"I'm glad Mr. Herman cleared up that "rumor that the simple, hummable show tune (isn't) dead on Broadway."
Oh how I wish the director of the Tony Awards had switched the camera to Sondheim in his seat at that point!
I once encountered Jerry Herman at a West Hollywood bar called Numbers in 1997. I told him that I'd just seen Love! Valor! Compassion! and that the Mame cast album was featured. He told me that Angela Lansbury was doing "Mrs. Clause" for television for him. And he commented to my "companion" that I seemed like an "enchanting young man"
Re: the Tony awards comment. Maybe he meant that, maybe he didn't. He's insisted in interviews that he was not referring to Sondheim, but to the fact that - in general - he thought Broadway had moved on from the type of musical he wrote and that he was considered 'old hat' and was genuinely surprised and moved to have received another Tony at that stage in his career. He's also described Sondheim as a genius (pretty sure in some Broadway.com interview), so whether he's painting a rosier picture of the past or not, I think that in the present, he's handled this supposed controversy with a great deal of grace and that's probably all that matters now.