The following article first appeared in The Sondheim Review in Summer 2010 as part of the Following Sondheim series which focused on Sondheim’s impact on the next generation of musical writers. Since the dawn of time, Man has told tales of horror and devastation. Perhaps they serve as a warning. Perhaps they draw a community […]
Read More“Some Kind of Obsession”
At 11 years old and in the wake of his parents’ bitter divorce, Manhattan native Stephen Sondheim was shuffled off to live with his mother in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. This dark period in the burgeoning musician’s life changed course when he befriended Jimmy Hammerstein, the son of the legendary Broadway composer (and soon-to-be mentor to Sondheim), […]
Read MoreSondheim’s Emotional Striptease
The orchestra plays as the lights slowly rise. The music is military, heavy with marching drums. Two figures are in a bed making love; they are nude. The music builds to a crescendo matching the lovemaking. The couple is attractive, as are their voices—his baritone to her soprano. Thus starts the musical Passion. The two […]
Read MoreSend in the Clones
The following article first appeared in The Sondheim Review in Spring 2010 as part of the Following Sondheim series which focused on Sondheim’s impact on the next generation of musical writers. Click here to read Stephen Flaherty’s companion piece, More to Hear. I suspect that if you swabbed the inside of most theatrical lyricists’ mouths […]
Read MoreMore to Hear
The following article first appeared in The Sondheim Review in Spring 2010 as part of the Following Sondheim series which focused on Sondheim’s impact on the next generation of musical writers. Click here to read Lynn Ahrens’s companion piece, Send in the Clones. I moved to New York City on Wednesday, Sept. 15, 1982, with […]
Read MoreChurch had a real good time in GYPSY
See a full gallery of Gypsy photographs here. At age 22, Sandra Church originated the role of Louise in Jule Styne, Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim’s Gypsy staged by Jerome Robbins. She retired from the theater in the 1960s to pursue a career in the visual arts. She now lives in California. She sat down […]
Read MoreMore Stritch: End of Pretend (Chapter Four)
In 2014 when I arrived at The Dakota in Detroit for my second-to-last visit with Elaine Stritch, she was sitting up in her bed. Her arms and legs were noticeably thin. Those endless gams of hers had begun to look twig-like. For the first time, she looked frail and vulnerable. As I entered, her hair […]
Read MoreThe End of Pretend, Chapter 2
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is the second in a series of visits and conversations chronicling the late Elaine Stritch’s final acts. The first appeared in the April/May 2017 print edition of Everything Sondheim. After Elaine’s visit to DeSales University’s campus in January 2009, I sent flowers to her at The Carlyle. She called to thank me. […]
Read MoreAn Inventive “Cast” Party
Fiasco Theatre Company’s touring production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s cautionary tale of wishes (and witches), Into the Woods, ended its month-long stay in Los Angeles on May 14, 2017, and moved on to Dallas. But before departing LA’s Ahmanson Theatre, the company celebrated its residency in the City of Angels with — what […]
Read MoreNY Festival of Song Celebrated Sondheim
The tributes keep on coming. “Honoring Stephen Sondheim” was the theme of the 2017 New York Festival of Song’s spring gala on April 19, 2017. Leading the cast was Pamela Myers singing “Another Hundred People,” the song she belted into the world as the original Marta in Company. Also on the program: “You Must Meet […]
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