Stephen Sondheim

His father manufactured the dresses his mother designed, and when the marriage ended she kept the son and used him as a replacement for the husband. His own account of it was that she treated him like dirt and came on to him at the same time. She once sent him a letter saying the only regret of her life was giving him birth. He was about ten when he befriended a boy named James Hammerstein and acquired, in James's father Oscar, the parent he did not have. At 16 he handed Hammerstein a musical he had written for his Quaker boarding school and asked to be judged as a professional. Hammerstein told him it was the worst thing he had ever seen, then spent the entire afternoon on why.

He studied composition with Milton Babbitt once a week, four hours at a stretch, and wrote show tunes the rest of the time. Hammerstein told him to take the lyricist's job on West Side Story, and Ethel Merman's casting demand made him a lyricist again on Gypsy, and he resented both for years. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in 1962 was the first Broadway score that was entirely his. Then came the run that changed what a musical could be about — Company in 1970, a show with no plot on whether to marry, then Follies, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, Assassins, Passion. Eight Tony Awards, eight Grammys, an Academy Award for a Madonna song, and the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Merrily We Roll Along opened in 1981, was savaged, and closed inside two weeks. He said he wanted to find something to satisfy himself that did not involve Broadway, and he did not work with Harold Prince again for 22 years. The commercial record generally sits badly against the reverence — Passion won the Tony for best musical and ran 280 performances, the shortest run of any winner. The private record is starker. He spent roughly 25 years in analysis, came out at 40, did not live with a partner until he was 61, and said in 2013 that he had not been in love with anybody before he turned 60. When his mother died in 1992 he was in London and did not come back for the funeral. They had not spoken in nearly 20 years.

He died at home in Roxbury, Connecticut, on November 26, 2021, of cardiovascular disease, at 91, in his husband's arms. The West End dimmed its lights for two minutes three days later, Broadway for a minute in December. His estate, valued near 75 million dollars, went into a trust whose beneficiaries included his husband Jeffrey Romley, his collaborator James Lapine, his former partner Peter Jones, his old assistant, his gardener, the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress. Theaters on Broadway and in the West End already carried his name. Interest in the catalogue rose sharply after he died, the reverse of the usual order, and a last show written with David Ives opened at the Shed in September 2023.

Stephen Sondheim's life against the full span of the corpus.

• West Side Story other
  Lyrics only, to Leonard Bernstein's music — he was never satisfied with them 1957
• Gypsy other
  Lyrics to Jule Styne's music, after Ethel Merman refused a novice composer 1959
• Company other
  Music and lyrics — a musical with no plot, about whether to marry 1970
• A Little Night Music other
  Written largely in waltz time. It contains Send in the Clowns. 1973
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street other
  Eight Tony Awards from nine nominations 1979
• Sunday in the Park with George other
  The 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, shared with James Lapine 1984

• 1946 aged ~16 Writes By George at school and asks Oscar Hammerstein to judge it honestly Hammerstein called it the worst thing he had ever seen, then spent the afternoon explaining why.
• 1950 aged ~20 Graduates magna cum laude from Williams College A prize fellowship paid for two years of study with the composer Milton Babbitt.
• 1957 aged ~27 West Side Story opens on Broadway with his lyrics It ran 732 performances. He thought the lyrics too consciously poetic for the characters.
• 1962 aged ~32 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum opens — his first Broadway score It ran 964 performances and won six Tony Awards.
• April 26, 1970 aged 40 Company opens at the Alvin Theatre It began the collaboration with Harold Prince that ran through the 1970s.
• 1981 aged ~51 Merrily We Roll Along closes inside two weeks and he considers leaving the theater He and Prince did not work together again until 2003.
• 1985 aged ~55 Sunday in the Park with George wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama Shared with his collaborator James Lapine.
• 2017 aged ~87 Marries Jeffrey Scott Romley He had come out at 40 and first lived with a partner at 61.
• November 26, 2021 aged 91 Dies of cardiovascular disease at home in Roxbury, Connecticut

• Leonard Bernstein 1918–1990
  Conductor, composer, and educator who brought classical music to mass audiences and reshaped American musical theater. wrote lyrics for
• Madonna b. 1958
  The Queen of Pop who reshaped the music industry and became a symbol of female empowerment and reinvention. sang his Academy Award song
• George Gershwin 1898–1937
  Composer who fused jazz, popular song, Broadway, and concert music into a distinctly American style. studied his songs with Babbitt
• Irving Berlin 1888–1989
  Songwriter whose vast catalog, from 'God Bless America' to Broadway standards, helped define the American popular songbook. predecessor on Broadway
• Cole Porter 1891–1964
  Composer and lyricist of Broadway standards including Anything Goes and Kiss Me Kate. predecessor in lyric writing
• Aaron Copland 1900–1990
  Composer whose accessible modernist works created an enduring musical language associated with American landscapes and identity. contemporary in American composition