Sondheim pushed audiences, which sometimes resulted in box office flops. In box office success, Sondheim fell short of Andrew Lloyd Webber, the composer behind "The Phantom of the Opera" and "Cats" with whom Sondheim shared a birthday. The play became a smash hit on Broadway in 2015. When Miranda began work on a rap musical about American founding father Alexander Hamilton, Sondheim encouraged and critiqued him.
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Hammerstein, who along with composing partner Richard Rodgers created the classic musicals "Oklahoma!" "South Pacific and "The Sound of Music," taught the teenage Sondheim how to write musical theater.Īfter Sondheim became famous, he mentored others on Broadway. He found a surrogate family in the nearby household of Hammerstein and his wife, Dorothy. He later said his mother took out her wrath over the divorce on him. He described his early childhood as a lonely one, with servants as his main company.Īfter his parents split up when he was 10 years old, Sondheim moved with his mother to rural Pennsylvania, where she bought a farm. Sondheim was born March 22, 1930, in New York City to affluent Jewish parents who worked in fashion.
The central characters expressed their infatuation in the songs "Maria," "Somewhere" and "Tonight." The story about a love affair between a Puerto Rican girl, Maria, and a white boy, Tony, in working-class Manhattan was turned into an Oscar-winning film in 1961. It was called the "concept musical."īroadway audiences were introduced to Sondheim with "West Side Story" in 1957. Instead of telling a story from beginning to end, he would jump backward and forward in time to explore a single theme. He developed new methods for presenting a play as well. He explored such weighty topics as political violence in "Assassins," the human need for family and the pull of dysfunctional relationships in "Into the Woods," social inequality in "Sweeney Todd," and Western imperialism in "Pacific Overtures." "There are so many forms of entertainment, theater is becoming more marginalized," he told British newspaper The Times in 2012.īut Broadway musicals also became more artistic, and Sondheim played a key role in their evolution, critics said. Sondheim shared the view that Broadway had experienced decline, expressing it repeatedly in interviews.
Grant wrote in his book "The Rise and Fall of the Broadway Musical." Increasingly, musicals borrowed material from television and movies, instead of the other way around, composer Mark N. It had a key role in American culture through the 1950s, with many Broadway songs making the pop charts, but lost significance as rock music gained a hold on the public starting in the 1960s. "Performing his work has been among the greatest privileges of my career," she added on Twitter.Īs Sondheim collected accolades, New York City's Broadway theater industry underwent many changes. The two also collaborated on "Into the Woods."Īctress Bernadette Peters, who played the roles of Dot and Marie in "Sunday in the Park" and the witch of "Into the Woods," expressed sadness at the loss of a friend, tweeting, Sondheim "gave me so much to sing about."įellow actress Anna Kendrick, who starred as Cinderella in the film version of "Into the Woods," called Sondheim's death "a devastating loss." One of Sondheim's greatest triumphs was the Pulitzer Prize he shared with composure James Lapine for the 1984 musical "Sunday in the Park with George," about 19th-century French Neo-Impressionist artist Georges Seurat. President Barack Obama presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to composer and lyricists Stephen Sondheim during an event in the East Room of the White House in Washington November 24, 2015. In 2015, President Barack Obama presented the lyricist the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony. Sondheim also earned a best-song Academy Award in 1991 for "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)," sung by Madonna in the "Dick Tracy" movie. He scored a hit, however, and one of three Grammys of his career, with "Send in the Clowns" from his 1973 musical "A Little Night Music." It was recorded by Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan and Judy Collins, among others. Sondheim's songs were celebrated for their sharp wit and insight into modern life and for giving voice to complex characters, but few of them made the pop charts. A new film version of "West Side Story," directed by Stephen Spielberg from a screenplay by Tony Kushner, opens next month.ĭuring a guest appearance in September on the CBS "Late Show with Stephen Colbert," Sondheim said he visited the set of Spielberg's adaptation, and endorsed the film "as really first rate." Several of Sondheim's hit musicals were turned into movies, including the 2014 film "Into the Woods," starring Meryl Streep, and the 2007 "Sweeney Todd" with Johnny Depp.
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