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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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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
Seen
Opinion
Movie
Adaptations
Without
Musicals
Work
Adaptation
Would
Disagree
People
Exception
Stage

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No one has ever known me as clearly as you. No one has ever shown me that love allows everything. Not pretty or safe or easy but something I never knew. Love within reason, that isn't love and I learned that from you.
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I was raised to be charming, not sincere.
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I don't write songs apart from theatrical pieces. I'm not interested in writing songs qua songs.
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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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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.
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White. A blank page or canvas. The challenge. Bring order to the whole Through design, composition, tension, balance, light, and harmony.
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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.
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After the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution, songs became part of the story, as opposed to just entertainments in between comedy scenes.
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Dreams are a sweet mistake All dreamers must awake On, then, with the dance No backward glance Or my heart will break Never look back.
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By the time I get through writing a score, I know the book better than the book writer does, because I've examined every word, and questioned the book writer on every word.
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Oscar Hammerstein was a surrogate father. I liked my father a lot, he was a swell fellow, but I didn’t see him very often because my mother was bitter about him and did everything she could to prevent me from seeing him.
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Musicals are — particularly musicals — plays also, but musicals particularly are… the last collaborator is your audience, and so you’ve got to wait ’til the last collaborator comes in before you can complete the collaboration.
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Art is craft, not inspiration.
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Oh if life were made of moments Even now and then a bad one--! But if life were only moments, Then you'd never know you had one.
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Almost all the shows I've been connected with have been extremely well cast. They're playing the show, not just doing the songs.
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Anything you do, let it come from you. Then it will be new.
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Gotta watch out for directors.
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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.
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