Sondheim Interview
Sondheim Interview
MargoChanning
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/5/04
#0Sondheim Interview
Posted: 9/24/06 at 2:37am
Sondheim is crouching in the back in the middle of the photo
From the Sunday Times on being an apprentice at the Westport Country Playhouse in 1950:
"IN the summer of 1950, immediately after graduating from Williams College, Stephen Sondheim joined a class of about a dozen apprentices at the Westport Country Playhouse in Connecticut. He was 20 but not totally untested: he had written two shows in college, one of which was staged. He had won a composition prize that would help finance his further studies. And Oscar Hammerstein II, a neighbor from previous summers in Bucks County, Pa., had been giving him assignments in musical theater writing, critiquing the results without condescension.
Still, he had not moved many sets or called lighting cues from a booth and didn’t yet have the practical knowledge of stagecraft that would eventually inform his scores, helping to create the seamless style of works like “Company” and “Sweeney Todd” decades later. And if there’s one thing a summer theater apprenticeship can deliver on, among the many things it necessarily cannot, it’s the promise of plenty of time spent living the less glamorous life backstage.
Now 76, Mr. Sondheim — who is at work on another rewrite of what he called “the show formerly known as Bounce” as well as the movie version of “Sweeney Todd” — is returning to Westport, this time more glamorously. On Monday night he will be the subject of a musical tribute staged by John Doyle and the drawing card at a benefit dinner whose hosts are Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman. In anticipation of the evening, he spoke with Jesse Green about his experiences as an apprentice 56 years ago. Excerpts from the conversation follow.
Q. Why did you apply for the apprenticeship at Westport? You had already been apprenticed, in a way, to no less a mentor than Oscar Hammerstein.
A. I was Oscar’s assistant, basically a gofer, on “Allegro,” in 1947 but had no other professional theater experience. And Westport, which was half an hour from where my father and stepmother had a home in Stamford, was in those days the most prestigious summer theater in the country. Starting in the fall I was going to be studying composition with Milton Babbitt in the city, so why not take the summer in the country?
Q. After you were accepted, you wrote a letter asking Westport if you could come late, explaining that you wanted a few days between “the ivory tower of education” and “the cold, cruel world.” Tongue in cheek, no doubt, but did you see a big difference between those environments?
A. Nah. I just wanted a week off.
Q. Theater apprenticeship programs often boast that apprentices will learn more about the stage in 12 weeks than in four years of classes at college. Is that possible?
A. Sure. You learn about all the intricacies of putting on a play: how many people are necessary to make a moment work onstage, from the writers to the stagehands. I’d already seen a lot of that on “Allegro,” but at Westport I got to work with nonmusicals and have different actual jobs instead of just fetching coffee and typing scripts. Now the best way to learn the theater, always, is to be a stage manager, and one of the great things about the Westport program was that you got to be an assistant stage manager on at least one show during the summer. I got to do it on a show called “My Fiddle’s Got Three Strings,” directed by no less than Lee Strasberg and starring Maureen Stapleton. It was my first taste of the Actors Studio. When the actors started reading, I couldn’t hear one word. You want to talk about mumbling.
Q. So you got to work closely with top professionals?
A. Well, that’s too grand. It was more like, “Steve, will you close that door?”
Q. But did you learn anything from your exposure to them?
A. These were touring companies; remember, these were the days when people like the Lunts toured. Going to Westport was not beneath you after playing the Palace. So there wasn’t that much chance to get to know them. But I do remember being wildly impressed. When rehearsals started for “Fiddle,” we were all sitting around, the cast and the crew and little pisher me, and Lee Strasberg starts to talk about the play, and I thought: This is simply the most brilliant man I’ve ever listened to in my life. Three weeks later I’m looking at the dress rehearsal, and the stage is a complete mess. A two-tiered set with living room down and bedroom up, and so much business going on you don’t know where to look. It was disastrously directed. But I learned a valuable lesson: There is a difference between theory and practice. To listen to what Strasberg said was amazing. To see it was terrible."
For the rest of the article:
The Prop Fetcher of 1950, With Quite a Future Ahead
#1re: Sondheim Interview
Posted: 9/24/06 at 2:53amsounds like an amazing benefit!
#2re: Sondheim Interview
Posted: 9/24/06 at 9:13am
As if I wasn't already excited enough about going to this benefit. Benanti/Chenowith/Cook/Lupone under Doyle's direction for a one-night-only event seems like some sort of theatrical oleanna. I promise to file a full report on Tuesday.
A Good Nightmare Comes So Rarely,
P genre
Johnnytoc
Broadway Star Joined: 12/19/04
#4re: Sondheim Interview
Posted: 9/24/06 at 9:24amHe's an amazing man. This benefit looks to be awesome.
#5re: Sondheim Interview
Posted: 9/24/06 at 10:02am
Love the Strasberg story. Too funny! My father said the exact same thing to me. He took a directing class from Strasberg in the '50s, and said Lee was absolutely terrible as a director and teacher of directing.
Lee was a great acting teacher, though, but he had no idea how to step back and get the "bigger picture." Too mired in the details.
"Disastrous" is a good word for it.
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