Each month, Jason Fortner spotlights one or more musical theatre composers and/or lyricists, offering his own unique perspective on the songwriting legends of musical theatre. Send your comments/questions on this column to happgood@aol.com.

Stephen Sondheim Source: BroadwayWorld.com

This March 22nd, the leading composer/lyricist of the modern musical theatre turns 80. Winner of the Oscar, multiple Tonys, Drama Desk awards, and even the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, Mr. Sondheim is being celebrated with many concerts in March and throughout the year.

In honor of Mr. Sondheim’s immeasurable contributions to the evolution of the musical, I want to celebrate this milestone in his own words.

Here are some memorable Sondheim quotes and lyrics…

On his Mentor, Oscar Hammerstein II:
Oscar Hammerstein was a surrogate father during all those many days, and weeks and months when I didn't see my own father.

On Musical Theatre Writing:
Musical comedies aren't written, they are re-written.

One of the hardest things about writing lyrics is to make the lyrics sit on the music in such a way that you're not aware there was a writer there.

The worst thing you can do is censor yourself as the pencil hits the paper. You must not edit until you get it all on paper. If you can put everything down, stream-of-consciousness, you'll do yourself a service.

Every writer I've ever spoken to feels fraudulent in some way or other.

On Music & Lyrics:
Music blows lyrics up very quickly, and suddenly they become more than art. They become pompous and they become self-conscious ... I firmly believe that lyrics have to breathe and give the audience's ear a chance to understand what's going on. Particularly in the theater, where you not only have the music, but you've got costume, story, acting, orchestra. There's a lot to take in.

The ear hears things that the mind doesn't...you look at a sidewalk, you don't see the grouting, but the grouting is there. If you've built the sidewalks, you look at the grouting.  You say: Gee, that's bad grouting over there....the idea is not to make it effortful for the listener...you put too much cement in, it absolutely rigidifies it and it becomes boring..."grouting" holds [music] together, but allows it to expand and contract and prevents it from breaking...

If you're dealing with a musical in which you're trying to tell a story, it's got to sound like speech. At the same time it's got to be a song.

Lyrics have to be underwritten. That's why poets generally make poor lyric writers because the language is too rich. You get drowned in it.

On Musical Preview Audiences:
The last collaborator is your audience ... when the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you've written. Things that seem to work well -- work in a sense of carry the story forward and be integral to the piece -- suddenly become a little less relevant or a little less functional or a little overlong or a little overweight or a little whatever. And so you start reshaping from an audience.

On Public Acceptance:
If people have split views about your work, I think it's flattering. I'd rather have them feel something about it than dismiss it.

And now some of my favorite Sondheim lyrics, in no particular order.

First is from WEST SIDE STORY’S “Gee, Officer Krupke”, with music by Leonard Bernstein…

My father is a bastard
My ma's an SOB
My grandpa's always plastered
My grandma pushes tea
My sister wears a mustache
My brother wears a dress
Goodness gracious
That's why I'm a mess!"

Russ Tamblyn & company in "Gee Officer Krupke" from the film version of WEST SIDE STORY"

And a reflective moment from INTO THE WOODS…

Oh if life were only moments
Even now and then a bad one
But if life were only moments
Then you'd never know you had one.

A lost relationship from MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG…

And while it's going along
You take for granted some love will wear away.
We took for granted a lot and still I say...
It could've kept on growing
Instead of just kept on...
We had a good thing going...going...
Gone.

Gene Reed, Cortes Alexander, Brian Lane Greene & Lindy Robbins (aka "The Tonics") performing a four-part-harmony arrangement of "Good Thing Going" from MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG

A cut song from FOLLIES, about a very talented young man…

As dumbbells go he's rather slow,
And as for being saintly, even faintly, no.
But who needs Albert Schweitzer when the lights are low?
And oh boy, oh boy, can that boy fox-trot!

From his most popular song, “Send In The Clowns”…

Just when I stopped
Opening doors,
Finally knowing
The one that I wanted was yours.
Making my entrance again
With my usual flair,
Sure of my lines,
No one is there.

The husbands of COMPANY tell Bobby what marriage is like…

You're always sorry
You're always grateful
You're always wondering
What might have been
Then she walks in.
And still you're sorry
And still you're grateful
And still you wonder
And still you doubt
Then she walks out.
Good things get better
Bad gets worse
Wait…
I think I meant that in reverse.

Keith Buterbaugh sings "Sorry-Grateful" from the 2006 Broadway revival of COMPANY

Fredrik cleverly thinks of ways to seduce his young bride…

In view of her penchant
For something romantic,
DeSade is too trenchant
and Dickens too frantic,
And Stendhal would ruin
The plan of attack
As there isn't much blue in
"The Red and the Black."
De Maupassant’s candor would cause her dismay
The Bronte’s are grander but not very gay
Her tastes are much blander I’m sorry to say
But is Hans Christian Andersen ever risqué?
Which eliminates A!

A troubled couple gossip about another couple’s woes…

Sometimes she drinks in bed
Sometimes he's homosexual,
But why be vicious,
They keep it out of sight
Good show, they're gonna be alright!
And so, we're gonna be alright!
Heigh ho, we're gonna be alright!"

And finally, the writer reflects on his ongoing pursuit of art…

Finishing the hat,
How you have to finish the hat.
How you watch the rest of the world
From a window
While you finish the hat.

Mapping out a sky.
What you feel like, planning a sky.
What you feel when voices that come
Through the window
Go

Until they distance and die,
Until there's nothing but sky
And how you're always turning back too late
From the grass or the stick
Or the dog or the light,

How the kind of woman willing to wait's
Not the kind that you want to find waiting
To return you to the night,
Dizzy from the height,
Coming from the hat,
Studying the hat,
Entering the world of the hat,
Reaching through the world of the hat
Like a window,
Back to this one from that.

Studying a face,
Stepping back to look at a face
Leaves a little space in the way like a window,
But to see-
It's the only way to see.

And when the woman that you wanted goes,
You can say to yourself, "Well, I give what I give."
But the women who won't wait for you knows
That, however you live,
There's a part of you always standing by,
Mapping out the sky,
Finishing a hat...
Starting on a hat..
Finishing a hat...
Look, I made a hat...
Where there never was a hat.

Daniel Evans, star of the 2008 Broadway revival of SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, performing "Finishing The Hat" on THE 2008 TONY AWARD PREVIEW CONCERT SPECIAL.

Happy Birthday Stephen! You’ve given us all so many gifts it would be hard to find the right one for you. Thanks!

Next update to this page: April 4, 2010