Quote

I firmly believe lyrics have to breathe and give the audience's ear a chance to understand what's going on. Particularly in the theater, where you have costume, story, acting, orchestra.

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
Story
Lyrics
Understand
Breathe
Stories
Particularly
Give
Ears
Giving
Theater
Costume
Going
Audience
Costumes
Believe
Acting
Firmly
Chance
Orchestra

More quotes by Stephen Sondheim

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For me it's more fun to find an unexpected moment for a character to sing when you don't expect them to.
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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.
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Generally, the best recording is the original cast, because that's the way the piece grew: integrally, with them.
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Only capitalists get photographers.
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That's the trouble with awards for a body of work. They always come at both a good time and a wrong time. Good because they tell you what you've been doing was worth the doing and wrong because they ought to come when you're young and excited and hungry for assurance that what you're doing is worth the doing.
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Sometimes colleagues in performance are absolutely astonishing.
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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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Every writer I've ever spoken to feels fraudulent in some way or other.
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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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I took piano lessons when I was 6. I didn't want to go on with it. I don't remember being moved by a piece of music.
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You may know what you need, but to get what you want, better see that you keep what you have.
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Ah, but if you have no expectations, You can never have a disappointment.
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Slotted spoons don't hold much soup.
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I'm interested in the theater because I'm interested in communication with audiences. Otherwise I would be in concert music.
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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 didn't really want to write just lyrics, but I wanted to meet Leonard Bernstein. Music was always the first reason I was writing songs.
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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.
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I love the theater as much as music, and the whole idea of getting across to an audience and making them laugh, making them cry - just making them feel - is paramount to me.
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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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Nowadays, there are sometimes more producers than there are people in the cast, because it takes that much money to put a show on.
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