STEPHEN SONDHEIM
Selected Lyrics
from
Company &
Sweeney Todd
Sources
Sondheim, 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
COMPANY
Alvin Theatre (4/26/1970 - 1/1/1972)
Total Previews: 7 Total Performances: 705
Category: Musical, Drama, Original, Broadway
Setting: New York City. Now.
Produced by Harold Prince in association with Ruth
Mitchell
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by George Furth
Music orchestrated by Jonathan Tunick
Directed by Harold Prince
Musical Staging by Michael Bennett
Associate Choreographer: Bob Avian
Scenic Design by Boris Aronson
Costume Design by D.D. Ryan
Lighting Design by Robert Ornbo
Side By Side By Side
Fundraising REUNION production
Company (Concert staging of the show)
January 23, 1993 at the Terrace Theatre
Vivian Beaumont Theatre (4/114/12/1993)
Presented by Barry Brown
Broadway Cares / Equity Fights AIDS
and New York Magazine
Produced in association with
Lincoln Center Theater
Directed by Barry Brown
Revival Cast
Cast
Barbara Barrie
Susan Browning
George Coe
John Cunningham
Steve Elmore
Stanley Grover
Beth Howland
Dean Jones
Charles Kimbrough
Merle Louise
Patti LuPone
Donna McKechnie
Pamela Myers
Teri Ralston
Elaine Stritch
Sarah
April
David
Peter
Paul
Larry (replaced Charles Braswell)
Amy
Robert
Harry
Susan
Host
(not an original cast member)
Kathy
Marta
Jenny
Joanne
1995 Revival
Roundabout Theatre Company (Limited run)
Criterion Center Stage Right
(10/5/1995 - 12/3/1995)
Total Previews: 43
Total Performances: 60
Directed by Scott Ellis
Musical Staging by Rob Marshall
Scenic Design by Tony Walton
Costume Design by William Ivey Long
Lighting Design by Peter Kaczorowski
1995 Revival Cast
Danny 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: 246
Directed by John Doyle
Raúl Esparza
Keith Buterbaugh
Matt Castle
Robert Cunningham
Angel Desai
Kelly Jeanne Grant
Kristin Huffman
Amy Justman
Heather Laws
Leenya Rideout
Fred Rose
Bruce Sabath
Elizabeth Stanley
Barbara Walsh
Percussion
Trumpet, Trombone
Piano/Keyboards, Double Bass
Trumpet, Drums
Keyboard, Violin, Alto Sax
Flute, Alto Sax
Flute, Alto Sax, Piccolo
Piano/Keyboards, Orchestra Bells
French Horn, Trumpet, Flute
Violin, Guitar, Double Bass
Cello, Alto Sax, Tenor Sax
Clarinet, Drums
Oboe, Tuba, Alto Sax
Orchestra Bells, Percussion
Robert
Harry
Peter
Paul
Marta
Kathy
Sarah
Susan
Amy
Jenny
David
Larry
April
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.
Evolution
When 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:
TODD
We’ll not discriminate great from small.
No, we’ll serve anyone--!
MRS LOVETT
We’ll serve anyone--!
BOTH
And to anyone
At all!
Assassins
Link 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 to
name the show
that comes closest
to my expectations
for it, the answer
would 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 GEORGE
THE 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” from
Putting It Together
FINALE - “Move On”