Stephen Sondheim Quotes
Top 100 wise famous quotes and sayings by Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim Famous Quotes & Sayings
Discover top inspirational quotes from Stephen Sondheim on Wise Famous Quotes.
Generally, the best recording is the original cast, because that's the way the piece grew: integrally, with them.
I was essentially trained by Oscar Hammerstein to think of songs as one-act plays, to move a song from point A to point B dramatically.
I'm always conscious of what I'm writing, conscious of what the actor may ask me. I have a defense for nearly every line in the song.
I have inherited my father's sense of humour about myself. It's a lot more pleasant to make fun of yourself than when someone else does.
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.
Hit songs did not come out of musicals. Pop-rock was creating the hits. There were very few songs that made the charts out of any Broadway musical.
Sometimes I'll ask the book writer to write a monologue, not to be performed, just as if they were notes for the character.
Success is like failure, It's how you perceive it, It's what you do with it, not how you achieve it.
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.
I started listening to classical music when I was in my early teens. Prior to that, I listened to pop records or band records.
After the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution, songs became part of the story, as opposed to just entertainments in between comedy scenes.
You have to be submitted for the Pulitzer, and unbeknownst to us, a choral director whom I know had submitted us.
White. A blank page or canvas. The challenge. Bring order to the whole Through design, composition, tension, balance, light, and harmony.
For me it's more fun to find an unexpected moment for a character to sing when you don't expect them to.
One of the hardest things about writing lyrics is to make the lyrics sit on the music in such a way that you're not aware there was a writer there.
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.
I've always liked puzzles, since I was a kid. I like party games, silly games. I loved chess. I enjoy jigsaw puzzles, but I'm not particularly visual.
The more you cling to things, The more you love them, The more the pain you suffer, When they're taken from you ...
I chose and my world was shaken. So what? The choice may have been mistaken; the choosing was not. You have to move on.
You're so nice. You're not good, you're not bad, You're just nice. I'm not good, I'm not nice, I'm just right. I'm the witch. You're the world.
They wanted me to be a concert pianist, because I had a very good right hand, but my left hand's terrible and I hated performing.
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.
In not-for-profit theater, you don't worry so much about how the audience is going to react. You want to make them absorb the piece.
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.
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.
It should be interesting to see two entirely different ways to treat a story, geared for two entirely different kinds of audience.
Pointillism takes emotional images, character, etc., and makes them all come together and make a whole that tells a story.
The truth is that I don't like rehearsals. I get embarrassed hearing my own work. I assume that the cast is embarrassed to sing the stuff.
I happen to like movies and plays about dislikeable people as long as I get to know why they are what they are.
I certainly wanted my name in lights. I wanted my name on a marquee. I wanted recognition on Broadway.
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.
Math was my big interest when I was in prep school. I was considering taking math in college, and majoring in it.
Music straightjackets a poem and prevents it from breathing on its own, whereas it liberates a lyric. Poetry doesn't need music; lyrics do.
Almost all the shows I've been connected with have been extremely well cast. They're playing the show, not just doing the songs.
We lose things.
And then we choose things.
And there are Louis's
And there are Georges-
Well, Louis's
And George.
And then we choose things.
And there are Louis's
And there are Georges-
Well, Louis's
And George.
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.
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.
Oscar Hammerstein was a surrogate father during all those many days, and weeks and months when I didn't see my own father.
Nowadays, there are sometimes more producers than there are people in the cast, because it takes that much money to put a show on.