Stephen Joshua Sondheim (March 22, 1930 – November 26, 2021) was an American composer and lyricist. One of the most important figures in 20th-century musical theater, Sondheim has been praised for having “reinvented the American musical" with shows that tackle "unexpected themes that range far beyond the [genre's] traditional subjects" with "music and lyrics of unprecedented complexity and sophistication." His shows have been acclaimed for addressing "darker, more harrowing elements of the human experience," with songs often tinged with "ambivalence" about various aspects of life.
Sondheim's best-known works as composer
and lyricist include A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962),
Company (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973),
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979), Sunday in the
Park with George (1984), and Into the Woods (1987). He is also known for writing the lyrics for West
Side Story (1957) and Gypsy (1959).
Sondheim's accolades include nine Tony
Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Tony in 2008), an Academy Award, eight
Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, a Laurence Olivier Award, and a 2015 Presidential
Medal of Freedom. He also has a theatre
named for him on both Broadway and the West End in London. Sondheim has written film music, contributing “Goodbye
for Now" for Warren Beatty's 1981 Reds. He wrote five songs for
1990's Dick Tracy, including "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)",
sung in the film by Madonna, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Film adaptations of Sondheim's work
include West Side Story (1961), Gypsy (1962), A Funny Thing
Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966), A Little Night Music (1977),
Gypsy (1993), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007),
Into the Woods (2014), West Side Story (2021), and Merrily We
Roll Along (TBA).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Sondheim
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