Sondheim, Stephen

▪ American composer and lyricist

born March 22, 1930, New York City

      U.S. composer and lyricist whose brilliance in matching words and music in dramatic situations broke new ground for Broadway musical theatre.

      Precocious as a child, he early showed musical aptitude among other wide-ranging interests. He studied piano and organ, and at 15 wrote a musical at the George School in Bucks County, Pa. Under the tutelage of a family friend, Oscar Hammerstein II, he studied musical theatre. He also studied music at Williams College, Williamstown, Mass., and wrote college shows there. When he graduated in 1950, he received the Hutchinson Prize for composition, a fellowship. He then studied further in New York with the composer Milton Babbitt.

      In the early 1950s he wrote scripts in Hollywood for the “Topper” television series. Returning to New York, he wrote incidental music for The Girls of Summer (1956). He made his first mark on Broadway as the lyricist for Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story, which opened Sept. 26, 1957, in New York City. He was also lyricist for Gypsy (1959; music by Jule Styne).

      A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum—based on comedies by the Roman playwright Plautus—opened in New York City on May 8, 1962, with music and lyrics by Sondheim. It ran for 964 performances. Two years later, his Anyone Can Whistle, closed after only nine performances in April 1964.

      Sondheim later won Tony awards for a number of Broadway productions of shows with his music and lyrics—Company (1970), on marriage and bachelorhood; Follies (1971), which includes many pastiche songs; A Little Night Music (1973), based on Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night (1955); and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979). Harold Prince, producer of the first three shows, also produced Pacific Overtures (1976), in which Sondheim looked to Kabuki for stylized effects.

      He later collaborated as composer–lyricist with playwright–director James Lapine to create Sunday in the Park With George, which opened on Broadway May 2, 1984, after a lengthy preparation. This musical was inspired by the painting “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la Grande Jatte” by the pointillist Georges Seurat.

      Sondheim's acerbic lyrics hit responsive chords with many. Most critics agree that his work marked a break from more traditional and sentimental musical comedies of the earlier decades of the century. “Sondheim: A Musical Tribute” was staged in New York City, March 11, 1973.

      The Last of Sheila (1973) is a nonmusical film mystery that Sondheim, an enthusiast for games and puzzles (featured in the film), wrote with Anthony Perkins.

      Sondheim & Co. (1974), by Craig Zadan, is a lively history of Sondheim's work with quotations from him and his associates. Appendixes cover Broadway and other stage productions, original-cast recordings, and motion-picture sound-track recordings.

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