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When you know your cast well and their strengths and weaknesses, you can start writing for them, just the way Shakespeare wrote for his actors.
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
Wells
Weaknesses
Well
Shakespeare
Writing
Cast
Way
Casts
Wrote
Weakness
Start
Actors
Strengths
More quotes by Stephen Sondheim
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
Everyone would like to be on Broadway, cause if a show works, you make a great deal of money and it allows you to write other shows.
Stephen Sondheim
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
Just remember, Someone is on your side (our side) Someone else is not While we're seeing our side Maybe we forgot: they are not alone. No one is alone.
Stephen Sondheim
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
Any moment, big or small, Is a moment, after all. Seize the moment, skies may fall Any moment.
Stephen Sondheim
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.
Stephen Sondheim
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
After the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution, songs became part of the story, as opposed to just entertainments in between comedy scenes.
Stephen Sondheim
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.
Stephen Sondheim
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
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
My main goal is to tell a story.
Stephen Sondheim
Art is craft, not inspiration.
Stephen Sondheim
Every writer I've ever spoken to feels fraudulent in some way or other.
Stephen Sondheim
Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor.
Stephen Sondheim
It's not so much do what you like as it is that you like what you do.
Stephen Sondheim
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
White. A blank page or canvas. So many possibilities.
Stephen Sondheim
You move just a finger, say the slightest word, something's bound to linger-be heard.
Stephen Sondheim
