Sweeney Todd
Stephen Sondheim
“Being close and being clever, ain't like being true
I don't need to — I would never hide a thing from you…
No one's gonna hurt you
No one's gonna dare
Others can desert you
Not to worry, whistle, I'll be there.”
Stephen Sondheim (b. March 22, 1930) is widely acknowledged as the most innovative and influential composer/lyricist in modern day musical theatre. Known for his brilliance in matching words and music to dramatic situations, Sondheim continues to break new ground in the theatrical arena with paradoxical plots, complex musical structures and thought provoking lyrics.
Born in New York City, Sondheim’s father was a successful dress manufacturer and his mother was a fashion designer and well-known socialite. Precocious as a child, he was given piano and organ lessons at an early age. His parents divorced when he was only ten, and his mother took Stephen to live on a farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. At the time, Bucks County attracted many well-known personalities from the New York theater scene including his neighbor, Oscar Hammerstein II. While Hammerstein was working on his musical Oklahoma, he began to mentor the young artist. Under his tutelage, Sondheim wrote scripts and scores for four shows, one of which was a project that occupied Sondheim through his university years at Williams College. Upon graduating, he was awarded a two-year scholarship to study with avant-garde composer Milton Babbit. Babbit encouraged Sondheim to focus his talents on teaching, but Sondheim chose to stray from his advice and try his luck on Broadway.
Although Sondheim aspired to write both music and lyrics, his first two musical successes were collaborations with already well-established composers of the time. At age 25 he was brought on board to write lyrics for Leonard Bernstein's landmark musical West Side Story in 1957. Two years later Sondheim was presented with the opportunity to write the lyrics for Gypsy. Sondheim expressed the desire to write the music, but the show’s star, Ethel Merman, insisted on a composer with a track record—Jule Styne was immediately hired to compose the score.
In 1962, Sondheim achieved his first commercial success as both composer and lyricist with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Following the sensation of Forum, Sondheim composed and wrote lyrics for Anyone Can Whistle (1964), Company (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973) and Pacific Overtures (1976). Company marked the beginning of a long and successful collaboration with legendary producer/director, Hal Prince. Together Sondheim and Prince created many eccentric shows that changed the face of Broadway.
In 1979, Prince and Sondheim collaborated on Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Effectively blurring the lines between lyrics and dialogue—a new theatrical concept at the time—Sweeney Todd is considered by critics to be Sondheim’s most complex, inventive and expressive score. Sweeney Todd won eight 1979 Tony Awards and two Grammy Awards for the original cast recording. Since its original premiere, Sweeney has seen two Broadway revivals and inspired numerous productions in the world’s leading opera houses and theatre companies.
Following Sweeney Todd, Sondheim penned music and lyrics to numerous critically acclaimed musicals: Merrily We Roll Alongi (1981), Sunday in the Park with George(1984), Into the Woods (1987), Assassins (1990), Passion (1994), Bounce (2003) and The Frogs (2004). In total, Mr. Sondheim has received the Tony Award for Best Score, Music, and Lyrics for Company, Follies, Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods and Passion, all of which won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Musical, as did Pacific Overtures and Sunday in the Park with George. His works have accumulated more than sixty individual and collaborative Tony Awards. “Sooner or Later” from the film Dick Tracey won the 1999 Academy Award for Best Song. In 1983 he was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Letters, which awarded him the Gold Medal for Music in 2006. In 1984 Sondheim received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Sunday in the Park with George. In 1990 he was appointed the first Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Oxford University. In 1992 he declined the National Medal of Arts from the Bush Administration but accepted it from the Clinton administration in 1996. He was a recipient of the 1993 Kennedy Center Honors, the United States’ highest distinction for a lifetime in artistic achievement. In 2000 Japan awarded him with The Praemium Imperiale, the highest international honor for achievement in the arts. In 2001 Mr. Sondheim was granted the Fellows of the Phi Beta Kappa Society Award, and in 2002 he received the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Richard Rodgers Award. In 2007 he was a recipient of the 49th Grammy Trustees Award, recognizing outstanding contributions to the industry in a non-performing category.
For half a century, Stephen Sondheim has revealed the expressive possibilities of the musical theater art form. His music and lyrics are unprecedented in their complexity, sophistication, irony and beauty. He continues to revolutionize theatre and devotes time to mentoring young composers, including the late Jonathan Larson (Rent) and Adam Guettel, the grandson of famed composer Richard Rodgers. Mr. Sondheim currently resides in Manhattan and Connecticut.
References:
Who is Stephen Sondheim? The Stephen Sondheim Society. From http://www.sondheim.org/php/whoisss.php?m=3&s=0
Stephen Sondheim. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Sondheim
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