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Stephen Sondheim.
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Sondheim, Stephen (1930—)
Stephen Sondheim is one of the most important creative personalities in the American musical theater of the late twentieth century. Like George M. Cohan and Cole Porte...
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Active in major Broadway productions of American musical theater beginning in 1957, composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim (born 1930) redefined the Broadway musical form with his innovative and award...
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"My experience with Sondheim musicals--and I expect that of most Sondheim enthusiasts--has inevitably been the same," New York Times theater critic Frank Rich once remarked. "One sits in a theater whe...
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Critical Essay by Martin Gottfried
["A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum"] has a book that is not only marvelous but without period in respect to its style. The Burt Shevelove...
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Critical Essay by Rex Reed
Authentic genius is never recognized until the genius is dead, so the saying goes, but Stephen Sondheim is proving it a lie. At forty-three he has composed the music and/or ...
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Critical Essay by Stephen Sondheim
It's hard to talk about lyrics independently of music, but I will try. Obviously, all the principles of writing apply to lyrics: grace, affinity for words, a ...
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Critical Essay by Douglas Watt
Although Sondheim's dazzling accomplishments as a rhymester appear to be uncontested, it is sometimes said that his composing doesn't measure up to his lyr...
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Critical Essay by Peter Reilly
[The album] "Side by Side by Sondheim" is a tribute, bouquet, what-have-you to the work of Stephen Sondheim, probably the most gifted and productive creati...
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Critical Essay by Martin Gottfried
It's difficult to see the sense in an all-Stephen Sondheim revue being done in a Broadway theater by an all-British cast, and it was even more difficult after...
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Critical Essay by William Anderson
Sondheim based his musical version [of Sweeney Todd] on a recent London stage play, and it is a positive feast (!) for English majors. There are traces of Jonathan S...
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Critical Essay by Paul Wittke
Sondheim's lyric ancestors are Oscar Hammerstein, Cole Porter, Noël Coward, and W. S. Gilbert. He may lack Porter's and Coward's nonchalant ga...
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Critical Essay by Edith Oliver
[In "Marry Me a Little"], a single young woman and a single young man, each living alone in an apartment in New York …, sing seventeen songs by Step...
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Critical Essay by Frank Rich
Mr. Sondheim has always functioned as a theater man first, a songwriter second. Unlike all but a few of his theatrical contemporaries, he has never aspired to write songs ...
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Critical Essay by Samuel G. Freedman
In his 13 shows—he wrote only lyrics for three, music and lyrics for the rest—Sondheim has staked out a turf as big as the emotional landscape of pos...
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In the following essay, Martin discusses the similarities and differences between Sondheim's work and opera, focusing on character, musical structure, orchestration, amplification, and musical ...
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In the following essay, Leithauser examines Sondheim's strong professional recognition despite the lack of finality in his productions, his dark motifs, his use of rhyme, and his complex charac...
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In the following essay, Fraser discusses the re-evaluation of American ideals in the seventies—specifically marriage, the women's movement, injustice of American society, and Western imp...
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In the following essay, Adler utilizes a number of critical approaches, including generic, formalist, and thematic, to assess Sondheim's dramatic philosophy as well as his contribution to Ameri...
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In the following essay, Lahr views Sondheim's musicals as emblematic of American disenchantment, inertia, and spiritual emptiness in the late twentieth century, deeming him “an entrepren...
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In the following essay, Van Leer elucidates the reasons for the mixed critical and popular reaction to Sondheim's musicals.
It may be hard these days to care much one way or the other about the...
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In the following essay, McLaughlin examines the theme of love in contemporary society in West Side Story, Company, Sweeney Todd, and Into the Woods.
The cliché about Stephen Sondheim's m...
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In the following essay, Block assesses Sondheim's dramatic output and investigates his place within the American musical theater tradition.
Running Long on Broadway After 1960
By 1960 Broadway ...
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In the following essay, Lewis traces Sondheim's development as a writer and composer.
One of the great ironies of musical theatre evolution was the strange sad saga of Oscar Hammerstein'...
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In the following essay, Lovensheimer argues that Sondheim dramatizes the figure of the outsider or outlaw in American musicals using “popular song styles in ways that subvert the connotations t...
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Sondheim, Stephen (1930—)
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Critical Essay by Martin Gottfried
