If you’re a fan of musicals, you’ve been somehow touched by Stephen Sondheim. He was the lyricist behind West Side Story’s enchanting songs like “Maria”And “Tonight.”Sondheim provided the music, lyrics and music. Sweeney ToddAnd Into the WoodsYou can also enjoy so many Broadway classics like Little Night Music, CompanyAnd Follies. We are saddened to report the death of Sondheim at the age of 91.
The musical theatre legend died early Friday morning in Roxbury Connecticut. Per NBC NewsThe cause of his death remains unknown. Broadway and the world have lost one of the greatest musical geniuses ever, the composer who won the most Tony Awards and was also a Pulitzer Prize winner.
By the age of 27, Stephen Sondheim’s first show, West Side StoryBroadway, in the later ‘50s. Sondheim wrote the words to the songs set to be heard again in the upcoming Steven Spielberg remake against Leonard Bernstein’Sondheim’s compositions. Sondheim wrote many beloved musicals over the next 60 years.
His stories and subjects covered all aspects of his work. Sondheim wrote about a murderous barber. Sweeney Todd – The Demon Barber of Fleet StreetThe movie, which was later made into a movie with Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen, starred Sacha Baron Cohen in 2007. He wrote Sunday in the Park with GeorgeThis is a story about Georges Seurat (French post-impressionist artist). Sondheim looked deeply into the relationships between men and women. CompanyJapan, 19th Century Pacific Overtures and twisted the fairy tales we know and love for Into the Woods.
Stephen Sondheim also won an Oscar for the original songs he wrote for 1990’s Dick TracyHe was awarded eight Tony Awards and eight Grammys. He is credited with redefining American musicals and taking the themes to deeper places than any other works.
More to follow…