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

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 worked closely with book writer Arthur Laurents to create the show.

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.

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 ).

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:

Stephen Sondheim adapted The Frogs to a musical of the same name, using characters of George Bernard Shaw and William Shakespeare instead of the Greek playwrights.

More recent interviews include Woody Allen, Maya Angelou, John Ashbery, James Baldwin, Elizabeth Bishop, Ray Bradbury, Joseph Brodsky, Raymond Carver, R. Crumb, Don DeLillo, Joan Didion, Louise Erdrich, Jonathan Franzen, William Gaddis, Seamus Heaney, Michel Houellebecq, Eugene Ionesco, Milan Kundera, Fran Lebowitz, Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ian McEwan, Arthur Miller, David Mitchell, Haruki Murakami, Philip Roth, Salman Rushdie, Stephen Sondheim, Susan Sontag, George Steiner and Hunter S. Thompson.

Sondheim stated that Goldman wrote one or two drafts of the script and Sondheim wrote six and a half songs, only to have director Rob Reiner lose interest in the project.

* Follies ( based on the musical by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Goldman ) ( 2012 )

** Follies – Book by James Goldman, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

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

history, and Stephen Sondheim was present at the post-matinee talkback on April 10.

* Anyone Can Whistle on the Stephen Sondheim Reference Guide

* ' A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Sondheim Guide

( 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.

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.

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

20th century musicals based on Plautus include A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum ( Stephen Sondheim ).

In celebration of his 80th birthday, the Henry Miller's Theatre was renamed the Stephen Sondheim Theatre on September 15, 2010, and the The BBC Proms staged a concert in his honor.

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.

While at George School, Sondheim wrote a comic musical based on the goings-on of his school, entitled By George.

Thus began one of the most famous apprenticeships in the musical theatre, as Hammerstein designed a kind of course for Sondheim on the construction of a musical.

In 1954, Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics for Saturday Night, which was never produced on Broadway and was shelved until a 1997 production at London's Bridewell Theatre.

Sondheim would have liked to write the music as well, but Ethel Merman, the star, insisted on a composer with a track record.

Eventually Sondheim wrote both the music and lyrics for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

Guare heavily depended on Sondheim to help him " decode and decipher their crazy way of working.

Sondheim collaborated with producer / director Harold Prince on six musicals between 1970 and 1981.

" 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.

A revised version, Sondheim on Sondheim, was produced by the Roundabout Theatre Company and premiered on Broadway at Studio 54 in a limited engagement from March 19, 2010 in previews, opening April 22 through June 13.