[STEPHEN SONDHEIM, spoken] My first professional show, which is when I was twenty-three years old, was called Saturday Night. It was based on a play called Front Porch in Flatbush, which had been written by two well-known screenwriters, Philip and Julius Epstein. They had among other things written Casablanca. And they had written about their...Learn More

[STEPHEN SONDHEIM, spoken] Hal Prince and I did six shows together. The last one we did on Broadway was called Merrily We Roll Along. And the irony of that being the last show that we did together was that Merrily We Roll Along deals with a partnership. It's a partnership between two songwriters that splits and they go their separate...Learn More

[STEPHEN SONDHEIM, spoken] Sometimes a song changes its shape and texture drastically as you write it. This happened in Follies. Follies is a show about a reunion of chorus girls on the stage of their old theater. It's a party, and one of the girls is reminiscing with another one's husband about their younger days. While doing so, they are shadowed...Learn More

[BYSTANDERS] You can gripe All you like, You can sneer, “Where are the heroes?” You can shout about How everything’s a lie. Then that flag goes by… You can snipe At the greed, At the need To be a winner, At the hype You keep hearing From on High, And you think, “Why try?” And you want to cry. Then that flag goes by, And you think, “That’s...Learn More

[STEPHEN SONDHEIM, spoken] For many years, Hal Prince was a producer on Broadway before he became a director. And in fact he co-produced West Side Story and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. But the first time we worked together with him as a director was on Company. That was in 1969.  [COMPANY] Bobby Bobby Bobby baby Bobby...Learn More

[STEPHEN SONDHEIM, spoken] My name is Stephen Joshua Sondheim. The Stephen and the Joshua come from the Bible. My parents were not religious, but they didn't know what to call me, so they merely stuck their finger in the Bible and came out with those two names. In fact I was called Josh until I was ten years old.  My father, Herbert Sondheim, was...Learn More

[STEPHEN SONDHEIM, spoken] Ten years after I was born, my parents were divorced and my mother got custody of me, and bought a house in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.  I was an only child, and both my parents were working parents. So because I had no sort of childhood companion, and my mother was a celebrity hunter, she knew slightly the Oscar...Learn More