In the 1980s, Sondheim collaborated several times with playwright/director James Lapine. More Successes: 'Sunday in the Park' and 'Into the Woods' Pacific Overtures (1976) was partially inspired by haiku poetry and Japanese Kabuki theater, and 1981's Merrily We Roll Along was adapted from a 1934 play by George S. Sondheim became known for his witty, conversational lyrics, his seamless merging of words with music and the variety of his source materials. Sondheim won several more Tony Awards in the 1970s for his collaborations with producer/director Harold Prince, including the musicals Company (1970), a meditation on contemporary marriage and commitment Follies (1971), an homage to the Ziegfeld Follies and early Broadway A Little Night Music (1973), a period comedy-drama that included the hit song "Send in the Clowns" and Sweeney Todd (1979), a gory melodrama set in Victorian London destined to become a 2007 Tim Burton film. Broadway Hits: 'Company' and 'Sweeney Todd' It opened in 1962, ran for nearly 1,000 performances and won a Tony Award for best musical. After musical contributions to 1960's Invitation to a March, Sondheim then wrote both lyrics and music for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, a farce starring Zero Mostel based on comedies by ancient playwright Plautus. Sondheim's next theater project was similarly high profile: He teamed up with composer Jule Styne to write the lyrics for Gyps y, which opened in 1959 with Ethel Merman as its star. Writing the song lyrics for West Side Story, which opened in 1957, Sondheim thus became part of one of Broadway's most successful productions of all time. An acquaintance with director Arthur Laurents brought Sondheim into contact with composer Leonard Bernstein and choreographer Jerome Robbins, who were looking for a lyricist for a contemporary musical adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Returning to New York, he composed background music for the play The Girls of Summer in 1956.
#WAY TO THE WOODS COMPOSER SERIES#
In the early 1950s, Stephen Sondheim moved to Los Angeles, California, and wrote scripts for the television series Topper and The Last Word. Theater Beginnings: 'West Side Story' and 'A Funny Thing Happened' After graduating from the school in 1950, he studied further with avant-garde composer Milton Babbitt and moved to New York City. Sondheim attended Williams College, where he majored in music.
Sondheim also worked as an assistant on 1947's Allegro, one of Hammerstein's theater collaborations with composer Richard Rodgers, the experience having long-lasting implications on the young composer's approach to his work. Hammerstein in fact thought the project needed tons of work and offered honest criticism, which his protégé would later see as invaluable. In his teens, Sondheim had penned a satire about his school, the musical By George!, which he thought his mentor would love and thus asked for feedback. In Pennsylvania, Sondheim became friends with the son of Broadway lyricist and producer Oscar Hammerstein II, who gave the young Sondheim advice and tutelage in musical theater, and served as a surrogate father during a time of tumult. He began studying piano and organ at a young age, and he was already practicing songwriting as a student at the George School.
They divorced in 1942 and Sondheim moved to Doylestown, Pennsylvania, with his mother. His parents, Herbert and Janet (née Fox) Sondheim, worked in New York's garment industry his father was a dress manufacturer and his mother was a designer. Stephen Joshua Sondheim was born on March 22, 1930, in New York City. Known for the startling complexity of his lyricism and music, his major works for the theater also include A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park With George and Into the Woods. Sondheim's contributions to West Side Story and Gypsy in the 1950s brought him recognition as a rising star of Broadway. After early practice at songwriting, Stephen Sondheim's knowledge of musical theater was influenced by master lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, who served as a mentor.
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