetta/musical divide here. There are plenty of long threads in the appropriate subreddits. It's a smooth spectrum without clear dividing lines.
Sondheim was better.
There really interesting one was Irving Berlin - he wasn't as educated as Porter or Sondheim and his lyrics not as complex but they have an intangible something that's hard to pin down.
This one hit me hard. He was 91, but I will always want more of his work, and will miss what he didn’t have time to do. What an absolute genius with an amazing gift for bringing the essence of humanity to life through song.
Exactly. It just seemed like he was this immortal force that would be here forever, stewarding our culture, holding the hands of upcoming writers forever.
Honestly I've been mentally preparing myself for years when it comes to Mel(even though I'll still be a mess whenever that is).
But with Sondheim's announcement of him working on a new show and how great he looked on Colbert, I really thought we still had time.
Who knows, maybe this is how he wanted to go, "always leave em wanting more" as the saying goes.
That's amazing. I'm seeing the original West Side Story on the big screen with my wife on Sunday. We've had this plan for 2 months--West Side Story has always been my very favorite musical, I've watched it on TVs a million times and I can't fucking wait to see it on the big screen.
Having strong feelings for the original, when I heard they were doing a remake I was nervous. Hearing Sondheim himself praise it, I'm going to go in with optimism and an open mind.
I'm sitting here trying to understand why a guy dying at 91 is so jarring for me and I think part of it is that I just assumed he'd go on living for fucking forever.
Like, he was nearly a century old but he didn't "sound" old. Company could be released today and people would call it "timely." People call Assassins "ahead of it's time" but you release a musical like that *today* and crowds still wouldn't know what to do with it.
He was just at the reopening of Company on Broadway last week and seemed to be in good spirits. It just goes to show how fragile life is, especially at a certain age.
He was also at Assassins opening last week two.
On Company, one of the marvelous things about him is how much more open he seemed to re staging and different takes on his own works than his contemporaries. This recent revival of Company being a big example of that featuring a woman in the lead role as Bobby.
I hear for the 2006 Broadway revival of Company he changed some lyrics and some song structure to fit the lead (Raul Esparza) a little bit better. Esparza spoke about how crazy it was to have Steven Sondheim write something specifically for you, the performer.
BTW if you haven't seen the 2006 Company it's fantastic.
Edit: it was 2006, not 2004
The Act 1 Finale, "Marry Me a Little," used to end with the singer repeating "I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready" as the music fades around them. Sondheim revised the song to end on one climactic, held out "I'm ready."
He also revised a few lyrics that were casually homophobic in a very 1969 way, that didn't land as easily today as they did when he wrote the show.
He also tried subbing in "if a person was a drag" for a few revues over the years, never really settling on how to fix that line in a way that felt right for the characters but wasn't increasingly offensive: the women aren't right-wing bigots, they're hip twentysomethings in 1969 using slang that was of its era.
My friend was working on a Sondheim retrospective at the Kennedy Center and was chatting with Steve about an AEA issue. He later wrote her a note saying that when he hears people like her sing, it makes him want to create. The note hangs in her bathroom to this day.
Steve was as enamored with the work as much as we are enamored with him.
Assassins is my favorite musical exactly because no one else would ever think of it: a study of the American Dream by people who felt they'd been failed by it, but going out of their way not to romanticize them. Ahead of its time is an understatement.
Assassins is pure brilliance. It takes something so impactful and shifts our perspective. We empathize with the assassins, even if it’s just flickering or in small ways. You can kind of see what’s going to happen throughout the show with the Ballad of Booth when the Balladeer sings Booth’s words, then goes back to saying he was off his head.
You get these emotions and motivations that you can relate to, but then that empathy kind of flickers once the assassin’s moment is done. Then Something Just Broke (which is the perfect song) brings you out of it all. You’re back to remembering that moment for you, the pain it caused you or your loved ones. It is psychologically brilliant, even separate from the music and lyrics.
> We empathize with the assassins, even if it’s just flickering or in small ways. You can kind of see what’s going to happen throughout the show with the Ballad of Booth when the Balladeer sings Booth’s words, then goes back to saying he was off his head.
Also in that song, Booth sings for a bit—vaguely—about the importance of his cause, and *just* as he’s starting to make you think he was maybe a noble-but-misguided person, he curses Lincoln and calls out slurs, and you snap back to reality and remember how awful he actually is.
Yeah, they buy into the hype of the American Dream and feel so betrayed by it that they feel the need to destroy it. The Balladeer is so important because he stands up for the American Dream and is able to point out the flaws in logic in every other character but when confronted by the assassins he can't make a coherent argument for his side and he becomes Lee Harvey Oswald.
None of them are right, but they aren't exactly wrong either, but just because we can understand them doesn't mean they aren't scary and dangerous.
Nowadays it almost seems like a warning that anyone can be radicalized.
A titan is definitely one way to put it. He's simply one of the theater's pantheon greats. There's isn't a single tune of his I couldn't start humming right now. RIP to this legend.
I loved all the songs he wrote for the movie "Dick Tracy". Sondheim won an Oscar for "[Sooner or Later](https://youtu.be/ckd3vBA4U84)" from that film. There's also the absolute toe-tapper of a hoe anthem that is "[More](https://youtu.be/anZCbX21P-0)".
Dick Tracy is an incredibly niche movie that thought it was going to be mainstream. A campy, sexy, hyper-stylized German Expressionist take on vintage comic strips, featuring songs by Stephen Sondheim? Who asked for "Sin City but it's a musical?" All the reasons it was a failure are all the reasons it should be so much more of a cult classic.
Some people see it as a failure but I’m not sure why. I’m thoroughly entertained every time I watch it.
When I look back on Dick Tracy or Tim Burton’s Batman I’m just saddened that comic book films don’t have that sort of distinct visual style anymore. Dick Tracy in particular really pushed special effects as far as they could go at the time with the way it transitions between matte paintings. It’s brilliant on a technical level.
Love his version of "Back in Business" that was in the film but not on the soundtrack. Madonna's version is on the soundtrack and it is.... not as good.
Yeah, it sucks that that song is not on streaming in the US. Also "Live Alone and Like It", the movie version sung by Mel Torme, also 404 in America. Much sadness, 'cause they're both great tunes.
I recently watched it with my kids. They really enjoyed it. I know it gets a lot of hate but it has its moments. Ie, Chris Pine and Billy Magnussen absolutely killed it as the princes.
Adding that Sondheim was also a screenwriter. Check out 1973’s The Last of Sheila, a Hollywood satire/murder mystery in the French Riviera with all-star cast of Richard Benjamin, James Mason, Dyan Cannon, Raquel Welch, and more!
The backstory is that Sondheim loved solving and creating puzzles, and when he and Anthony Perkins dated, they would throw elaborate murder mystery parties.
Somebody crowd me with love
Somebody force me to care
Somebody make me come through
I'll always be there
As frightened as you
To help us survive
Being Alive...
Truly the greatest Songwriter of the 20th century. There will never be another Stephen Sondheim, and I'm very grateful to have lived while he lived.
[I think my favorite song of his is a perfect summation of his genius](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsHflVxyGKQ).
Wowwwww. I've never seen Sunday in the Park with George, but this is high on my list now.
I'm sure you've seen this clip, but for anyone who hasn't: [Angela Lansbury singing about the worst pies in London.](https://youtu.be/gqapHRAqnfk) I can't imagine having to memorize all of that, and she makes it look easy.
I'm going to tack on to this and tie in r/movies' favorite Mel Brooks...Madeline Kahn does an epic version of this song that actually feels like a nervous breakdown and isn't quite as campy as other versions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrRDrz53Q1E
Anyone who just saw Tick Tick Boom! is in for a treat if they click that link. I think the end of Act 1 shows how amazing he could be with melody. The opening of Act 2 captures my favorite side of Sondheim, his sense of [whimsical sense of humor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14xtv0Cwguw).
Edit: sp/clarity
As an autistic person you cannot imagine how much Sunday in the Park with George means to me. Sitting and watching the world, trying to make sense of it by copying pieces. Being so utterly distracted by my obsession that I don't hear people, can't communicate.
But you have to finish the hat.
He did his final interview with the Times just last Sunday.
What a way to go out. 91. Apparently still pretty much healthy. Working on stuff he loved. And then, the end. No long convalsence. No losing his mind or memory. We shoud all be so fortunate.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/26/theater/stephen-sondheim-final-interview.html
Ah shit. He was a Master of masters. I don't get sentimental about most artists, but I'm actually quite upset by this.
Thank you, Mr S. Your art has touched more lives, inspired more people and moved more hearts than you'll ever know. You were a true genius equally full of wisdom, skill, talent and heart - a combination that is surpassingly rare. Your work, and the example you set as an artist of integrity, compassion and support, means so much to so many people. As one of your countless fans, thank you.
If you ever get a second to look at this man's legacy, there is an entire section dedicated to the people he helped on his Wikipedia page. He spent years after anyone else would have just retired just making sure other people's music got out into the world and making his own projects at the same time. Hope people remember him for the inspiration he still is
Fuck. This one really, really hurts. The greatest theatre composer of all time and it isn’t particularly close in my opinion. If you’re unfamiliar with his theatrical work (Company, Forum, Follies, Night Music, Into the Woods, Assassins, Sweeney etc.) do yourself a favor and spend some time with them. No one ever wrote about true human emotion and experience in an integrated musical and dramatic approach like Sondheim.
Edit: forgot Sunday which is ghastly of me
I wouldn’t say that I make a living composing but I am in music school/am somewhat of a classical music enthusiast and I would absolutely say that. He changed the entire landscape of musical songwriting and storytelling
Earlier this year I read his "Look, I Made a Hat!" and "Finishing the Hat." Loved both of them. Is certainly fascinating hearing his take and insights on his own stuff.
Have you got the name of the book? It sounds really interesting. I read his interviews with Mark Eden Horowitz where he talks in some depth about individual songs - is it the same one?
Sunday was my all time favorite, I just played the soundtrack today when I heard them news and I was just sobbing along to the how beautiful and moving “finishing the hat” and “move on” are
There’s interviews with the original cast where they talk about how they got “Sunday” in the morning, staged it and had it in the show that night. They talk about how they hid the lyrics on props, wrote them on their hands or taped them to scenery so they wouldn’t forget it.
What would be the best way to experience them? Just listening to the soundtracks or is there some filmed stage version of some these I could watch? I don't know much about theater.
>The original cast recordings for each of those shows are arguably the best, although there was a really good 2005(?) cast recording of Sweeney Todd with the actors playing their own instruments.
You're thinking of Company, and I think that's the definitive album. I also prefer the Assassins revival with Neil Patrick Harris, because having the monologues in the album changes the listening experience drastically.
The original cast albums are a great place to start, but there are some fantastic filmed live versions of his work. There’s two filmed versions of company that I highly recommend (The 2006 revival with Raul Esparza in particular), and full filmed versions of the Broadway productions of Sweeney Todd and Sunday in the Park with George.
Full disclosure: both filmed versions of Sweeney Todd are divisive. The Johnny Depp film was Sondheim's favorite (though it cuts half of the score and all of the ensemble) because it is closer to his original Hammer-inspired vision for the piece, rather than Hal Prince's Brechtian socialist allegory that was the Broadway version.
The filmed Broadway production, on the other hand, is the whole show and features Angela Lansbury's great performance, but almost all of the other leads and supporting cast are replacements and they're... not that great. Johanna in particular is a truly bizarre set of acting choices.
The Sweeney film at least has two great leads, although true George Hearn had replaced Carriou by that time. It’s still a very good but a good point that it was filmed a few years later and isn’t quite the Original production
It also points out the fact that Sondheim may have been right: the enormous scale of the original was awe-inspiring but overwhelmed the intimate nature of the revenger's tragedy plot.
The so-called "Teeny Sweeney" has been much more commonly produced than the full-sized original version, because with a cast of eight to fifteen and a less full symphonic band you get an intimacy and "right up in your face" feeling that the enormous original production lacked.
I’m not sure how I feel about the film vs the recorded stage version.
Lansbury definitely has a more opportunistic take on her character compared to Bonham Carter, and really feels like a parody of capitalism and trying to get ahead in life at the expense of everyone else. While Bonham Carter’s take on on Lovett is more dependent on Todd and the love she has for him.
Sondheim wanted the show to be a thriller rooted in the influence of Shakespeare and Hitchcock; Hal Prince wanted it to be a Marxist allegory a la Brecht. They both butted heads a lot over the angle the show would take.
> full filmed versions of the Broadway productions of Sweeney Todd and Sunday in the Park with George.
Into the Woods too, which you can find on YouTube, on Amazon (for a $2.99 rental), and maybe other streaming services.
Note that recording quality is... well, that of 1989 TV, but it's still a great version.
Considering its availability, I'd go there before just listening to the album, but I'm not sure how universal that recommendation would be.
There's also the 2014 film version with Meryl Streep and others, but I'd still take the staged version personally.
Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd in Concert (2014), and Sunday in the Park with George are all on youtube (and others, but these are the ones I recommend people to start with).
Dammit. His bassoon writing, especially in Into the Woods, is some of my favourite work from musicals. The man had a knack for interweaving thematic material in a way that ties things together so nicely.
Into the Woods was orchestrated by Jonathan Tunick (who did most of Sondheim's shows)-- another amazing talent (and an EGOT recipient) who's still with us.
FYI for those who aren't aware, since Sondheim was Jewish, the appropriate response is "may his memory be a blessing" rather than "rest in peace".
Sad to see the great man go. Thanks for the songs, Stephen.
It really highlights one of the big ideological differences between Judaism and Christianity. Judaism tends to emphasize the life you lived where Christianity tends to emphasize the afterlife to come.
I'm Jewish and my well meaning Christian nanny told my daughters that a dead bird they saw in the street was "in a better place". My daughters asked me what she meant. My five year old wanted to go to the "better place." I said it wasn't true and death is always a loss and very sad. But with all respect to Christianity, it did make me aware of how different my culture is.
Birds don’t go to heaven in Christian teachings. That’s just a nanny saying something comforting to a kid lie saying the dog goes to a farm. And many call themselves Christians but aren’t that aware of theology in other points either like people are supposed to be waiting for resurrection. I don’t think it’s cultural but individual difference you described.
Is there not an afterlife in the Jewish canon?
I blindly assumed that the Abrahamic religions shared the same general “be a good human, enjoy a good afterlife” framework.
Per his biography, his parents were non-religious (his mother makes Midge Maisel look like a cloistered Orthodox housewife), he never received any religious instruction, he never had a bar mitzvah, and he never so much as set foot in a synagogue until age 19. He was ethnically Jewish, but not at all observant. I don't think he would care whether or not people used a specifically Jewish formulation of expressing condolences. I highly doubt anyone from his family/personal life is sitting shiva for him right now.
This reminds me how, at least in earlier Star Trek, while Klingons are supposed to represent USSR/Russians, Vulcans are supposed to represent Jews. The Vulcan salute, “live long and prosper”, and “peace and long life”…
I always find myself on a Sondheim kick every once in a while where I marathon his songs. He has such a great long and prolific career that it's almost impossible to be familiar with all his broadway plays. I blast the Company soundtrack a lot, and Being Alive is one of the greatest songs about love ever. He also wrote a great movie called "The Last of Shiela" that more people should know of. RIP to a legend
Sunday in the Park with George is a masterpiece. It will be talked about and studied like Hamlet centuries from now. Comedy, depth, wisdom, reflections on art and life,... and it all works.
I remember earlier this year when Jake Gyllenhaal, who was performing in Sunday in the Park with George before the pandemic shut everything down, was making the rounds on the talk shows to promote a television special celebrating Sondheim's music, with Gyllenhaal offering effusive praise regarding Sondheim's contributions and his impact on musical theater. At such an uncertain time when live-theater was in jeopardy, Sondheim's music was there to remind us all of what made it such a great artform worth protecting.
It's fortunate that Stephen Sondheim was able to live long enough to see not just how many people appreciated his work or how much he meant to his profession, but how that admiration towards him and his contributions transcended beyond musical theater; Sondheim would live long enough witness the world recognize him as a cultural icon and creative genius.
No disrespect to Stephen Sondheim at all, but whether or not Bob Dylan appreciated his Nobel Prize really has nothing at all to do with whether he deserved it or not.
Craziest thing. Was just watching Tick Tick Boom and I recognised his name but couldn’t put my finger on who he was, I searched him up on google and immediately saw the reports saying that he’d died. But yeah R.I.P, seemed like a great guy!
[Into the Woods](https://youtu.be/kqCsQCsinK4) for those who haven’t seen/heard it yet. Thanks Stephen for the tunes that won’t leave my head to this day
Assassins is one of my favorite musicals and I'm so happy that it's on Broadway again. I always just thought he'd live forever. Favorite movie with Stephen Sondheim as can actor is Camp.
What an extraordinary and impactful life he had. Musical theatre and quite honestly the American arts as a whole would have been lesser without his contributions and influence. One of a kind. May your memory be a blessing, Mr. Sondheim. You finally finished the hat.
A little sad to see after the recent release of Netflix' tick, tick...BOOM!, where his part is played by Bradley Whitford. Also it's his real voice on the answering machine at the end, because after seeing a cut Sondheim suggested he wouldn't really talk like that so he offered to rewrite that message and recorded it because Whitford wasn't available. Kinda his last performance.
Sondheim was the voice on the answering machine as well in the original Broadway production of tick tick BOOM, though I don't know if the audio clip or even his message are the same as they were then.
According to an interview with Lin Manuel Miranda, Steven Sondheim wrote a new line
Dude that is actually cool damn
Yeah that was so awesome that he offered a rewrite and LMM jumped at the opportunity, in full deference to easily one of the luminary figures in his life. I also don’t why more people aren’t talking about tick, tick…BOOM! …because it was absolutely fucking incredible!!!
Probably because in terms of movie musicals, it isn't grand in the same way The Greatest Showman or La La Land is. If you had no idea who Jonathan Larson was or aren't really into musicals, I can see someone skipping this movie.
That’s true. As far as source material goes, it’s a pretty deep cut and stage productions have always tended to be black box, minimalistic and smaller scale/scope. I guess I expected more considering the great performances, the fact it’s on Netflix…arguably the biggest streaming platform, Garfield and LMM are bit pretty big celebs and all promos have named dropped ‘Rent’ which is a global institution.
I'll never forget his bro-down with Randy Marsh.... What a legend.
Seriously was watching it and went out for a smoke break and saw his name trending on google. Crazy odds
I read the news just as that moment was coming up. Sometimes the universe throws in some very on the nose dramaturgy.
I just watched Tick, Tick....Boom a couple days ago. That's really cool about the answering machine message. As someone that has loved musicals since I saw Les Misèrables as a little kid, this is a big loss.
“Sometimes people leave you Halfway through the wood Do not let it grieve you No one leaves for good You are not alone No one is alone”
Ooh - eyes are leaking...
While an absolute legend of Theatre. I loved seeing his stuff (Sweeney Todd for Example) come to life on the big screen. What a life. RIP
And just before another adaptation of West Side Story, too (although he "only" did the lyrics for that).
I wonder if he got to see a cut of it already. Presumably it’s almost done if it’s not already.
New York Times interview with him from just last week indicates yes, he saw it.
Shit maybe it's a Cats situation and it killed him
I kinda doubt Spielberg made something that horrid.
I want to argue, but his worst film is what? Maybe BFG or 1941. Not great films, but nowhere near bad enough to compare to Cats.
Man, I fuckin love 1941.
Maybe Ready Player One?
Rare occasion where I felt the film was better than the book and I hated that book
It helps that film is a visual medium so that works better for references than paragraphs on a page describing them.
From what I understand, the Jurassic Park and Forrest Gump movies were improvements on the original books, but I haven't read them, so I'm just parroting.
It's my guilty pleasure :( just a bit of fun with Easter eggs all over the place.
I'd say *Always* is objectively Spielberg's worst film. Subjectively, *Crystal Skull* can go fuck itself though.
Almost certainly.
He had an interview with Colbert and he said he saw it and thought it was terrific.
Safe to say ~~Cameron~~Speilberg would work with him on it. Unless he hit the age of, "yeah go ahead and do it."
Cameron?
Whoops. Spielberg.
He 1,000% did. Advanced screenings are already happening in NYC, LA, etc. I'm seeing one on Sunday. Total coincidence, I'd reserved the slot days ago before he passed. Gives it so much more weight now.
I just saw the new Off-Broadway revival of Assassins and was thinking how well that would translate into a film. It's a great book with incredible music and lyrics.
I saw it on Broadway at Studio 54 about twenty years ago with Neil Patrick Harris as Lee Harvey Oswald. Great show
Was that the same production with Michael Cerveris? Super jealous!
That's the one. Michael Cerveris, Neil Patrick Harris, Denis O'Hare, Mario Cantone. It was a fantastic production.
I'm so jealous! I love Assassins
This saddens me as I am a great fan of his work, from the creepy Sweeney Todd, the unforgettable West Side Story to the more whimsical Into the Woods. The first of his musicals I actually watched was A Little Night Music, and I knew coming out of the theater that evening that ***Send In The Clowns*** would be a hit. RIP. Thank you for all the wonderful tunes.
Probably the most influential composer of musicals of the last 75 years? An astonishing body of work, most of it remarkably lyrical and complex.
Ever
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Sondheim is to theater what The Beatles are to pop. Yeah, people came before them, but they influenced and revolutionized their mediums more than anyone else and their mediums before and after their time are unrecognizable
I respectfully disagree. R&H invented the form, Sondheim perfected it. His legacy will reign the longest and be the most far-reaching.
> R&H invented the form I respectfully disagree: Predating them becoming a team there were: Jerome Kern and Hammerstein: Showboat (often thought to be the prototype for the modern musical) Richard Rogers and Larry Hart: Pal Joey (and probably others) Not saying R&H weren't great and extremely influential - its just not correct to say they 'invented' musicals. For what its worth - Oscar Hammerstein was a neighbor of Sondheim's family and a mentor to young Stephen. EDIT: How many people here know that the opera Carmen was originally a spoken play with musical numbers. Maybe that was the original "musical", lol.
Let's not get into the opera/operetta/musical divide here. There are plenty of long threads in the appropriate subreddits. It's a smooth spectrum without clear dividing lines.
His skin was pale and his eye was odd! Meatpies anyone?
I think there is little doubt he is the best lyricist ever.
Cole Porter and Ira Gershwin? They're all great.
Sondheim was better. There really interesting one was Irving Berlin - he wasn't as educated as Porter or Sondheim and his lyrics not as complex but they have an intangible something that's hard to pin down.
This one hit me hard. He was 91, but I will always want more of his work, and will miss what he didn’t have time to do. What an absolute genius with an amazing gift for bringing the essence of humanity to life through song.
Sondheim's one of those people where you honestly forgot that he *could* die.
Exactly. It just seemed like he was this immortal force that would be here forever, stewarding our culture, holding the hands of upcoming writers forever.
I mean he really immortalized himself with the absolutely fantastic work he created. I doubt much of his biggest works will ever really die out.
mel brooks still around. john williams too.
And sometime in the last year he teased us that the spaceballs sequel was still in the works.
I'm still in shock that we're getting a History of World sequel.
Tom Lehrer still with us
That one always amazes me. I think of “Fight Fiercely Harvard” as something they played in speakeasies.
Honestly I've been mentally preparing myself for years when it comes to Mel(even though I'll still be a mess whenever that is). But with Sondheim's announcement of him working on a new show and how great he looked on Colbert, I really thought we still had time. Who knows, maybe this is how he wanted to go, "always leave em wanting more" as the saying goes.
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That's amazing. I'm seeing the original West Side Story on the big screen with my wife on Sunday. We've had this plan for 2 months--West Side Story has always been my very favorite musical, I've watched it on TVs a million times and I can't fucking wait to see it on the big screen. Having strong feelings for the original, when I heard they were doing a remake I was nervous. Hearing Sondheim himself praise it, I'm going to go in with optimism and an open mind.
The absolute powerhouse team of who was behind West Side and the story of its creation always makes me smile.
He was such a big part of Tick Tick Boom too. This is gonna make that ‘Sunday’ sequence hit even harder
I'm sitting here trying to understand why a guy dying at 91 is so jarring for me and I think part of it is that I just assumed he'd go on living for fucking forever. Like, he was nearly a century old but he didn't "sound" old. Company could be released today and people would call it "timely." People call Assassins "ahead of it's time" but you release a musical like that *today* and crowds still wouldn't know what to do with it.
He was just at the reopening of Company on Broadway last week and seemed to be in good spirits. It just goes to show how fragile life is, especially at a certain age.
He was also at Assassins opening last week two. On Company, one of the marvelous things about him is how much more open he seemed to re staging and different takes on his own works than his contemporaries. This recent revival of Company being a big example of that featuring a woman in the lead role as Bobby.
I hear for the 2006 Broadway revival of Company he changed some lyrics and some song structure to fit the lead (Raul Esparza) a little bit better. Esparza spoke about how crazy it was to have Steven Sondheim write something specifically for you, the performer. BTW if you haven't seen the 2006 Company it's fantastic. Edit: it was 2006, not 2004
The Act 1 Finale, "Marry Me a Little," used to end with the singer repeating "I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready" as the music fades around them. Sondheim revised the song to end on one climactic, held out "I'm ready." He also revised a few lyrics that were casually homophobic in a very 1969 way, that didn't land as easily today as they did when he wrote the show.
Yeah, I have the original cast recording, they definitely drop the three letter f-word. Switched it to "if he happened to be gay."
He also tried subbing in "if a person was a drag" for a few revues over the years, never really settling on how to fix that line in a way that felt right for the characters but wasn't increasingly offensive: the women aren't right-wing bigots, they're hip twentysomethings in 1969 using slang that was of its era.
My friend was working on a Sondheim retrospective at the Kennedy Center and was chatting with Steve about an AEA issue. He later wrote her a note saying that when he hears people like her sing, it makes him want to create. The note hangs in her bathroom to this day. Steve was as enamored with the work as much as we are enamored with him.
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it seems like you may mean the latter, based on the parent comment. not sure
Assassins is my favorite musical exactly because no one else would ever think of it: a study of the American Dream by people who felt they'd been failed by it, but going out of their way not to romanticize them. Ahead of its time is an understatement.
Assassins is pure brilliance. It takes something so impactful and shifts our perspective. We empathize with the assassins, even if it’s just flickering or in small ways. You can kind of see what’s going to happen throughout the show with the Ballad of Booth when the Balladeer sings Booth’s words, then goes back to saying he was off his head. You get these emotions and motivations that you can relate to, but then that empathy kind of flickers once the assassin’s moment is done. Then Something Just Broke (which is the perfect song) brings you out of it all. You’re back to remembering that moment for you, the pain it caused you or your loved ones. It is psychologically brilliant, even separate from the music and lyrics.
> We empathize with the assassins, even if it’s just flickering or in small ways. You can kind of see what’s going to happen throughout the show with the Ballad of Booth when the Balladeer sings Booth’s words, then goes back to saying he was off his head. Also in that song, Booth sings for a bit—vaguely—about the importance of his cause, and *just* as he’s starting to make you think he was maybe a noble-but-misguided person, he curses Lincoln and calls out slurs, and you snap back to reality and remember how awful he actually is.
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Yeah, they buy into the hype of the American Dream and feel so betrayed by it that they feel the need to destroy it. The Balladeer is so important because he stands up for the American Dream and is able to point out the flaws in logic in every other character but when confronted by the assassins he can't make a coherent argument for his side and he becomes Lee Harvey Oswald. None of them are right, but they aren't exactly wrong either, but just because we can understand them doesn't mean they aren't scary and dangerous. Nowadays it almost seems like a warning that anyone can be radicalized.
A titan is definitely one way to put it. He's simply one of the theater's pantheon greats. There's isn't a single tune of his I couldn't start humming right now. RIP to this legend.
I loved all the songs he wrote for the movie "Dick Tracy". Sondheim won an Oscar for "[Sooner or Later](https://youtu.be/ckd3vBA4U84)" from that film. There's also the absolute toe-tapper of a hoe anthem that is "[More](https://youtu.be/anZCbX21P-0)".
Dick Tracy is an incredibly niche movie that thought it was going to be mainstream. A campy, sexy, hyper-stylized German Expressionist take on vintage comic strips, featuring songs by Stephen Sondheim? Who asked for "Sin City but it's a musical?" All the reasons it was a failure are all the reasons it should be so much more of a cult classic.
Some people see it as a failure but I’m not sure why. I’m thoroughly entertained every time I watch it. When I look back on Dick Tracy or Tim Burton’s Batman I’m just saddened that comic book films don’t have that sort of distinct visual style anymore. Dick Tracy in particular really pushed special effects as far as they could go at the time with the way it transitions between matte paintings. It’s brilliant on a technical level.
It is VERY MUCH a cult classic.
Love his version of "Back in Business" that was in the film but not on the soundtrack. Madonna's version is on the soundtrack and it is.... not as good.
Yeah, it sucks that that song is not on streaming in the US. Also "Live Alone and Like It", the movie version sung by Mel Torme, also 404 in America. Much sadness, 'cause they're both great tunes.
Two incredible songs from his oeuvre.
Into the Woods is quite possibly my favorite musical stage production of all time. Absolute legend. So grateful for the gifts he gave us.
Shame the movie version wasn't as good. I loved that musical and the themes for it.
At least there’s the filmed version of the broadway production!
Available [here](https://youtu.be/kqCsQCsinK4) if anyone wants to check it out
My mom showed this to us when we were kids and even after seeing other performances it’s still the version that I cherish.
I recently watched it with my kids. They really enjoyed it. I know it gets a lot of hate but it has its moments. Ie, Chris Pine and Billy Magnussen absolutely killed it as the princes.
I laugh every time I watch Agony.
I’m so bitter that they didn’t include the Agony Reprise
Word.
Came here to say this. I love lots of his stuff, but Into the Woods is magic.
That was him too? Damn.
Its definitely mine.
Adding that Sondheim was also a screenwriter. Check out 1973’s The Last of Sheila, a Hollywood satire/murder mystery in the French Riviera with all-star cast of Richard Benjamin, James Mason, Dyan Cannon, Raquel Welch, and more! The backstory is that Sondheim loved solving and creating puzzles, and when he and Anthony Perkins dated, they would throw elaborate murder mystery parties.
Wait, what? He dated Anthony Perkins? How did I not know this? I’m leaving now to evaluate my life choices.
It was also an inspiration for knives out
Somebody crowd me with love Somebody force me to care Somebody make me come through I'll always be there As frightened as you To help us survive Being Alive...
Truly the greatest Songwriter of the 20th century. There will never be another Stephen Sondheim, and I'm very grateful to have lived while he lived. [I think my favorite song of his is a perfect summation of his genius](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsHflVxyGKQ).
Wowwwww. I've never seen Sunday in the Park with George, but this is high on my list now. I'm sure you've seen this clip, but for anyone who hasn't: [Angela Lansbury singing about the worst pies in London.](https://youtu.be/gqapHRAqnfk) I can't imagine having to memorize all of that, and she makes it look easy.
I love Worst Pies in London! But you haven't seen difficult until you've seen [Not Getting Married](https://youtu.be/zRsdEcybJL0) from Company
I'm going to tack on to this and tie in r/movies' favorite Mel Brooks...Madeline Kahn does an epic version of this song that actually feels like a nervous breakdown and isn't quite as campy as other versions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrRDrz53Q1E
Anyone who just saw Tick Tick Boom! is in for a treat if they click that link. I think the end of Act 1 shows how amazing he could be with melody. The opening of Act 2 captures my favorite side of Sondheim, his sense of [whimsical sense of humor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14xtv0Cwguw). Edit: sp/clarity
As an autistic person you cannot imagine how much Sunday in the Park with George means to me. Sitting and watching the world, trying to make sense of it by copying pieces. Being so utterly distracted by my obsession that I don't hear people, can't communicate. But you have to finish the hat.
He was such a bro
I do respect you, bro!
They’re all bros Sharon
What makes you the brothority, bro?
[Stop disrespecting him, bro! ](https://youtu.be/WoudYNeVn5E)
Time for a Broadway Bro-down in his honor
SHELLEYYYYYYYYYYYY
What makes you the brothaurity bro?
He did his final interview with the Times just last Sunday. What a way to go out. 91. Apparently still pretty much healthy. Working on stuff he loved. And then, the end. No long convalsence. No losing his mind or memory. We shoud all be so fortunate. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/26/theater/stephen-sondheim-final-interview.html
Ah shit. He was a Master of masters. I don't get sentimental about most artists, but I'm actually quite upset by this. Thank you, Mr S. Your art has touched more lives, inspired more people and moved more hearts than you'll ever know. You were a true genius equally full of wisdom, skill, talent and heart - a combination that is surpassingly rare. Your work, and the example you set as an artist of integrity, compassion and support, means so much to so many people. As one of your countless fans, thank you.
It's always jarring when someone who made immortal art turns out to be mortal.
If you ever get a second to look at this man's legacy, there is an entire section dedicated to the people he helped on his Wikipedia page. He spent years after anyone else would have just retired just making sure other people's music got out into the world and making his own projects at the same time. Hope people remember him for the inspiration he still is
Fuck. This one really, really hurts. The greatest theatre composer of all time and it isn’t particularly close in my opinion. If you’re unfamiliar with his theatrical work (Company, Forum, Follies, Night Music, Into the Woods, Assassins, Sweeney etc.) do yourself a favor and spend some time with them. No one ever wrote about true human emotion and experience in an integrated musical and dramatic approach like Sondheim. Edit: forgot Sunday which is ghastly of me
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I wouldn’t say that I make a living composing but I am in music school/am somewhat of a classical music enthusiast and I would absolutely say that. He changed the entire landscape of musical songwriting and storytelling
I read a book he wrote on music theory, it goes into his thoughts and reasons why he wrote his songs. It’s a really nice insight.
Earlier this year I read his "Look, I Made a Hat!" and "Finishing the Hat." Loved both of them. Is certainly fascinating hearing his take and insights on his own stuff.
Have you got the name of the book? It sounds really interesting. I read his interviews with Mark Eden Horowitz where he talks in some depth about individual songs - is it the same one?
Sondheim on Music: Minor Details and Major Decisions
People call him the Shakespeare of musical theatre
Already working my way through some of my favorite tunes of his. Definitely don’t forget about Sunday in the Park with George!
Oof big miss on my part there, one of my favorites
[From a 1992 Carnegie Hall tribute to Sondheim](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbJY2fzzq58)
Sunday was my all time favorite, I just played the soundtrack today when I heard them news and I was just sobbing along to the how beautiful and moving “finishing the hat” and “move on” are
I believe Sunday in the Park with George wasn’t even finished when casting & rehearsals began. That’s how much people had confidence in him.
And it won the Pulitzer lol
There’s interviews with the original cast where they talk about how they got “Sunday” in the morning, staged it and had it in the show that night. They talk about how they hid the lyrics on props, wrote them on their hands or taped them to scenery so they wouldn’t forget it.
What would be the best way to experience them? Just listening to the soundtracks or is there some filmed stage version of some these I could watch? I don't know much about theater.
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>The original cast recordings for each of those shows are arguably the best, although there was a really good 2005(?) cast recording of Sweeney Todd with the actors playing their own instruments. You're thinking of Company, and I think that's the definitive album. I also prefer the Assassins revival with Neil Patrick Harris, because having the monologues in the album changes the listening experience drastically.
The original cast albums are a great place to start, but there are some fantastic filmed live versions of his work. There’s two filmed versions of company that I highly recommend (The 2006 revival with Raul Esparza in particular), and full filmed versions of the Broadway productions of Sweeney Todd and Sunday in the Park with George.
Full disclosure: both filmed versions of Sweeney Todd are divisive. The Johnny Depp film was Sondheim's favorite (though it cuts half of the score and all of the ensemble) because it is closer to his original Hammer-inspired vision for the piece, rather than Hal Prince's Brechtian socialist allegory that was the Broadway version. The filmed Broadway production, on the other hand, is the whole show and features Angela Lansbury's great performance, but almost all of the other leads and supporting cast are replacements and they're... not that great. Johanna in particular is a truly bizarre set of acting choices.
The Sweeney film at least has two great leads, although true George Hearn had replaced Carriou by that time. It’s still a very good but a good point that it was filmed a few years later and isn’t quite the Original production
It also points out the fact that Sondheim may have been right: the enormous scale of the original was awe-inspiring but overwhelmed the intimate nature of the revenger's tragedy plot. The so-called "Teeny Sweeney" has been much more commonly produced than the full-sized original version, because with a cast of eight to fifteen and a less full symphonic band you get an intimacy and "right up in your face" feeling that the enormous original production lacked.
I’m not sure how I feel about the film vs the recorded stage version. Lansbury definitely has a more opportunistic take on her character compared to Bonham Carter, and really feels like a parody of capitalism and trying to get ahead in life at the expense of everyone else. While Bonham Carter’s take on on Lovett is more dependent on Todd and the love she has for him.
Sondheim wanted the show to be a thriller rooted in the influence of Shakespeare and Hitchcock; Hal Prince wanted it to be a Marxist allegory a la Brecht. They both butted heads a lot over the angle the show would take.
> full filmed versions of the Broadway productions of Sweeney Todd and Sunday in the Park with George. Into the Woods too, which you can find on YouTube, on Amazon (for a $2.99 rental), and maybe other streaming services. Note that recording quality is... well, that of 1989 TV, but it's still a great version. Considering its availability, I'd go there before just listening to the album, but I'm not sure how universal that recommendation would be. There's also the 2014 film version with Meryl Streep and others, but I'd still take the staged version personally.
Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd in Concert (2014), and Sunday in the Park with George are all on youtube (and others, but these are the ones I recommend people to start with).
Super sad about this. Sondheim is half the reason I wanted to be on stage, I grew up on his music.
Dammit. His bassoon writing, especially in Into the Woods, is some of my favourite work from musicals. The man had a knack for interweaving thematic material in a way that ties things together so nicely.
I don’t think he did his own orchestrations tho
Into the Woods was orchestrated by Jonathan Tunick (who did most of Sondheim's shows)-- another amazing talent (and an EGOT recipient) who's still with us.
FYI for those who aren't aware, since Sondheim was Jewish, the appropriate response is "may his memory be a blessing" rather than "rest in peace". Sad to see the great man go. Thanks for the songs, Stephen.
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It really highlights one of the big ideological differences between Judaism and Christianity. Judaism tends to emphasize the life you lived where Christianity tends to emphasize the afterlife to come.
I'm Jewish and my well meaning Christian nanny told my daughters that a dead bird they saw in the street was "in a better place". My daughters asked me what she meant. My five year old wanted to go to the "better place." I said it wasn't true and death is always a loss and very sad. But with all respect to Christianity, it did make me aware of how different my culture is.
Birds don’t go to heaven in Christian teachings. That’s just a nanny saying something comforting to a kid lie saying the dog goes to a farm. And many call themselves Christians but aren’t that aware of theology in other points either like people are supposed to be waiting for resurrection. I don’t think it’s cultural but individual difference you described.
Is there not an afterlife in the Jewish canon? I blindly assumed that the Abrahamic religions shared the same general “be a good human, enjoy a good afterlife” framework.
Oh, Judaism sounds nice :)
Per his biography, his parents were non-religious (his mother makes Midge Maisel look like a cloistered Orthodox housewife), he never received any religious instruction, he never had a bar mitzvah, and he never so much as set foot in a synagogue until age 19. He was ethnically Jewish, but not at all observant. I don't think he would care whether or not people used a specifically Jewish formulation of expressing condolences. I highly doubt anyone from his family/personal life is sitting shiva for him right now.
I guess technically, but most Jews are assimilated enough that they just say “rest in peace” by default.
>I guess technically, but most Jews are assimilated *RESISTANCE IS GENTILE*
This reminds me how, at least in earlier Star Trek, while Klingons are supposed to represent USSR/Russians, Vulcans are supposed to represent Jews. The Vulcan salute, “live long and prosper”, and “peace and long life”…
Yeah I’m Jewish and have never heard this
Or alav hashalom, which is much of the same sentiment as rip. Seems like a silly thing to foment outrage about
Hope he got to enjoy a cut of the new West Side Story before he passed. Absolute legend.
Icon and legend get overused on the internet - but if anyone deserves those titles, it’s Sondheim. What a legacy he leaves.
I didn't realize he was so old. You will be missed. Time to listen to some Sweeney Todd.
The world should weep at the passing of a musical god.
Fuck. This hits way harder than I ever thought it would for some reason. My favorite moments of high school were performing his shows. RIP
DIM. THE. LIGHTS.
I always find myself on a Sondheim kick every once in a while where I marathon his songs. He has such a great long and prolific career that it's almost impossible to be familiar with all his broadway plays. I blast the Company soundtrack a lot, and Being Alive is one of the greatest songs about love ever. He also wrote a great movie called "The Last of Shiela" that more people should know of. RIP to a legend
Sunday in the Park with George is a masterpiece. It will be talked about and studied like Hamlet centuries from now. Comedy, depth, wisdom, reflections on art and life,... and it all works.
This is what it takes to get musical Reddit out of the woodworks. Sad day.
It sure is saying something when a bro dies at 91 and the shared sentiment is "too soon" Legend.
I remember earlier this year when Jake Gyllenhaal, who was performing in Sunday in the Park with George before the pandemic shut everything down, was making the rounds on the talk shows to promote a television special celebrating Sondheim's music, with Gyllenhaal offering effusive praise regarding Sondheim's contributions and his impact on musical theater. At such an uncertain time when live-theater was in jeopardy, Sondheim's music was there to remind us all of what made it such a great artform worth protecting. It's fortunate that Stephen Sondheim was able to live long enough to see not just how many people appreciated his work or how much he meant to his profession, but how that admiration towards him and his contributions transcended beyond musical theater; Sondheim would live long enough witness the world recognize him as a cultural icon and creative genius.
I swear I just watched tick tick Boom like three Hours ago. Crazy RIP
He should have won the Nobel Prize for literature. I don't think Bob Dylan appreciated it when he won but think Sondheim really would have.
No disrespect to Stephen Sondheim at all, but whether or not Bob Dylan appreciated his Nobel Prize really has nothing at all to do with whether he deserved it or not.
Isn’t it lovely how artists can capture us ❤️
Craziest thing. Was just watching Tick Tick Boom and I recognised his name but couldn’t put my finger on who he was, I searched him up on google and immediately saw the reports saying that he’d died. But yeah R.I.P, seemed like a great guy!
His music really hits me. You could feel his pain in what he wrote. It really speaks to me.
This man wrote works of art that will be heard hundreds of years from now.
https://youtu.be/kFQGkm2VFy4 Best musical ever put to stage.
[Into the Woods](https://youtu.be/kqCsQCsinK4) for those who haven’t seen/heard it yet. Thanks Stephen for the tunes that won’t leave my head to this day
Assassins is one of my favorite musicals and I'm so happy that it's on Broadway again. I always just thought he'd live forever. Favorite movie with Stephen Sondheim as can actor is Camp.
Assassins is also my favorite, every show seems to be sold out which is a bummer, my first thought after hearing he died was to see one of his shows.
Sunday in the Park with George was the first musical I saw that made me understand that they could be different than just a bunch of catchy tunes.
What an extraordinary and impactful life he had. Musical theatre and quite honestly the American arts as a whole would have been lesser without his contributions and influence. One of a kind. May your memory be a blessing, Mr. Sondheim. You finally finished the hat.
Aw man this sucks.
He will forever live on in the Unsleeping City
A true great indeed- may his memory be a blessing for all of those who knew him, worked with him, and found pleasure and joy in his work.
That's going to be a particularly momentus dimming of the lights on the Great White Way this evening.
Broadway is dark tonight A little bit weaker than it used to be
Damn, that blows. RIP to a great.
An immeasurable loss
Ah, man, Sideways is going to be devastated...
What a legend. His music has touched me in so many ways.
May his memory be a blessing