Stephen Sondheim at Lincoln Center on Sunday — Page 2

Here's another report on the Sondheim-Rich sitdown.
Some bits:

"The tune of 'Somewhere' is one of those Lenny had been trying to get into shows for a very long time. And Lenny found a sucker."

"Hofstra College once played 'Merrily' backwards. We didn't find out until it was over or else we would have been there with the sheriff and shotguns." There was also a production of Company in England where Bobby shot himself at the end. Rich then asked, "He shot himself after “Being Alive”?"
Clearly upset, Sondheim said, “These directors feel they can improve a show. They have such contempt for the authors. We (the authors) know what we’re doing and they don’t. It’s contemptuous of them.”

Sondheim also confessed that he considers Sweeney Todd to be his homage to the 1945 horror film Hangover Square. “Whenever he (the lead character of the film) hears a high-pitched sound, he goes into a near-schizophrenic state and murders the nearest beautiful girl. I loved it.”

“One of my favouurite shows is The Wiz. It's the only show I wasn't involved with that I saw six times. It just works.”

The Ladies Who Lunch”
“I wrote the song for Elaine (Stritch), not for the character.” Beforehand, George Furth had described to Sondheim an anecdote where Stritch told a bartender, “Just give me a bottle of vodka and a floor plan.”

And in what was probably the least interesting revelation of the evening, Sondheim said that he prefers Macs to PCs, but does not own an IPOD. Wow!


Another report on the Evening

Sorry, just saw this question. When the question came up about Gypsy and whether this production had been the quintessential one, she kind of bristled. And then when he started answering saying that all of the actresses (naming them) brought their own quality to it, it sort of looked like she might have been nervous, but I'm sure that she and he had talked about this many times.

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