In an interview, Peters said that Sondheim had " proposed the idea to her this spring and urged the producers of the revival to cast her.

Most biographers blame Lerner's professional decline on the lack of a strong director with whom Lerner could collaborate, as Neil Simon did with Mike Nichols or Stephen Sondheim with Harold Prince ( Moss Hart, who had directed My Fair Lady, died shortly after Camelot opened ).

( 1965 ), for which he had written the lyrics to Richard Rodgers's music, Sondheim decided that he would henceforth work only on projects where he could write both the music and lyrics himself.

These plans also did not work out, and finally Harold Prince, who had worked previously with Sondheim, became the producer and director.

He had agreed to work on The Girls Upstairs if Sondheim would agree to work on Company ; Michael Bennett, the young choreographer of Company, was also brought onto the project.

As an only child of well-to-do parents living in the San Remo on Central Park West, he is described in Meryle Secrest's biography, Stephen Sondheim: A Life, as having had an isolated and emotionally neglected childhood.

Sondheim told Secrest that Kern had the ability " to develop a single motif through tiny variations into a long and never boring line and his maximum development of the minimum of material.

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.

At this point, Sondheim had participated in three straight hits.

After completing Evening Primrose, Jerome Robbins had tried to convince Sondheim to adapt Bertolt Brecht's The Measures Taken, but Sondheim admitted that he did not like the play and did not like a lot of his work.

Stuart Ostrow, who had ties with Sondheim with The Girls Upstairs ( later titled Follies ), agreed to produce the musical, now entitled A Play By Brecht ( later titled The Race to Urga ).

The two known songs that had Sondheim contributions are " In There " from the adaption of The Exception and the Rule ( which would later be named The Race to Urga ) and a cut song from West Side Story " Kids Ain't ( Like Everybody Else )".

According to Martin Gottfried, " Sondheim had set out to write traditional songs ...

Pacific Overtures ( 1976 ) had music and lyrics by Sondheim and a book by John Weidman.

Gilbert consented and offered to write the book ; but Sondheim declined, having already had collaborator John Weidman in mind.

Lapine created a " multimedia revue ", formerly titled Sondheim: a Musical Revue, which had been scheduled to premiere in April 2009 at the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta, Georgia.

" Sondheim and Rich had more conversations on January 18, 2009 at Avery Fisher Hall, on February 2, 2009 at the Landmark Theatre, Richmond, Virginia, on February 21, 2009 at the Kimmel Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and on April 20, 2009 at the University of Akron College of Fine and Applied Arts, EJ Thomas Hall, Akron, Ohio.

* Sondheim had a guest part on The Simpsons episode " Yokel Chords " as himself ( 2007 ).

The Center opened with performances from seven Broadway performers, including Len Cariou, Liz Callaway, and Richard Kind, all of whom had taken part in the musicals of Sondheim.

According to Sondheim, " Glynis had a lovely, crystal voice, but sustaining notes was not her thing.

In New York, Laurents went to the opening night party for a new play by Ugo Betti, and there he met Sondheim, who had heard that East Side Story, now retitled West Side Story, was back on track.

Gilbert consented and offered to write the book ; but Sondheim declined, having already had collaborator John Weidman in mind.

The lyrics and music were by Leonard Bernstein, with additional lyrics from other lyricists, including Sondheim.

* By Bernstein ( 1975 )- music and lyrics by Leonard Bernstein, additional lyrics by Betty Comden, Adolph Green, John Latouche, Jerry Leiber, and Stephen Sondheim ; written and conceived by Comden and Green, with Michael Bawtree, Norman L. Berman and the Chelsea Theatre Center.

On April 28, 2002, during the Sondheim Celebration at the Kennedy Center, Sondheim and Frank Rich of the New York Times held a " conversation ".

A few years later, when he was invited by Hal Prince to write the score for a film remake starring Angela Lansbury as a fading musical comedienne rather than a silent film star, Sondheim declined, citing his conversation with Wilder.

A Little Night Music is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler.

Anyone Can Whistle is a musical with a book by Arthur Laurents and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

Eager to work with both Laurents and Sondheim, Angela Lansbury accepted the lead role as Mayoress Cora Hoover Hooper, despite her strong misgivings about the script and her ability to handle the score.

Also, according to Sondheim, " Lansbury was so insecure onstage, and unhappy with her performance, that we considered replacing her.

Steven Suskin wrote: The " fascinating extended musical scenes, with extended choral work, ... immediately marked Sondheim as the most distinctive theatre composer of his time.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart.

Follies is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman.

He continues to appear in live stage shows, including Barbra Streisand's memorable birthday party for Stephen Sondheim at the Hollywood Bowl, in which he appeared with Angela Lansbury, performing selections from Sweeney Todd.

In 1983 he performed on the demo of the Stephen Sondheim – James Lapine production Sunday in the Park with George, starring Mandy Patinkin.

He is a noted interpreter of the musical works of Stephen Sondheim, and is best known for his work in musical theatre, originating iconic roles such as Georges Seurat in Sunday in the Park with George and Che in the original Broadway production of Evita.

The show, which lasted for 871 performances during its initial run, featured sketches written by Mad regulars Stan Hart and Larry Siegel interspersed with comedic songs ( one of which was written by an uncredited Stephen Sondheim ).

The New York Times review of the original 1976 production said " The lyrics are totally Western and — as is the custom with Mr. Sondheim — devilish, wittily and delightfully clever.

Mr. Sondheim is the most remarkable man in the Broadway musical today — and here he shows it victoriously ... Mr. Prince's staging uses all the familiar Kabuki tricks — often with voices screeching in the air like lonely sea birds — and stylizations with screens and things, and stagehands all masked in black to make them invisible to the audience.

In Four Black Dragons various peasants describe the arrival of the American ships with escalating panic, until finally the nightmarish event does seem to be, as claimed, the end of the world .... Someone in a Tree, is a compact Rashomon-and as fine as anything Mr. Sondheim has written ... The single Act II triumph, Bowler Hat, could well be a V. S. Naipaul tale set to music and illustrated with spare Japanese brushstrokes ... Bowler Hat delivers the point of Pacific Overtures so artfully that the rest of Act II seems superfluous.

In his interview with Meryle Secrest, Sondheim explained that he was “ what they call an institutionalized child, meaning one who has no contact with any kind of family.

At about the age of ten, around the time of his parents ' divorce, Sondheim became friends with James Hammerstein, son of the lyricist and playwright Oscar Hammerstein II.

It was at the opening of South Pacific, the musical Hammerstein wrote with Richard Rodgers, that Sondheim met Harold Prince, who would later direct many of Sondheim's shows.

This training primarily involved having Sondheim write four musicals, each with one of the following preconditions: