Best of - Stephen Sondheim: Maestro of Broadway

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4.6 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 29 November 2021

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

He grew up next door to Oscar Hammerstein and became his greatest protege. In 1957, he wrote the lyrics for "West Side Story," and for the next 60 years dominated the world of musical theater, and transformed it. His songs managed to express the most complex and vital human emotions, and touched generations of theatergoers. Stephen Sondheim was still writing and composing at 91, until Thanksgiving night, when he died suddenly, hours after dining with a group of friends. The shows he leaves behind include "West Side Story," "Gypsy," "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," "Company," "A Little Night Music," "Sweeney Todd," "Sunday in the Park with George," "Into the Woods," and "Assassins." In this episode, which originally posted in 2018, he pulls back the curtain on his life and work, giving fascinating insights into some of the greatest Broadway collaborations of all time, and into the process of writing a song for the stage. (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2018-2021

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi it's allis it's odd to call it a complete surprise
0:08.0	Hi it's odd to call it a complete surprise when somebody dies in their 90s, but Stephen Sondheim was still creating,
0:18.0	still working on a new musical. Also, just two weeks ago, he'd been to see a performance of his own show, company, in a revival on Broadway,
0:29.0	where the audience gave him a standing ovation when they realized it was Sondheim himself walking to take his seat.
0:37.2	And the night before that, he'd been to see an off-Broadway revival of his show, Assassins.
0:43.3	He was also thrilled that Westside Story, which he of course wrote the lyrics for, has been
0:48.8	remade by Stephen Spielberg and Tony Kushner, and will open in movie theaters on December 10th.
0:55.6	And so until Thanksgiving night, Stephen Sondheim was very much a vital living, working giant of musical theater, even at 91.
1:07.8	That's why his death, several hours after his festive holiday dinner with friends has sent shock waves through the millions of people
1:16.6	who have been moved or changed or delighted by his work over the past 60-plus years.
1:23.0	It just seems impossible to imagine a world of musical theatre
1:28.0	without Stephen Sondheim in it.
1:39.6	In the days since word spread about Mr. Sondheim's death, fans have gathered at piano bars to play and sing and pay tribute to the man who expressed their deepest emotions with a lyrical turn of phrase. Broadway actors and
1:55.8	singers and fellow composers have taken to social media to express their
2:01.0	reverence. Hugh Jackman said Sondheim was one of those rare people who had shifted an entire art form.
2:09.0	Bernadette Peters thanked him for giving her so much to sing about. Some compared him to
2:15.5	Shakespeare. Some noted that Sondheim gave rise to Lynn Manuel Miranda and Jonathan
2:21.8	Larson. Others pointed out that Stephen Sondheim himself had
2:27.2	given us the very words to help us through our grief.
2:31.0	Sometimes people leave you halfway through the wood.
2:40.0	Do not let it grieve you.
2:46.2	No one leaves for good.
	...

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