STEPHEN SONDHEIMSelected Lyrics

fromCompany &

Sweeney Todd

SourcesSondheim, Stephen. FINISHING THE HAT. Collected Lyrics (1954-1981). New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2010.Sondheim, Stephen. LOOK, I MADE A HAT. Collected Lyrics (1981-2011). New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2011.Sondheim.com

COMPANYAlvin Theatre (4/26/1970 - 1/1/1972)

Total Previews: 7 Total Performances: 705Category: Musical, Drama, Original, BroadwaySetting: New York City. Now.Produced by Harold Prince in association with Ruth MitchellMusic and Lyrics by Stephen SondheimBook by George FurthMusic orchestrated by Jonathan TunickDirected by Harold PrinceMusical Staging by Michael BennettAssociate Choreographer: Bob AvianScenic Design by Boris AronsonCostume Design by D.D. RyanLighting Design by Robert Ornbo

Side By Side By Side

Fundraising REUNION productionCompany (Concert staging of the show)

January 23, 1993 at the Terrace Theatre

Vivian Beaumont Theatre (4/11-4/12/1993)

Presented by Barry BrownBroadway Cares / Equity Fights AIDS and New York MagazineProduced in association withLincoln Center Theater Directed by Barry Brown

Revival CastCast Barbara Barrie Sarah

Susan Browning April George Coe David John Cunningham Peter Steve Elmore Paul Stanley Grover Larry (replaced Charles Braswell) Beth Howland Amy Dean Jones Robert Charles Kimbrough Harry Merle Louise Susan Patti LuPone Host (not an original cast member) Donna McKechnie Kathy Pamela Myers Marta Teri Ralston Jenny Elaine Stritch Joanne

1995 RevivalRoundabout Theatre Company (Limited run)Criterion Center Stage Right (10/5/1995 - 12/3/1995)Total Previews: 43 Total Performances: 60

Directed by Scott EllisMusical Staging by Rob MarshallScenic Design by Tony WaltonCostume Design by William Ivey LongLighting Design by Peter Kaczorowski

1995 Revival CastDanny Burstein Paul Kate Burton Sarah Diana Canova Jenny Veanne Cox Amy Charlotte d'Amboise Kathy Jonathan Dokuchitz Peter Boyd Gaines Robert John Hillner David Jane Krakowski April LaChanze Marta Timothy Landfield Larry Debra Monk Joanne Patricia Ben Peterson Susan Robert Westenberg Harry

1996 London Revival

At Donmar Warehouse, under the direction of Sam Mendes

2008 Broadway

Ethel Barrymore Theatre, (11/29/2006 - 7/1/2007)Total Previews: 34 Total Performances: 246Directed by John Doyle

Raúl Esparza Percussion Robert Keith Buterbaugh Trumpet, Trombone Harry Matt Castle Piano/Keyboards, Double Bass Peter Robert Cunningham Trumpet, Drums Paul Angel Desai Keyboard, Violin, Alto Sax Marta Kelly Jeanne Grant Flute, Alto Sax Kathy Kristin Huffman Flute, Alto Sax, Piccolo Sarah Amy Justman Piano/Keyboards, Orchestra Bells Susan Heather Laws French Horn, Trumpet, Flute Amy Leenya Rideout Violin, Guitar, Double Bass Jenny Fred Rose Cello, Alto Sax, Tenor Sax David Bruce Sabath Clarinet, Drums Larry Elizabeth Stanley Oboe, Tuba, Alto Sax April Barbara Walsh Orchestra Bells, Percussion Joanne

2012 NY Philharmonic

In Sondheim’s words

THE “NOTION”A man with no emotional commitments

reassesses his life on his 35th birthday by reviewing the relationships with his married acquaintances and his girlfriends. That is the entire plot.It derives from a series of eleven brief one-act plays by George Furth (an actor). Most of them concerned two people in a relationship joined by an outsider.

EvolutionWhen Furth, Sondheim and Harold Prince decided to transform the plays into a musical, they made the “outside person” a single character: ROBERT (Bob, Bobby, Robby, Rob-o)

Opening Number

Bobby, come on over for dinner!We'll be so glad to see you!Bobby, come on over for dinner!Just be the three of us,Only the three of us--We loooooooooooove you!

Sondheim:“…in the title song of COMPANY the tight rhymes serve to reflect the joyless repetitiveness of Robert’s life, here the tone is one of easy sophistication, and more the sophistication of the lyricist than of the characters…”

“…crowded and incessant rhyming is something I deplore in the work of others (Ira Gershwin, in particular), but something I’m not always abel to avoid myself, I regret to say…”

Closing Number – Being Alive

Sondheim’s notes on BEING ALIVE“BEING ALIVE was not the first song intended for Robert’s climactic musical statement, it was the third. In an earlier version of the show, Amy reneges on her promise to marry Paul at the end of Act One, and Robert proposes to her at the end of Act Two. In that version, Kathy, the girl most suited to him, has just told him she’s leaving New York to get married and Robert, in his unrecognized despair, convinces himself that Amy is the girl for him. Singing, he wanders through all the rooms of his married friends, reflecting on the knowledge of married life he has accumulated throughout the evening…” We tried a song called MULTITUDES OF AMY, and a real downer of a song called HAPPILY EVERY AFTER (too much of a downer)…It was “Michael Bennett who came up with the idea of using the same technique of interlaced spoken voices from Roberts friends that we had used [earlier] to break through this moment of crisis. That suggested to me a song which could progress from complaint to prayer. Thus “Being Alive.”

SWEENEY TODD

THE NOTION…England in 1849 Sweeney Todd, a barber unjustly convicted and sent to an Australian prison, escapes and returns to London, determined to avenge himself on Judge Turpin, the man who convicted him. He allies himself with his former landlady, Nellie Lovett, but his plans to kill the Judge go awry and in his frustration he sets out to avenge himself on the world.

“SWEENEY TODD” has been called by people who care about cagtegories everything from an opera to a song cycle. When pressed, I have referred to it as a dark operetta…What it is really is a movie for the stage.”

2005 Revival

Tim Burton Film (2007)

ATTEND THE TALE

Sondheim on “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd”

“If ever there was an example of “God is in the details, “ it’s in the line that opens this show: “Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd.” Detail 1: the use of “attend” to mean “listen to” is just archaic enough to tell the audience that this will be a period piece. Detail 2: the idea of a “tale” suggests that the audience not take the story realistically but as a fable, and opens them up to accept the bizarrerie of the events which follow; it also promises a story that will unfold like a folk ballad, foreshadowing the numerous choruses of the song…Detail 3: the alliteration on the first, second and fourth accented beats of “atTEND the TALE of Sweeney TODD” is not only a microcosm of the AABA form of the song itself, but in its very formality gives the line a sinister feeling…

A Little Priest

Michael Cerveris and Patti Lupone

Sondheim on “A Little Priest”

“…a list song…made up of numerous professions and social positions, each little verse dealing with a different one. In order to keep the pattern going (and pattern recognition is essential to comic list songs—look at “Let’s Do It” and “Adelaide’s Lament” for two outstanding examples) I’d have to find a few other one-syllable professions or social positions such as “clerk” or “fop” which could spin off enough triple rhymes…”

Until 2007 I had always been bothered by the way I filled out the last quatrain: “Meaning anyone” is a stocking-stuffer, an unnecessary intensifier clearly present for the sole purpose of padding the quatrain into shape. It wasn’t until pondering changes for the movie of Sweeney Todd that it occurred to me to make a virtue of repetition instead of hiding it, and so the pair of conspirators sang:

TODDWe’ll not discriminate great from small.No, we’ll serve anyone--!MRS LOVETTWe’ll serve anyone--!BOTHAnd to anyoneAt all!

AssassinsLink to Sondheim.com

Sondheim on ASSASSINS“A book musical masquerading as a revue, featuring nine of the thirteen assassins who have attempted to kill the president of the United States.”

“…the score [consists] mostly of pastiches of different musical styles…”

“the structure of the show was to be a dreamlike vaudeville, skipping backward and forward in time (a hundred years worth) and would incorporate a number of different theatrical modes, from burlesque to melodrama, with a few straightforward stops in between.”

Unworthy of Your Love

“..if I were asked toname the showthat comes closestto my expectationsfor it, the answerwould be Assassins.…as far as I’m concerned, the show is perfect. Immodest that may sound, but I’m ready to argue it with anybody.

SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGETHE NOTION Act One concerns the French painter Georges Seurat and his creation of A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte which took more than two years to complete. Act Two deals with the artistic crisis experienced by his great-grandson, an American conceptual artist in his forties, named George.

AMONG HIS MOST FAMOUS LYRICS…“Art Isn’t Easy” fromPutting It Together

FINALE - “Move On”