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14 unusual facts about Stephen Sondheim


Broadway by the Bay

Dr. Hunt returned as a director for the 1967 production of West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim.

Burr Tillstrom

In 1978, Kukla, Burr and Ollie joined the Broadway cast of Side by Side by Sondheim, a revue of Stephen Sondheim songs.

Ettore Scola

His film Passione d'amore, adapted from a nineteenth-century novel, was adapted by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine into the award-winning musical Passion.

Helon Blount

Other Broadway credits included playing “Dee Dee West” in the original production of Stephen Sondheim's

James Goldman

Follies - 1971, revived 2001 and 2011(book only; lyrics and music by Stephen Sondheim) - Tony Nomination for Best Book of a Musical

Kookaburra Musical Theatre

Throughout its short career it was plagued by troubles, including low box office figures and cancelled productions, and caused international controversy when Stephen Sondheim demanded an apology and threatened to remove rights after major cuts were made to Company when an actor with no understudy could not perform.

Magnormos

Also In 2010, Magnormos produced A Sondheim Triptych to celebrate the 80th birthday of Stephen Sondheim.

The first was A Sondheim Triptych in 2010 to celebrate the 80th birthday of Stephen Sondheim.

Until 2007, Magnormos predominantly presented readings of musicals, and these included Stephen Sondheim's Saturday Night, Mel Brooks' Archy & Mehitabel, Craig Christie's Water Into Wine and Peter Pinne's A Bunch of Ratbags.

Primavera Productions

In 2009, Primavera Productions produced the first revival of Stephen Sondheim's first musical Saturday Night at the Jermyn Street Theatre.

The Madwoman of Central Park West

Among those whose songs are included in the production are Peter Allen, Leonard Bernstein, Jerry Bock, Martin Charnin, Betty Comden, Fred Ebb, Adolph Green, Sheldon Harnick, John Kander, Ed Kleban, Barry Manilow, Joe Raposo, Mary Rodgers, Carole Bayer Sager, and Stephen Sondheim.

Tokugawa Ieyoshi

Tokugawa Ieyoshi is a minor character in Stephen Sondheim's musical "Pacific Overtures," in which he is murdered by his mother, using poisoned chrysanthemum tea.

Very Warm for May

Stephen Sondheim has cited Very Warm for May as an inspiration for his interest in the musical theater.

Wilson Mizner

He was manager and co-owner of The Brown Derby restaurant in Los Angeles, California, and was affiliated with his brother, Addison Mizner, in a series of scams and picaresque misadventures that inspired Stephen Sondheim's musical Road Show.


Anna Francolini

In the early part of her career, Francolini appeared in two acclaimed musical productions at the Donmar Warehouse - Company (1995) and Merrily We Roll Along (2000), both by Stephen Sondheim.

Avis Bunnage

Among her other roles for Theatre Workshop were Mrs. Lovitt in Christopher Bond's play Sweeny Todd (the basis for the Sondheim musical), and the title role in a play about the music hall legend Marie Lloyd.

Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS

These bears include Anything Goes, signed by Sutton Foster; Billy Elliot: The Musical, signed by Sir Elton John and Gregory Jbara; and Follies, signed by Danny Burstein, Jan Maxwell, Bernadette Peters, Ron Raines and Stephen Sondheim.

Charlotte Cornwell

She has worked extensively both in the West End and on the Fringe, and has appeared in the US in several productions, including Richard III and An Enemy of the People opposite Sir Ian McKellen, Athol Fugard's The Road to Mecca, Terence McNally's Master Class, Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music" (San Francisco Bay Critics' Award), and most recently Alan Bennett's "History Boys" at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles.

Christine McKenna

Upon graduating, she appeared in productions for the National Theatre and in the West End of London, including Stephen Sondheim´s A Little Night Music with Jean Simmons and Hermione Gingold, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Great Expectations, and played "Polly" in The Boy Friend with Glynis Johns, "Sally Bowles" in Cabaret, and "Moll" in Moll Flanders.

Christopher James Jones

Christopher's stage roles include those of the Wolf and Cinderella’s Prince in Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim, Baal in Baal by Bertolt Brecht, Demetrius in A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare, Barnum in the musical Barnum by Cy Coleman, and even that of Elvis.

D*Note

Laguna featured cover versions of songs that figured as key parts of Winn and Hirsch’s musical influences, including "Wichita Lineman" by Jimmy Webb, "Guinnevere" by David Crosby, "Edith and The Kingpin" by Joni Mitchell, and "Being Alive" by Stephen Sondheim.

Deborah Kass

These works combine stylistic devices from a wide variety of post-war painting, including Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, and Ed Ruscha, along with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, Laura Nyro, and Sylvester, among others, pulling from popular music, Broadway show tunes, the Great American Songbook, Yiddish, and film.

Distant Past

The episode title Distant Past was taken from the title of a bit of underscoring in Stephen Sondheim's film score for Alain Resnais's Stavisky.

George Abbott

Among those who crossed paths with Abbott early in their careers are Desi Arnaz, Gene Tierney, Betty Comden, Hal Prince, Adolph Green, Leonard Bernstein, Jule Styne, Bob Fosse, Stephen Sondheim, Elaine Stritch, John Kander, Fred Ebb and Liza Minnelli.

George Coe

Coe's Broadway theater career began in 1964 and included turns as M. Lindsey Woolsey opposite Angela Lansbury in the original cast of Jerry Herman's Mame and as Owen O'Malley in On The Twentieth Century alongside John Cullum, Imogene Coca, Kevin Kline and Madeline Kahn, as well as creating the role of David in the original Broadway cast of George Furth and Stephen Sondheim's Company.

Jane White

She has additionally played roles in such dramas as Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis and Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts; comedies such as Paul Rudnick's I Hate Hamlet; and musicals such as Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music and the 2001 production of Sondheim's Follies, to name a small selection.

Joaquín Nin-Culmell

He taught at Middlebury College, Vermont for two years before joining the music department of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts (where Stephen Sondheim was one of his students).

Joe Langworth

From 1990 - 2005, Langworth appeared in a number of major Broadway musicals, including the closing company of the original production of A Chorus Line, the Tony Award-winning production of Ragtime with Audra McDonald, Marin Mazzie and Brian Stokes Mitchell, and the 2001 revival of Stephen Sondheim's Follies.

Joel Fram

At New York’s Symphony Space, he created the award-winning “New Voices” concert series and, for Stephen Sondheim’s 75th birthday, co-produced and curated the 12-hour marathon “Wall to Wall Stephen Sondheim”.

Julie Wilson

Her recordings include My Old Flame, Live From the Russian Tea Room, Julie Wilson At the St. Regis, and collections devoted to the songbooks of Cole Porter, Kurt Weill, Harold Arlen, Cy Coleman, Stephen Sondheim, and George and Ira Gershwin.

June Moon

The cast included Tom Fitzsimmons as Fred, Barbara Dana as Edna, Jack Cassidy as Paul, and Susan Sarandon as Eileen, with Kevin McCarthy, Lee Meredith, Estelle Parsons, Austin Pendleton, and Stephen Sondheim in supporting roles.

Lynnie Greene

She originated the role of Emma Goldman in the original off-Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim's Assassins in 1990-91, as well as recreating the role of Comrade Charlotte in the 1987 reworking of Kander & Ebb's Flora the Red Menace.

Marysville Pilchuck High School

The drama club won an award for "Best Pit Orchestra" by Seattle's Fifth Avenue Theatre for its production of Stephen Sondheim's Into The Woods as the 2008 spring musical.

Milwaukee Youth Arts Center

The nine smaller classrooms/studio spaces and two additional rehearsal/practice rooms are named after prominent figures in theater and music: Duke Ellington, Lorraine Hansberry, Gustav Mahler, Martha Graham, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, William Shakespeare, Dmitri Shostakovich, Stephen Sondheim, Konstantin Stanislavski, Arthur Miller, and "B-3 or B-cubed," which stands for Bach, Brahms, and Beethoven.

Nakahama Manjirō

Pacific Overtures, Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's unconventional musical about the arrival of the black ships in Japan.

Samuel Byck

Byck is also one of the (failed) assassins portrayed in Stephen Sondheim's and John Weidman's 1991 musical Assassins.

Smiles of a Summer Night

The film's plot—which involves switching partners on a summer night—has been adapted many times, most notably as the theatrical musical, A Little Night Music by Stephen Sondheim, Hugh Wheeler and Harold Prince, which opened on Broadway in 1973, and as Woody Allen's film A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982).

There's a Place

The title was inspired by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim's "Somewhere" from West Side Story, which contained the line: "There's a place for us."

Victoria Mallory

She came to fame when appearing on Broadway in the 1970s with parts in three Stephen Sondheim musicals: she had a small role in Follies as Young Heidi, a starring one in A Little Night Music as Anne Egerman (1973–1974), and starred as Maria in the first revival of West Side Story at Lincoln Center.