"Side by Side"

Stephen Sondheim revolutionized the American musical theater form. He was schooled in the mid-Twentieth Century classic Broadway form by Oscar Hammerstein II, who was simultaneously a surrogate father, teacher, and mentor to Sondheim beginning in Stephen’s youth and continuing into his early career as a lyricist and composer. Success as the lyricist for West Side Story (1957) and Gypsy (1959) led to A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), for which Sondheim wrote both the lyrics and the music.

Company (1970) and Follies (1971) mark the dividing line between Sondheim’s early work and his more mature and revolutionary style. Richard Corliss describes the shift in Sondheim’s work this way:

Traditionally, Broadway songwriters angled their numbers at least partly towards the non-Broadway listener; a show ran longer if some hit songs could be extracted. But Sondheim didn't care about writing hits; his lyrics were meant totally as the expression of the characters singing them, and his melodies were composed to suit the time the characters lived in. Thus the 1970 Company, a contemporary ensemble piece about married couples and one single man, took its cue from Burt Bacharach's angular songs and off-kilter tempos. . . . The mature Sondheim, from then on [referencing both Company and Follies], didn't write songs; he wrote scores. His melodies, borrowing more from serious modern music than from the pop idiom, were meant to challenge the ear, not soothe it.

Lyrics as character study and music that challenges the audience became the hallmarks of Sondheim’s work, and the impact of this shift on other artists can be seen from Evita through Rent and on up to Hamilton.

It seems as though challenging the audience is something that Sondheim relishes. Reflecting on Company and its initial reception during the 1970 Broadway run, Sondheim shared the following in conversation with Charles Osgood: “There was a certain amount of bafflement. Not so much resistance, but bafflement. It was a new animal, and the trouble was it was fun to see so they couldn’t just hate it, you see, so there was a sort of mixed feeling, a pull and push.” I find it intriguing that the show itself depicts that same phenomenon – mixed feelings, the pull and the push – as being central to relationships. If Sondheim was right about how the audience reacted to the show (and if similar reactions recur with today’s spectators), then what’s happening with the audience mirrors what’s occurring onstage between the characters.

 Challenging audiences, creating character studies, crafting intricate scores – these are all part of Sondheim’s legacy. His influence today remains large, as evidenced by these reflections on Sondheim from Lin-Manual Miranda: “He is musical theater’s greatest lyricist, full stop. The days of competition with other musical theater songwriters are done: We now talk about his work the way we talk about Shakespeare or Dickens or Picasso — a master of his form, both invisible within his work and everywhere at once.” Miranda and Sondheim shared a conversation just this past October (yes, Sondheim is still around – he’ll celebrate his 88^th birthday just a few days after our production closes in March). An exchange in their conversation that caught my eye and that I think could serve as inspiration for all of the artists working on our production has to do with collaboration, danger, and uncertainty. Although they are talking specifically about the writing process, I think their words have relevance for us as creative artists in all aspects of our collaboration:

Miranda: What makes a good collaborator?

Sondheim: I like writing with people who make me want to write. And you know, they’re hard to find. I don’t mean for me. I mean for anybody. It’s a marriage, and you want to find somebody who —

Miranda: You’re gonna show up naked sometimes.

Sondheim: You’ve got to have somebody who’ll surprise you and, you know, it’s the old lesson, you’ve got to work on something dangerous. You have to work on something that makes you uncertain. Something that makes you doubt yourself.

Miranda: Talk a bit about that danger and uncertainty.

Sondheim: Well, because it stimulates you to do things you haven’t done before. The whole thing is if you know where you’re going, you’ve gone, as the poet says. And that’s death.

So, let’s surprise ourselves. Let’s embrace the danger and the uncertainty. Let’s keep it alive!

Sources and additional resources:

Corliss, Richard. “Why Broadway Hates Stephen Sondheim.” Time, 12 June 2010, http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1996260,00.html

Miranda, Lin-Manuel. “Stephen Sondheim, Theater’s Greatest Lyricist.” The New York Times Style Magazine, 16 Oct. 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/16/t-magazine/lin-manuel-miranda-stephen-sondheim.html?_r=0

Sondheim, Stephen. Interview by Charles Osgood. CBS This Sunday Morning, 22 Oct. 1995,
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNVKbOOA7Mw

D.A. Pennebaker's doc on making of Original Cast Album

Sondheim interview on the songwriting process from The PBS NewsHour