Page "Stephen Sondheim" Paragraph 21

Sondheim's big break came when he wrote the lyrics to West Side Story, lyricizing Leonard Bernstein's music and Arthur Laurents's book.

When he was 25, Sondheim was introduced to Bernstein, who had heard Saturday Night and quickly hired him to write the lyrics to West Side Story.

The 1957 show, directed by Jerome Robbins, ran for 732 performances.

While this may be one of the best-known shows Sondheim ever worked on, he has expressed dissatisfaction with his lyrics, stating they do not always fit the characters and are sometimes too consciously poetic.

It has been rumored that while Bernstein was off trying to fix the musical Candide, Sondheim wrote some of the music for West Side Story, and that Bernstein ’ s co-lyricist billing credit mysteriously disappeared from the credits of West Side Story during the tryout, presumably as a trade-off.

Sondheim himself insisted that Bernstein told the producers to list Sondheim as the sole lyricist.