What's up with Sondheim?

 

It’s Not the Music. It’s Not the Lyrics. It’s the Drama.

 

 

The 750+ strong catalogue of songs created by Sondheim have left a lasting impact on Musical Theatre History.

 

 

What Sondheim shows have you experienced?

 

 

We're going to look at some of his songs and have a deep dive behind his composing process, his mantra for lyricism & his humanity within teaching over the course of these three weeks.

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

What do People say?

During the previews of Sunday in the Park With George on Broadway, I was struggling with the song Color and Light. Steve asked me to come to his home. He was wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants and said: “Sorry I didn’t dress up for you!” There had been some discussion about me painting each dot of colour with a different brush. I was confused but he was like: “I don’t care how many fucking brushes you use, just paint on rhythm. Each thought is the colour.”

 

People would ask me: “Aren’t you intimidated by him, his lyrics and his music?” No. What was there to be nervous about? I knew I was being looked after by a master. He’d done all the work for you. Just shut up and say the words.

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

Some moments in that show, when George sings, Steve tricks you. I’m still baffled, after doing it hundreds of times, by the order of some of the lyrics. Performing his songs, you don’t just experience something emotional – you walk yourself through a puzzle, you solve the crossword with the audience. By the end, your heart and brain have been exhausted. -  Jake Gyllenhall

What do People say?

Steve loves my husband and used to get stoned with him in our barn. We live in the same area of Connecticut and would meet up for afternoon tea. I remember we were once all at a magical full-moon party that Mia Farrow hosted. Mia has a lake on her property and I invited Steve to come out on the paddleboat with me. “Oh God,” I thought. “I have his life in my hands!”

 

At some point, we stared up and I said: “Look, the moon is chattering.” And Steve said: “Yes, the moon is talking!” His guard was down, my guard was down. It’s overwhelming to have a human connection like that with someone who is a master of the profession you were born into. I’m intimidated by him, as I am with all the people I admire, but he is incredibly charming. I think he was a little nervous on the paddleboat. We admired the lake, admired the ingenuity of a paddleboat, and I managed to get us back to shore.

 

- Patti Lupone

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

What do People say?

I knew him before he was the Stephen Sondheim, back when he was the handsome young man behind the piano in rehearsals for West Side Story. He had written these amazing lyrics and I was busy trying to learn them. His lyrics are like a fabulous piece of steak – there’s no fat, nothing to waste. It all tells a story clearly.

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

He, Lenny Bernstein and Jerry Robbins taught me how to breathe. You can’t sing America without being able to breathe – as a dancer and as a singer. What a beautiful time. I miss it so desperately. We need that respect for theatre – these people dared to tell a story and not for selfish reasons. Working with great people like Stephen has made me whatever I am today.

 

- Chita Rivera

What do People say?

The wild thing about Steve is that he continues to tweak musicals that I consider masterpieces. You have to stay on your toes to keep up with him. If you forget a Sondheim lyric mid-song, you’re not going to be able to throw just anything in there. You can’t improv because the trains of thought and rhyme schemes are so brilliant and work on such a high intellectual level.

 

He can also evoke incredible emotion. As a performer with young daughters, the song I sing over again is The Glamorous Life, which explores the feelings of a girl whose mother is a performer and gone most of the time.

 

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

 Steve can inhabit the mind of that girl just as well as the woman who sings The Ladies Who Lunch. I return to Sunday in the Park With George in the way some might a verse from the Bible. So much of what it means to be an artist is explored in that musical, which has my favourite lyric of his, from Move On: “Anything you do / Let it come from you / Then it will be new / Give us more to see.” As an artist, that is wisdom that cuts you to the core.

 

- Audra McDonald

What do People say?

I had a drip-feed of Sondheim songs at drama school and when I saw Assassins at Sheffield Crucible I was gobsmacked. Bizarrely my now husband, Hadley Fraser, was in it. I did A Little Night Music, Anyone Can Whistle, Sweeney Todd and then Company. We gender-flipped Company, with me playing Bobbie. Stephen had to give the go ahead for that to the director Marianne Elliott. It took a while to convince him but he did so on the basis that we were working together.

 

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

It was a bold step but in the end he couldn’t have been more supportive. We made the cast album with him, and it was incredible hearing his voice come through in the studio. He would give tiny, tiny notes. His humour is super-dry. In a lot of musicals, you have to labour the lyrics or the music – you have to mine it quite hard – to get the kind of results you do with his. We should all know more Sondheim. Sondheim everywhere, please!

 

- Rosalie Craig

What do People say?

When you suggest something to lesser talents, they put up defences and play dodgeball with you. They’re afraid. But when you work with a genius like Stephen, he wants to hear everything you have to say. When we were workshopping Sunday in the Park With George, he came to watch the scene where George draws his mother while she is singing. George’s part of that song wasn’t written yet and I knew Steve was coming. I was young and nervous. As we did the scene, I just sat there drawing and the tears flowed out of my eyes.

 

The run-through finished and Stephen said: “I’d like to talk to you.” We spoke about our similar journeys with our mothers – of trying to connect and the pain and darkness of missing that connection. Two or three days later, he presented me with this extraordinary poem set to music: it was my part of the song called Beautiful. Never before or since have I had that degree of collaboration in creating anything of that nature. A little bit of the dust of our conversation got into that song – and that is one of the thrills of my life.

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

When his words go through my system, they rejuvenate my mind and soul to a point of reminding me what it is I am trying to be alive for. I chose Being Alive as the final song of my concerts because he’s trying to tell us: “Wake up! This is it! Get with her or him, and love them and be loved – because you don’t get a second ride.” Stephen’s songs remain my prayers, my guide posts. They are mantras in our family. Along with my wife and children, he is one of the great gifts of my life.

- Mandy Patinkin

What do People say?

For Stephen’s 80th, I sang Happy Birthday to him at Studio 54. When we were doing the revue Sondheim on Sondheim, Stephen gave James Lapine a wonderful series of interviews about his life. They were shown on screen, and we would come out and sing whatever song was pertinent to that part of his life.

 

The biggest gasp from the audience was when he was talking about his mother, how she was the one who wanted to be the star and really did not want him as a child. He remembers getting a letter from her saying: “The one regret I have in life is having you.” In that moment, we came out and sang Children Will Listen from Into the Woods. The audience started crying. You realised that amazing song was so laden with pain and truth.

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

When I played the witch in Into the Woods in 2002, Stephen and James decided to tweak things. One day James was reading the latest fax from Stephen and it said: “The witch picks up the baby and places her bloody hand over the baby’s mouth and suffocates the baby.” It ended by saying I was supposed to eat the baby. I said: “If Stephen Sondheim wants me to eat the baby, I’ll eat the baby!”

- Vanessa Williams

What do People say?

I met him when I was starring in Sweeney Todd in Los Angeles. I wasn’t a classically trained singer and felt very green, but he was encouraging. He has an unbelievable songbook. My favourite is Not While I’m Around from Sweeney. There’s something so eerily beautiful about Mrs Lovett singing a lullaby to a boy knowing that he is probably next to go. The more you study the songs, the more understanding you gain. It’s as if it’s all encoded. I didn’t realise lyrics could be so clever and that their complications could, once solved, become exquisite simplicity.

 

Doing Assassins was a fantastic experience. It’s a test of alchemy. You’re getting a lot of eccentric musical-theatre performers to co-exist together in a dark, aggressive show. I was the counterpoint to that the balladeer playing a harmonica and singing about how positive things could and should be.

 

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

 They let me play Lee Harvey Oswald too, which was an interesting social statement. Audiences were polarised about Assassins. Stephen was interested in the idea of making a show that would press different buttons for different people. He was challenging people to have conversations about what assassination means, what striving to make a change means.

- Neil Patrick Harris

What do People say?

West Side Story was the reason I wanted to be in theatre. When I was at school, the older girls had the album. His lyrics are edgy, direct and simple. He tackles the big questions and asks us to look at things in a new way. It’s exhilarating meeting him because you’re aware of this big brain – but it is pretty scary as well.

 

I sang I’m Still Here in Follies in 2011 and he discussed practically every line really thoroughly. He would be very forthright and informative. He told me he wrote it for and about Joan Crawford. I jotted all of this down in a notebook. He was rather impressed and said I was the only person who’d done that.

 

There’s a line of his that goes, “Hey, lady, aren’t you whoozis?” because the guy can’t remember who she is. He said: “With that line, Elaine, I want you to imagine a cab driver in England looking in his rear-view mirror and saying, ‘Whatever happened to Elaine Paige?’” I said: “Oh great, thanks! Luckily it hasn’t happened yet!”

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

He told me to think what you’re singing and remember that less is more. Maybe he thought I’d been overselling I’m Still Here. That night, I tried to bring the song down, making it smaller and more simple. The audience went absolutely wild.

- Elaine Page

PerformanceS

The Leading Ladies"

For Sondheim's 80th Birthday, a celebration was put on at the Lincoln City Centre

 

A joyous collection of songs was penultimately structured before the grand finale.

​We will be studying the six songs from the Ladies in Red.

 

~Leading Ladies Folder

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

Company - Ladies Who Lunch  Patti Lupone.  

Clutching a copy of LIFE, just to keep in touch.  SCORE

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

Follies - Losing My Mind  Marin Mazzie

You said you loved . . . . me / Or were you just being kind / Or am I losing my mind? SCORE

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

a little Night Music - The Glamorous Life  Audrey Mcdonald

She's in her kingdom, wearing disguises, leading a life that is full of surprises... SCORE

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

Follies - Could I Leave You  Donna Murphy

Could I bury my rage, With a boy half your age, In the grass? Bet your ass SCORE

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

Merrily We Roll ALong - Not A Day Goes By  Bernadette Peters

And until I die, I'll die day after day after day, After day, After day after day after day. Till the days go by.  SCORE

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

Follies - I'm Still Here  Elaine Stritch

First you're another sloe-eyed vamp, Then someone's mother, then you're camp, Then you career from career to career. SCORE

 

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

Lyricism

You’ve got to get something on paper, it’s the only rule, it’s the only rule is you must get something down on paper so that you can look at it and start to work on it. All that writer’s block consist of is that that sensory that happens before the pencil hits the paper and that of course is death and that is the hardest thing to overcome."  - Sondheim

 

 

Sondheim on his Lyrics: Video below

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

Preface to Writing

 

 

 

Content Dictates Form / Less Is More /  God Is In The Details

all in the service of: Clarity

~Lecture Notes: Readings from Finishing The Hat

Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos”

PRINCIPLES

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

Company - Barcelona. [1:36:20]

Look, you're a very special girl, Not just overnight. .. SCORE

 

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

Into The Woods - Greens Greens

Rudding through my rutabagga raiding my arugula ripping up the Rampion MY CHAMPION MY FAVORITE!   SCORE

 

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

Sweeney Todd - A Little Priest

Mercy no, sir, look closer, You'll notice it's grocer! Looks thicker, More like vicar! No, it has to be grocer -- It's green!  

 SCORE

 

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

Blosse Musings on Sondheim's Lyrics

Straight Up Morals:

• Children Will Listen - Into The Woods "You are not alone. No one is alone"

Questioning Audience Perception [Elision Quests/Palindromic]:

• Attend the Tale of Sweeney Todd - Sweeney Todd

Perception Flip:

• Being Alive - Company   "Somebody hold me too close / Somebody hurt me too deep / Somebody sit in my chair and ruin my sleep / And make me aware / of being alive.”

Scintillating Alliteration Lyrics:

• Introduction - Into The Woods: "While Her Withers Whither With Her"

Dynamism/Contrasts:

• Into The Woods - Witches can be right. Giants can be good

Hidden Meanings:

• West Side Story - Tonight Quintet: Actually a Quartet, Maria & Tony Unison

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

~In A Tree - Case Study

History: American Acquisition of Japan

Detail:  Abstracting out history, what happens if a tree falls by itself?  

Questions: What is truly the big picture.  

*It’s the pebble not the stream.*

 

~Whiteboard Study

 

Treaty negotiations, behind walls, not recorded nor heard.  Hidden history making. The Japanese had Tatami mats with warriors underneath ready to alertacte the meeting if needed.

The song is sung by the reciter of Pacific Overtures, and an old man who he encounters who was ‘there’ outside the treaty house during the events; stunned the reciter asks what happened. He reminisces to the narrator what it was like when he was ten years old.  All whilst the warrior underneath heard.

 

Making Of: LINK           Song: 1:54:00

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

Music

And one for Mahler!

 

We will be musically dissecting three seminal works by Sondheim within a workshop format.

 

Into The Woods: Prologue

Sweeney Todd: The Ballad Of Sweeney Todd

Sunday In The Park With George: Sunday

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

Into The Woods - Prologue

We've no time to sit and dither / While her wither's wither with her!  

 SCORE - TEXT    -   Tangent 1, Tangent 2

 

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

Sweeney Todd - The Ballad Of Sweeney Todd

What happened then, well, that's the play / And he wouldn't want us to give it away / Not Sweeney  

 SCORE - VIDEO ANALYSIS

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE - SUNDAY

"Order" "Design" "Tension" "Composition" "Balance" "Light".  I can't read this word Dot  "Harmony" 

 SCORE                                    ~Final Tangent

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

FInal MOdule Seminar

A class at university in which a topic is discussed by a teacher and a small group of students

 

WE ARE NOW EDUCATED CRITICS - Trust what you know, and work with it.

~Lecture Notes

 

QUESTIONS YOU CAN NOW ANSWER
1. What are the distinctive attributes/features of Musical Theatre?
2. Which  practitioners/practices  have  informed  the  history  of  Musical Theatre?
3. What is the political/social imperative within theatre?

 

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

Our relationships to musical theatre / Our interest in that question / Our prejudices towards musical theatre against other forms / Musicals feel different to other forms of theatre / Are musicals capable of depth? / Archetypes of musical theatre / Superficiality / How much musical work is being made outside of London? / Is it a luxury, a treat, as something that’s very spectacle driven? / Technological revolution / Dominance of the West End as final goal for musicals and how this might create a paradigm / Can we create work that doesn’t actually want to “transfer” / Are the standards higher? / People can build relationships with musicals before they see the show

 

 

What are? / Why do? 

LINK

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical

Essay Coursework

Research a specific Musical[s]/Practitioner[s] and explore/examine how they adapted/contrasted their work to the current context of the time.

 

*New Deadlines*

Essay Title: 1st March -  ono

Essay Plan: 31st March -  wut

Essay: 25th April - plz

Musical Theatre

The Sondheim Musical