Stephen Joshua Sondheim was an American composer and lyricist. Regarded as one of the most important figures in 20th-century musical theater, he is credited with reinventing the American musical. With his frequent collaborators Harold Prince and James Lapine, Sondheim's Broadway musicals tackled unexpected themes that ranged beyond the genre's traditional subjects, while addressing darker elements of the human experience. His music and lyrics are tinged with complexity, sophistication, and ambivalence about various aspects of life.
"Send In the Clowns" is a song written by Stephen Sondheim for the 1973 musical A Little Night Music, an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's 1955 film Smiles of a Summer Night. It is a ballad from Act Two, in which the character Desirée reflects on the ironies and disappointments of her life. Among other things, she looks back on an affair years earlier with the lawyer Fredrik, who was deeply in love with her, but whose marriage proposals she had rejected. Meeting him after so long, she realizes she is in love with him and finally ready to marry him, but now it is he who rejects her: He is in an unconsummated marriage with a much younger woman. Desirée proposes marriage to rescue him from this situation, but he declines, citing his dedication to his bride. Reacting to his rejection, Desirée sings this song. The song is later reprised as a coda after Fredrik's young wife runs away with his son, and Fredrik is finally free to accept Desirée's offer.
Bernadette Peters is an American actress and singer. Over a career spanning more than six decades, she has starred in musical theatre, television and film, performed in solo concerts and released recordings. She is a critically acclaimed Broadway performer, having received seven nominations for Tony Awards, winning two, and nine Drama Desk Award nominations, winning three. Four of the Broadway cast albums on which she has starred have won Grammy Awards.
Passion, the Passion or the Passions may refer to:
William Alan Finn is an American composer and lyricist. He is best known for his musicals, which include Falsettos, for which he won the 1992 Tony Awards for Best Original Score and Best Book of a Musical, A New Brain (1998), and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (2005).
James Elliot Lapine is an American stage director, playwright, screenwriter, and librettist. He has won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical three times, for Into the Woods, Falsettos, and Passion. He has frequently collaborated with Stephen Sondheim and William Finn.
Donna Murphy is an American actress, best known for her work in musical theater. A five-time Tony Award nominee, she has twice won the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical: for her role as Fosca in Passion (1994–1995) and as Anna Leonowens in The King and I (1996–1997). She was also nominated for her roles as Ruth Sherwood in Wonderful Town (2003), Lotte Lenya in LoveMusik (2007), and Bubbie/Raisel in The People in the Picture (2011).
Frank Hart Rich Jr. is an American essayist and liberal op-ed columnist, who held various positions within The New York Times from 1980 to 2011. He has also produced television series and documentaries for HBO.
Merrily We Roll Along is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by George Furth. It is based on the 1934 play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart.
Lonny Price is an American director, actor, and writer, primarily in theatre. He is best known for his New York directing work, including Sunset Boulevard, Sweeney Todd, Company, and Sondheim! The Birthday Concert. As an actor, he is perhaps best known for his creation of the role of Charley Kringas in the Broadway musical Merrily We Roll Along, Neil Kellerman in Dirty Dancing, and Ronnie Crawford in The Muppets Take Manhattan.
Laura Ann Osnes is an American actress and singer known for her work on the Broadway stage. She has played starring roles in Grease as Sandy, South Pacific as Nellie Forbush, Anything Goes as Hope Harcourt, and Bonnie and Clyde as Bonnie Parker, for which she received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical. She also starred in the title role of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella on Broadway, for which she received a Drama Desk Award and her second Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical.
Jordan Gelber is an American actor and singer. He has performed on Broadway in the musical Avenue Q, in All My Sons and in Elf the Musical, among other shows. He has also performed in many off-Broadway productions. He has a recurring role in the CBS TV show Elementary and in other television shows.
Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954–1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines, and Anecdotes is a memoir by American musical theatre composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim. It was published on October 29, 2010 by Alfred A. Knopf, and is 444 pages. The second volume, Look, I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981–2011) with Attendant Comments, Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Wafflings, Diversions and Anecdotes, was published on November 22, 2011, by Alfred A. Knopf and is 480 pages. These two volumes were sold together in late 2011 as a box set titled Hat Box, The Collected Lyrics of Stephen Sondheim. Together, these books include the collected lyrics from Sondheim's entire musical theater, film, and television careers, as well as details about the process of making these works and Sondheim's opinion and critique of his own work.
"America" is a song from the 1957 musical West Side Story. Stephen Sondheim wrote the lyrics and Leonard Bernstein composed the music.
Sunday in the Park with George is a 1984 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. It was inspired by the French pointillist painter Georges Seurat's painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. The plot revolves around George, a fictionalized version of Seurat, who immerses himself deeply in painting his masterpiece, and his great-grandson, a conflicted and cynical contemporary artist. The Broadway production opened in 1984.
Sondheim on Sondheim is a musical revue consisting of music and lyrics written by Stephen Sondheim for his many shows. It is conceived and directed by James Lapine. The revue had a limited run on Broadway in 2010.
Into the Woods is a 2014 American musical fantasy film directed by Rob Marshall, with a screenplay by James Lapine based on his and Stephen Sondheim's 1987 Broadway musical of the same name. Produced by Walt Disney Pictures, it features an ensemble cast that includes Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, James Corden, Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine, Tracey Ullman, Christine Baranski, Lilla Crawford, Daniel Huttlestone, MacKenzie Mauzy, Billy Magnussen, and Johnny Depp. The film is centered on a childless couple who set out to end a curse placed on them by a vengeful witch, and the characters are forced to experience the unintended consequences of their actions. It is inspired by the Grimm Brothers' fairy-tales of "Little Red Riding Hood", "Cinderella", "Jack and the Beanstalk", and "Rapunzel".
"Bash" is the fifteenth episode of the fifth season of the American musical television series Glee, and the 103rd episode overall. Written by Ian Brennan and directed by Brad Buecker, it aired on Fox in the United States on April 8, 2014. Special guest star Whoopi Goldberg returns as NYADA dean Carmen Tibideaux, and the episode features several songs by Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim.
"No One Is Alone" is a song by Stephen Sondheim from the musical Into the Woods, performed toward the end of Act II as the piece's penultimate number.
Stephen Sondheim was an American composer and lyricist whose most acclaimed works include A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), Company (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979), Sunday in the Park with George (1984), and Into the Woods (1987). He is also notable as the lyricist for West Side Story (1957) and Gypsy (1959).
