Sondheim, Stephen Joshua

Sondheim, Stephen Joshua (1930– ), American composer and lyricist, whose first music for the theatre was the incidental music for N. Richard Nash's Girls of Summer (1956). He then wrote the lyrics for two major musicals, West Side Story (1957; London, 1958) and Gypsy (1959; London, 1973). The first shows for which he wrote both music and lyrics were A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962; London, 1963), drawn from the comedies of Plautus, and the short-lived Anyone Can Whistle (1964). He wrote only the lyrics for Do I Hear a Waltz? (1965), but thereafter he was responsible for both words and music. In the 1970s he firmly established his pre-eminence with a series of brilliant and innovative musicals which extended the boundaries of the genre, the music and the densely packed lyrics being ever more closely integrated with the text. Company (1970; London, 1972), about the problems of marriage and bachelorhood, was followed by Follies (1971; London, 1987), in which a group of middle-aged ex-showgirls hold a reunion in a soon-to-be-demolished theatre where they had earlier performed. The operetta-like A Little Night Music (1973; London, 1975), which contains some of Sondheim's most hauntingly beautiful music, was based on Ingmar Bergman's film Smiles of a Summer Night. Pacific Overtures (1976) looks from the Japanese point of view at the opening up of Japan to American trade in the 19th century, the music making use of oriental instruments. Victorian London is the setting for Sweeney Todd (1979; London, 1980), which has more singing than spoken dialogue. His adaptation of Kaufman and Hart's play Merrily We Roll Along (1981), which moves back in time as the evening progresses, was a failure; but Sunday in the Park with George (1984; National Theatre, 1990), inspired by the French painter Georges Seurat, won the Pulitzer Prize. Into the Woods (1987; London, 1990) imagines the subsequent lives of Grimms' fairy-tale characters. From Company onwards his works (apart from the last two) were directed by Hal Prince.