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I really don't want to write a score until the whole show is cast and staged.

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
Whole
Writing
Staged
Really
Score
Cast
Casts
Show
Write
Shows

More quotes by Stephen Sondheim

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Now, this one might be a little stringy, but then again, it's fiddle player. That isn't fiddle player, it's piccolo player. How can you tell? It's PIPING hot! Then blow on it first!
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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I liked my father a lot, but I didn't see him very often because my mother was bitter about him. He remarried, and I used to have to sneak off to see him.
Stephen Sondheim
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You have to be submitted for the Pulitzer, and unbeknownst to us, a choral director whom I know had submitted us.
Stephen Sondheim
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It's pleasanter to work in the country, where you can wander out among the trees. But I don't get as much work done. In the city you don't want to leave the room because there's all that chaos going on.
Stephen Sondheim
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Any moment, big or small, Is a moment, after all. Seize the moment, skies may fall Any moment.
Stephen Sondheim
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I do not hope for what I cannot have! I do not cling to things I cannot keep!
Stephen Sondheim
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Lemuel Ayers had had a huge success producing and designing Kiss Me, Kate. He wanted to produce this as a musical. I got the job. It was a professional score.
Stephen Sondheim
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Art is craft, not inspiration.
Stephen Sondheim
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Anything you do, let it come from you. Then it will be new.
Stephen Sondheim
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Gotta watch out for directors.
Stephen Sondheim
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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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I don't listen to recordings of my songs. I don't avoid it, I just don't go out of my way to do it.
Stephen Sondheim
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Take a play that you like but you think is flawed, and see if you can improve it and turn it into a musical. [...] Then make up your own story.
Stephen Sondheim
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Into the woods--you have to grope, But that's the way you learn to cope. Into the woods to find there's hope Of getting through the journey.
Stephen Sondheim
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The movie adaptations of stage musicals that I've seen, without exception, in my opinion don't work. A lot of people would disagree with me.
Stephen Sondheim
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Generally, the best recording is the original cast, because that's the way the piece grew: integrally, with them.
Stephen Sondheim
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Puzzles are like songs - A good puzzle can give you all the pleasure of being duped that a mystery story can. It has surface innocence, surprise, the revelation of a concealed meaning, and the catharsis of solution.
Stephen Sondheim
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Bit by bit, putting it together... Piece by piece, only way to make a work of art. Every moment makes a contribution, Every little detail plays a part. Having just the vision's no solution, Everything depends on execution, Putting it together, that's what counts.
Stephen Sondheim
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Into the woods you go again You have to every now and then Into the woods, no telling when Be ready for the journey Into the woods, each time you go There's more to learn of what you know.
Stephen Sondheim