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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.

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
Well
Connected
Songs
Playing
Almost
Show
Song
Cast
Shows
Extremely
Wells
Casts

More quotes by Stephen Sondheim

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For anyone approaching any one of the cast albums, if they don't like what they hear, it's not the performer's fault.
Stephen Sondheim
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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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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.
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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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If I cannot fly, let me sing.
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One difference between poetry and lyrics is that lyrics sort of fade into the background. They fade on the page and live on the stage when set to music.
Stephen Sondheim
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On stage, generally speaking, the story is stopped or held back by songs, because that's the convention. Audiences enjoy the song and the singer, that's the point.
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
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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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Anything that is white is sweet. Anything that is brown is meat. Anything that is grey, don't eat.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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I don't write songs apart from theatrical pieces. I'm not interested in writing songs qua songs.
Stephen Sondheim
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The man i'll never be, Who remembers him?
Stephen Sondheim
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Pointillism takes emotional images, character, etc., and makes them all come together and make a whole that tells a story.
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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I chose and my world was shaken. So what? The choice may have been mistaken the choosing was not. You have to move on.
Stephen Sondheim
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Every writer I've ever spoken to feels fraudulent in some way or other.
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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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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Anything you do, let it come from you. Then it will be new.
Stephen Sondheim