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It should be interesting to see two entirely different ways to treat a story, geared for two entirely different kinds of audience.

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
Way
Ways
Audience
Story
Interesting
Geared
Two
Entirely
Stories
Treat
Different
Treats
Kind
Kinds

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There's a hole in the world Like a great black pit And the vermin of the world Inhabit it ... And it goes by the name of London.
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I really don't want to write a score until the whole show is cast and staged.
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I like murder mysteries, the Agatha Christie kinds of things where you know that it's all going to be neatly wound up at the end.
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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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Success is like failure, It's how you perceive it, It's what you do with it, not how you achieve it.
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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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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 don't write songs apart from theatrical pieces. I'm not interested in writing songs qua songs.
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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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You may know what you need, but to get what you want, better see that you keep what you have.
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There's something inimical about the camera and song.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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When you trance out properly, when you're completely in that world, there is no other world, so there's no conflict.
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I was watching him crawl, Back over the wall-! Then bang! Crash! And the lightning flash! And- well, that's another story, Never mind- Anyway.
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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.
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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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