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All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theatre live. That's why it persists.

Stephen Sondheim

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Stephen Sondheim
Age: 94
Born: 1930
Born: March 22
Author
Composer
Dramaturge
Librettist
Lyricist
Musician
Poet
Screenwriter
Songwriter
New York City
New York
Stephen Joshua Sondheim
Makes
Persist
Best
Performers
Live
Author
Different
Theatre
Something
Role
Paper
Roles
Bring
Persists

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Sometimes I'll ask the book writer to write a monologue, not to be performed, just as if they were notes for the character.
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The man i'll never be, Who remembers him?
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I've always preferred actors who sing to singers who act in all the shows I've done.
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It's not so much do what you like as it is that you like what you do.
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Let the moment go. . . . Don't forget it for a moment, though. Just remembering you've had an and when you're back to or makes the or mean more than it did before. . . . Now I understand! And it's time to leave the woods.
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If I cannot fly, let me sing.
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Friendship, obligation and greed are not good enough reasons to write anything.
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I do not dwell on dreams I know how soon a dream becomes an expectation How can I have expectations? Look at me, No, Captain, Look at me, Look at me!
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In the Rodgers and Hammerstein generation, popular hits came out of shows and movies.
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When you trance out properly, when you're completely in that world, there is no other world, so there's no conflict.
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I like murder mysteries, the Agatha Christie kinds of things where you know that it's all going to be neatly wound up at the end.
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I like neurotic people. I like troubled people. Not that I don't like squared-away people, but I prefer neurotic people. I like to hear rumblings beneath the surface.
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Success is like failure, It's how you perceive it, It's what you do with it, not how you achieve it.
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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.
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Art is craft, not inspiration.
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Sometimes people leave you Halfway through the wood Others may decieve you You decide what's good You decide alone But no one is alone
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They wanted me to be a concert pianist, because I had a very good right hand, but my left hand's terrible and I hated performing.
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My personal life and my artistic life do not interfere with each other.
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Every writer I've ever spoken to feels fraudulent in some way or other.
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TODD: The history of the world, my love -- LOVETT: Save a lot of graves, Do a lot of relatives favors! TODD: Is those below serving those up above! LOVETT: Ev'rybody shaves, So there should be plenty of flavors! TODD: How gratifying for once to know BOTH: That those above will serve those down below!
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