Stephen Sondheim and Stephen Schwartz, who else do you need? Essentially, the program works like this: Young writers present excerpts from their musicals for the panel to critique and share their opinions. Ever hear of a play calledTick, Tick, Boom? I’ve heard the title, but I am not familiar with the storyline. But you know Jonathan Larson?
Yes. And every word to RENT. Well Tick, Tick, Boom is his first play and mostly auto-
biographical. It’s about a writer who is approaching 30 and still has not written a play, he thinks he is running out of time. There is a scene in the play when the main character publicly presents some of his material to a panel and Sondheim is on it. That is a real scene from Johnathan’s life. When he was at our workshop, Sond- heim was there—I wouldn’t say he became Johnathan’s mentor; but he helped him a bit. Sondheim and I also worked together five years ago
michael a. kerker Can you tell me about a particularly special moment during
one of your interviews or an unforgettable story? I love to capture unique stories during my interviews.
When I interviewed Jerry Herman, the great Jerry Her- man, that was quite an exciting night. You know who he is? He wrote a little show calledMame. Yes, [laughs] that starred Angela Lansbury. Yes, that was Angela Lansbury’s big career break,
Mame. Well, during the interview Jerry talked about how that was a very difficult role to cast—in addition to being talented at singing and dancing, the actress had to have a certain sense a class as well as madcap. At the time, virtually every Broadway leading lady wanted that part. Well Jerry was not really impressed with any of them. But he remembered and this ties back to Steve—Jerry remembered a gal he had seen in Sondheim’s Anyone Can Whistle. The show didn’t do well, it only had a nine week run, but he saw it and he saw Angela. He thought of her and remembered her part, the character role she played. Well, the producers were not too enthusiastic about auditioning an unknown, but Jerry really felt she could do it. He looked her up, invited her to his home and together they rehearsed three songs so she could be really prepared when she came in to audition. He had never done that for anyone before. Then for her audition he snuck into the pit and played for her and she got the part. It’s really an insider story. Have you previously worked with Mr. Sondheim? He and I both participate in ASCAP new work
workshops that are held in L.A. and New York. He is fre- quently a guest panelist on the workshop with Stephen Schwartz. Well, it’s not really a big panel, once you have
when he turned 75. ASCAP decided we would create something, a foundation or a special project in his name. The project, Children Will Listen [named after the song fromInto the Woods] was created so that kids from low- income schools could go and see a musical. We take 100 kids at a time and we also go in to classrooms, bringing songwriters to the school. Each year Steve joins us for a fundraiser to replenish the funds, it’s an intimate dinner affair. Can you tell me a little bit about how he works—when he is creating—the setting he chooses to work within? Well, I don’t want to give away too much, but I can tell
you he writes mostly at home, sometimes at his desk, often on his sofa. He always writes on legal paper and always in a particular brand of pencil. In fact when he heard the factory was going to close, he bought hun- dreds of them. One of the greatest things about writing long hand is you can save everything you write, go back and see when and where they changed words—crossed out a word or rewrote a section. We don’t have that any- more. With computers, we only see the final draft. ASCAP is going to be 100 years old and we will have an exhibit at the Lincoln Center. We are having trouble collecting original manuscripts of our most contemporary writers because, well, they don’t exist. With your great admiration for song, have you tried your hand at songwriting? No, but I am lucky and privileged to work for songwrit-
ers. They are different than performers. What they create becomes part of our lives. We all have our own personal attachment to a song. Somebody had to sit down with a piece of paper, pencil, or a computer to write those words. Songwriters can affect all of us with one word.
Stephen Sondheim: In Conversation One night only, Saturday, October 29 at 8 p.m. For tickets and more information, call 714.556.2787 or online at
scfta.org.
* Born in 1930, Stephen Sondheim started piano lessons at the age of seven. As fate would have it, after his parents divorced in 1940, he and his mother moved to rural Pennsylvania and became acquainted with the neighbors, Oscar Hammerstein II and his family. * Sondheim wrote his first full-length play with friends at the age of 15. Entitled By George, it was written for the school musical at George School in Newtown, Pennsylvania. * In 1946 Sondheim entered Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, intending to major in mathematics. During his summer vacation he took a job as a gopher on the set of Rodgers’ and Hammerstein’s Allegro. By May, 1948 his playPhinney’s Rainbowwas performed at Williams College and in March, 1949 the school put on another Sondheim show, All That Glitters. * In 1950 Sondheim graduated from Williams (magna cum laude) and received the Hutchin- son Prize, which allowed him to study under Milton Babbitt. He began to write for television and some occasional tunes for upcoming Broadway shows. His big break came when he was selected to write the lyrics for West Side Storyin 1956. * Over the course of his 81 years, Stephen Sondheim has garnered an Academy Award, eight Tony Awards, including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize. His most famous scores include (as both com- poser/lyricist) A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, andAssassins. * On September 15, 2010, in honor of his 80th birthday, the Henry Miller Theatre was renamed the Stephen Sondheim Theatre.
STEPHEN SONDHEIM
SEPTEMBER 2011 | RAGE monthly 23
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