Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheimis an American composer and lyricist known for more than a half-century of contributions to musical theatre. Sondheim has received an Academy Award, eight Tony Awards, eight Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, the Laurence Olivier Award, and a 2015 Presidential Medal of Freedom. He has been described by Frank Rich of The New York Times as "now the greatest and perhaps best-known artist in the American musical theater." His best-known works as composer and lyricist include A Funny...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComposer
Date of Birth22 March 1930
CountryUnited States of America
The concerts you enjoy together neighbors you annoy together children you destroy together that make marriage a joy
The concerts you enjoy together/ Neighbors you annoy together/ Children you destroy together,/ That keep marriage in tact.
Can't we just pursue our lives With our children and our wives Till that happy day arrives How do you ignore All the witches All the curses All the wolves, all the lies The false hopes, the goodbyes . . .
Careful the spell you cast, not just on children. Sometimes the spell may last Past what you can see And turn against you... Careful the tale you tell. That is the spell.
My parents got divorced and military school gave me a structure. A lot of kids my age were children of divorced parents. They didn't know what to do with the kids.
Stay a child while you can be a child.
You have two kinds of shows on Broadway - revivals and the same kind of musicals over and over again, all spectacles. You get your tickets for 'The Lion King' a year in advance, and essentially a family comes as if to a picnic, and they pass on to their children the idea that that's what the theater is - a spectacular musical you see once a year, a stage version of a movie. It has nothing to do with theater at all. It has to do with seeing what is familiar. We live in a recycled culture.
Sometimes people leave you halfway through the woods. Do not let it grieve you, no one leaves for good
I was essentially trained by Oscar Hammerstein to think of songs as one-act plays, to move a song from point A to point B dramatically.
If you force yourself to write away from the piano, you come up with more inventive things. If you're too good a piano player, as some composers are, the music may become flavorless and glib. And if you're not a very good pianist, you're limited to the same patterns.
Making lyrics feel natural, sit on music in such a way that you don't feel the effort of the author, so that they shine and bubble and rise and fall, is very, very hard to do. Whereas you can sit at the piano and just play and feel you're making art.
I think 'lunch' is one of the funniest words in the world.
I certainly wanted my name in lights. I wanted my name on a marquee. I wanted recognition on Broadway.
It ain't just a question of misunderstood, Deep down inside him, he's no good