Stephen Sondheim quotes

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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.
Stephen Sondheim
Comedy
Revolution
Songs
A close-up on screen can say all a song can.
Stephen Sondheim
Song
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
Theatre
Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.
Stephen Sondheim
Art
Chaos
Order
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
Actors
Shakespeare
Writing
You can't have personal investors anymore because it's too expensive, so you have to have corporate investment or a lot of rich people.
Stephen Sondheim
People
Corporate
Investment
Musicals are plays, but the last collaborator is your audience, so you've got to wait 'til the last collaborator comes in before you can complete the collaboration.
Stephen Sondheim
Collaboration
Math and music are intimately related. Not necessarily on a conscious level, but sure.
Stephen Sondheim
Music
By the time I was 22, I was a professional. A young and flawed professional, but not an amateur.
Stephen Sondheim
Time
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.
Stephen Sondheim
Language
Poets
Poor
Writers
In the Rodgers and Hammerstein generation, popular hits came out of shows and movies.
Stephen Sondheim
Movies
Popular
If you're dealing with a musical in which you're trying to tell a story, it's got to sound like speech. At the same time it's got to be a song.
Stephen Sondheim
Time
Song
Sound
Speech
Trying
If people have split views about your work, I think it's flattering. I'd rather have them feel something about it than dismiss it.
Stephen Sondheim
Work
People
Every writer I've ever spoken to feels fraudulent in some way or other.
Stephen Sondheim
Writer
I fell into lyric writing because of music. I backed into it.
Stephen Sondheim
Music
Writing