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.

Sondheim said: " As for the three songs ... going together well, I might as well confess.

" Bernadette Peters quoted Sondheim on the character of " Sally ": " He said early on that is off balance, to put it mildly.

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.

Sondheim said, " When my father left her, she substituted me for him.

" Sondheim then said of Babbitt, " I am his maverick, his one student who went into the popular arts with all his serious artillery.

Guare said working with Sondheim was like being with an old college roommate, they just talked and talked.

Sondheim said of the project, " I was ashamed of the whole project.

" In December 2007, however, Sondheim said that, along with continued work on Bounce, he was " nibbling at a couple of things with John Weidman and James Lapine.

Sondheim has said that he has " about 20 – 30 minutes of the musical completed.

Sondheim said of the project, " two people and what goes into their relationship ... We ’ ll write for a couple of months, then have a workshop.

The Cleveland Jewish News reported on the Oberlin event, writing: " Sondheim said: ' Movies are photographs ; the stage is larger than life.

Sondheim also wrote some new songs for a proposed Into the Woods film, including one entitled Rainbows, which Sondheim said will be in his second book ( to be published in October 2011 ).

In an interview in 2008, Sondheim said " There is a move afoot to do Follies movie with a well-known director and a well-known star, and I'm not going to tell you who they are.

Sondheim said of the naming, " I'm deeply embarrassed.

In an interview with Frank Rich, Sondheim said that " the outsider feeling – somebody who people want to both kiss and kill – occurred quite early in my life.

In August 2003, Stephen Sondheim responded to a question about his next project that he was interested in something like a theme and variations — possibly a musical adaptation of Groundhog Day ; however, in a 2008 live chat said that " to make a musical of Groundhog Day would be to gild the lily.

Sondheim has said of Peters, " Like very few others, she sings and acts at the same time ," he says.

Sondheim said of Tunick's work: " ' I think he's tops '..." and further noted that " Tunick is a standout in his field not only because of his musicianship and imagination, but primarily because of ' his great sensitivity to theatrical atmosphere.

Brown paraphrased what Sondheim said:

* The Stephen Sondheim musical Sunday in the Park With George uses the word gavotte as a satirical device in the otherwise irregular, non-steadily rhythmical, song " It's Hot Up Here " to start the second Act, " We're stuck up here in this gavotte.

But if Pacific Overtures is never going to be anyone's favorite Sondheim musical, it is a far more forceful and enjoyable evening at the Promenade than it was eight years ago at the Winter Garden ... Many of the songs are brilliant, self-contained playlets.

" The rest of the day was spent going over the musical, and Sondheim would later say that " in that afternoon I learned more about songwriting and the musical theater than most people learn in a lifetime.

Sondheim says that when he asked Babbitt if he could study atonality, Babbitt replied " You haven ’ t exhausted tonal resources for yourself yet, so I ’ m not going to teach you

The narrative and staging will be Mr. Laurent's handiwork ; music and lyrics that of Stephen Sondheim.

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.

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.

Sondheim questioned if he should write only the lyrics for another show, but Hammerstein told him writing for a star would be valuable experience.

Sondheim was invited to Robbins ' house, who unbeknownst to him, was trying to be convinced to write the lyrics to a musical adaption of The Exception and the Rule.

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 )".

It was announced in February 2012 that Sondheim will be collaborating on a new musical with David Ives.

These writers jointly set up the Mercury Workshop in 1992, which eventually merged with the New Musicals Alliance to become MMD, a UK-based organisation developing new musical theatre, of which Sondheim continues to be patron.

" Sondheim teaches that the former should be steeped in self-loathing, while the latter should emphasize regret.

Sondheim agrees that " t's an awkward moment in the lyric, but that v and that f should be separated.

Similarly, Sondheim insists that performers separately enunciate both " t "' s in line, " There ought to be clowns.

Laurents asked Sondheim if he would be interested in tackling the task.

Bernstein magnanimously removed his name as co-author of the lyrics, although Sondheim was uncertain he wanted to receive sole credit for what he considered to be overly florid contributions by Bernstein.

During the post-show Q & A session, one of the members of The Stephen Sondheim Society asked Mr. Sondheim if he would now allow the show to be performed publicly.

But my ambition was to be an English Sondheim.

In addition, Mr. Lippa produced the original cast recording of Bat Boy for RCA Victor and his singing voice can be heard on The Sondheim Album on Fynsworth Alley and If I Sing on PS Classics.

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.

In the late nineties, Sondheim reunited with Hal Prince for the musical comedy Wise Guys, a project that took a long time to complete that follows brothers Addison and Wilson Mizner.

Sondheim converted long passages of dialogue, and sometimes just a simple phrase like " A boy like that would kill your brother ", into lyrics.

Some of the shows he panned over his long career included the musically ambitious shows of Stephen Sondheim.