Follies is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman. The story concerns a reunion in a crumbling Broadway theatre, scheduled for demolition, of the past performers of the "Weismann's Follies," a musical revue (based on the Ziegfeld Follies), that played in that theatre between the World Wars. It focuses on two couples, Buddy and Sally Durant Plummer and Benjamin and Phyllis Rogers Stone, who are attending the reunion. Sally and Phyllis were showgirls in the Follies. Both couples are deeply unhappy with their marriages. Buddy, a traveling salesman, is having an affair with a girl on the road; Sally is still as much in love with Ben as she was years ago; and Ben is so self-absorbed that Phyllis feels emotionally abandoned. Several of the former showgirls perform their old numbers, sometimes accompanied by the ghosts of their former selves.

The Broadway production opened on April 4, 1971, directed by Harold Prince and Michael Bennett, and with choreography by Bennett. The musical was nominated for eleven Tony Awards and won seven. The original production, which ultimately lost money, ran for 522 performances. The piece has enjoyed a number of major revivals, and several of its songs have become standards, including "Broadway Baby", "I'm Still Here", "Too Many Mornings", "Could I Leave You?", and "Losing My Mind".

Background[link]

After the failure of Do I Hear A Waltz? (1965), for which he had written the lyrics to Richard Rodgers's music, Sondheim decided that he would henceforth work only on projects where he could write both the music and lyrics himself. He asked author and playwright James Goldman to join him as bookwriter for a new musical. Inspired by a New York Times article about a gathering of former showgirls from the Ziegfeld Follies, they decided upon a story about ex-showgirls.^[1]

Originally titled The Girls Upstairs, the musical was originally to be produced by David Merrick and Leland Hayward in late 1967, but the plans ultimately fell through, and Stuart Ostrow became the producer, with Joseph Hardy to direct. These plans also did not work out,^[2] and finally Harold Prince, who had worked previously with Sondheim, became the producer and director. He had agreed to work on The Girls Upstairs if Sondheim would agree to work on Company; Michael Bennett, the young choreographer of Company, was also brought onto the project. It was Prince who changed the title to Follies; he was "intrigued by the psychology of a reunion of old chorus dancers and loved the play on the word 'follies'".^[1]

Plot[link]

On the soon-to-be demolished stage of the Weismann Theatre, a reunion is being held to honor Weismann's "Follies" shows past, and the beautiful chorus girls who once performed there. The once resplendent theatre is now little but planks and scaffolding (Prologue/Overture). As the ghosts of the young showgirls slowly drift through the theatre, a majordomo enters with his entourage of waiters and waitresses. They pass through the spectral showgirls without seeing them.

Sally Durant Plummer, "blond, petite, sweet-faced" and at 49 "still remarkably like the girl she was thirty years ago",^[3] a former Weismann girl is the first guest to arrive; her ghostly youthful counterpart moves towards her. Phyllis Rogers Stone, a stylish and elegant woman, even more attractive now,^[3] also arrives with her handsome and successful husband, Ben. As their younger counterparts approach them, Phyllis comments to Ben about their past. He feigns disinterest; there is an underlying tension in their relationship. As more guests arrive, Sally’s husband, Buddy, enters. He is a salesman, in his early 50s, appealing and lively,^[3] whose smiles cover inner disappointment.

Finally Mr. Weismann enters to greet his guests. Roscoe, the old master of ceremonies, introduces the former showgirls ("Beautiful Girls"). Former Weismann performers at the reunion include Max and Stella Deems, who lost their radio jobs and became store owners in Miami; Solange La Fitte, a coquette, who is still vibrant three decades later; Hattie Walker, who has outlived five younger husbands; Vincent and Vanessa, former dancers who now own an Arthur Murray franchise; Heidi Schiller, for whom Franz Lehár once wrote a waltz (or was it Oscar Straus?); and Carlotta Campion, a film star who has embraced life and benefited from every experience.

As the guests reminisce, the stories of Ben, Phyllis, Buddy and Sally unfold. Phyllis and Sally were roommates while in the Follies, and Ben and Buddy were best friends at school in New York. When Sally sees Ben, her former lover, she greets him self-consciously ("Don't Look at Me"). Carlotta is tired of listening to everyone's stories and wants someone to listen to her. Meanwhile, Buddy and Phyllis join their spouses and the foursome reminisces about the old days of their courtship and the theatre, their memories vividly coming to life in the apparitions of their young counterparts ("Waiting For The Girls Upstairs"). Each of the four is shaken at the realization of how life has changed them. Elsewhere, Willy Wheeler (portly, in his sixties) cartwheels for a photographer. Emily and Theodore Whitman, ex-vaudevillians in their seventies, perform an old routine ("The Rain on the Roof"). Solange proves she is still fashionable at 66 ("Ah, Paris!"), and Hattie Walker performs her old showstopping number ("Broadway Baby").

Sally is awed by Ben’s apparently glamorous life, but Ben wonders if he made the right choices and considers how things might have been ("The Road You Didn't Take"). Sally tells Ben how her days have been spent with Buddy, in a "harrowing account of a lonely, middle-aged suburban woman's self-delusions",^[4] trying to convince him (and herself) ("In Buddy’s Eyes"). But it is clear that Sally is still in love with Ben – even though she was terribly hurt when Ben chose to marry Phyllis. Sally felt used for his sexual satisfaction. She shakes loose from the memory and begins to dance with Ben, who is touched by the memory of the Sally he once cast aside.

Phyllis interrupts this tender moment and has a biting encounter with Sally. But this confrontation is interrupted by another performance – this time, the ex-chorines line up to perform an old number ("Who's That Woman?"), with disastrous results, as they are mirrored by their younger selves. Afterward, Phyllis and Ben angrily discuss their lives and relationship, which has become numb and emotionless. Sally is bitter and has never been happy with Buddy, although he has always adored her. Carlotta amuses everyone with a tale of how her dramatic solo was cut from the Follies because the audience found it humorous, but somehow the number works when she sings it today ("I'm Still Here").

Ben confides to Sally that his life is empty. She yearns for him to hold her, but young Sally slips between them and the three move together ("Too Many Mornings"). Ben, caught in the passion of memories, kisses Sally as Buddy enters. Buddy is furious, and Ben, startled by the parallel between present and past, tells Sally it was over long ago. He leaves Sally still dreaming of a marriage that will never happen. Buddy angrily fantasizes about the girl he should have married, who would have loved him and made him feel like "a somebody" ("The Right Girl"). Sally tells him that Ben has asked her to marry him. Buddy tells her she must be either crazy or drunk, but he's already supported Sally through rehab clinics and mental hospitals and cannot take any more. Ben drunkenly propositions Carlotta, with whom he once had a fling, but she has a young lover. Heidi Schiller, joined by her younger counterpart, performs "One More Kiss", her aged voice a stark contrast to the sparkling coloratura of her younger self. Phyllis kisses a waiter but confesses to him that she had always wanted a son. She then tells Ben that she cannot return to their loveless marriage. Ben replies by saying that he wants a divorce, and Phyllis assumes the request is due to his love for Sally. Angry and hurt, Phyllis considers whether to grant his request ("Could I Leave You?").

The two couples and their young counterparts argue furiously about how foolish they were when they were young. Suddenly, at the peak of madness and confusion, the couples are engulfed by their follies, which transform the rundown theatre into a fantastical "Loveland", an extravaganza even more grand and opulent than the gaudiest Weismann confection: "the place where lovers are always young and beautiful, and everyone lives only for love".^[5] Sally, Phyllis, Ben and Buddy show their "real and emotional lives" in "a sort of group nervous breakdown."^[6]

Young Phyllis and Young Ben have hopes for the future ("You're Gonna Love Tomorrow"), as do Young Buddy and Young Sally ("Love Will See Us Through"). Buddy then appears, dressed in "plaid baggy pants, garish jacket and a shiny derby hat", in a vaudeville routine with an imaginary Sally and his old girlfriend Margie^[3] ("The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues"). Sally appears next, dressed as a torch singer ("Losing My Mind"). Phyllis reflects on the two sides of her personality, "juicy" Lucy — the young Phyllis, naive but passionate, and "dressy" Jessie — Phyllis's jaded, well-groomed present self ("The Story of Lucy and Jessie"). Ben begins to offer his devil-may-care philosophy ("Live, Laugh, Love"), but stumbles and anxiously calls to the conductor for the lyrics, as he frantically tries to keep going. Ben becomes frenzied, while the dancing ensemble continues as if nothing was wrong. Amidst a deafening discord, Ben screams at all the figures from his past and collapses as he cries out for Phyllis.

"Loveland" has dissolved back into the reality of the crumbling and half-demolished theatre; dawn is approaching. Buddy escorts the "emotionally devastated"^[5] Sally, while Phyllis helps Ben regain his dignity before they leave, all with the promise to work things out later. Their ghostly younger selves finally enter the light. The younger Ben and Buddy softly call to their "girls upstairs", and the Follies end.

Songs[link]

• "Beautiful Girls" – Roscoe and Company
• "Don't Look at Me" – Sally and Ben
• "Waiting for the Girls Upstairs" – Ben, Sally, Phyllis and Buddy, Young Ben, Young Sally, Young Phyllis and Young Buddy
• "Rain on the Roof" – Emily and Theodore
• "Ah, Paris!" – Solange
• "Broadway Baby" – Hattie
• "The Road You Didn't Take" – Ben
• "Bolero d'Amour" – Danced by Vincent and Vanessa ≠≠
• "In Buddy's Eyes" – Sally
• "Who's That Woman?" – Stella and Company
• "I'm Still Here" – Carlotta
• "Too Many Mornings" – Ben and Sally
• "The Right Girl" – Buddy
• "One More Kiss" – Heidi and Young Heidi
• "Could I Leave You?" – Phyllis
• "Loveland" – Company
• "You're Gonna Love Tomorrow" / "Love Will See Us Through" – Young Ben, Young Sally, Young Phyllis and Young Buddy
• "The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues" – Buddy, "Margie", "Sally"
• "Losing My Mind" – Sally
• "The Story of Lucy and Jessie" ≠ – Phyllis and Company
• "Live, Laugh, Love" – Ben and Company
• Finale – Company; varies by production, often a reprise of "Beautiful Girls"

≠ Some productions substitute "Ah, But Underneath"

≠≠ Omitted from some productions

Songs cut prior to the Broadway premiere include: "All Things Bright and Beautiful" (used in the prologue), "Can That Boy Foxtrot!" and "Uptown Downtown". The musical numbers "Ah, But Underneath" (replacing "The Story of Lucy and Jessie"), "Country House", "Make the Most of Your Music" (replacing "Live, Laugh, Love"), "Social Dancing" and a new version of "Loveland" have been incorporated into various productions.

Analysis[link]

Hal Prince said: "Follies examines obsessive behavior, neurosis and self-indulgence more microscopically than anything I know of."^[7] Bernadette Peters quoted Sondheim on the character of "Sally": "He said early on that [Sally] is off balance, to put it mildly. He thinks she’s very neurotic, and she is very neurotic, so he said to me, 'Congratulations. She’s crazy.'"^[8] Martin Gottfried wrote: "The concept behind 'Follies' is theater nostalgia, representing the rose-colored glasses through which we face the fact of age ... the show is conceived in ghostliness. At its very start, ghosts of Follies showgirls stalk the stage, mythic giants in winged, feathered, black and white opulence. Similarly, ghosts of Twenties shows slip through the evening as the characters try desperately to regain their youth through re-creations of their performances and inane theater sentiments of their past."^[9]

Joanne Gordon, author and Chair and Artistic Director, Theatre, at California State University^[10] ]^[11]) wrote "Follies is in part an affectionate look at the American musical theater between the two World Wars and provides Sondheim with an opportunity to use the traditional conventions of the genre to reveal the hollowness and falsity of his characters' dreams and illusions. The emotional high generated by the reunion of the Follies girls ultimately give way to anger, disappointment, and a weary resignation to reality."^[12] "Follies contains two scores: the Follies pastiche numbers and the book numbers."^[13] Some of the Follies numbers imitate the style of particular composers of the early 20th century: Losing My Mind is in the style of a George Gershwin ballad "The Man I Love".^[14] Sondheim noted that the song "The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues" is "another generic pastiche: vaudeville music for chases and low comics, but with a patter lyric...I tried to give it the sardonic knowingness of Lorenz Hart or Frank Loesser."^[15]

"Loveland", the final musical sequence, (that "consumed the last half-hour of the original" production^[16]) is akin to a 1920s Ziegfeld Follies sequence, with Sally, Phyllis, Ben and Buddy performing "like comics and torch singers from a Broadway of yore."^[17] "Loveland" features a string of vaudeville-style numbers, reflecting the leading characters' emotional problems, before returning to the theatre for the end of the reunion party. The four characters are "whisked into a dream show in which each acts out his or her own principal 'folly'".^[16]

Versions[link]

Goldman continued to revise the book of the musical right up to his death, which occurred shortly before the 1998 Paper Mill Playhouse production. Sondheim, too, has added and removed songs that he judged to be problematic in various productions. Ted Chapin explains: "Today, Follies is rarely performed twice in exactly the same version. James Goldman's widow made the observation that the show has morphed throughout its entire life...The London production had new songs and dialogue. The Paper Mill Playhouse production used some elements from London but stayed close to the original. The 2001 Roundabout Broadway revival, the first major production following Goldman's death in 1998, was again a combination of previous versions."^[18]

Major changes were made for the original production in London, which attempted to establish a lighter tone and favored a happier ending than the original Broadway production. According to Joanne Gordon, "When 'Follies' opened in London...it had an entirely different, and significantly more optimistic, tone. Goldman's revised book offered some small improvements over the original."^[19]

According to Sondheim, the producer Cameron Mackintosh asked for changes for the 1987 London production. "I was reluctantly happy to comply, my only serious balk being at his request that I cut "The Road You Didn't Take" ... I saw no reason not to try new things, knowing we could always revert to the original (which we eventually did). The net result was four new songs...For reasons which I've forgotten, I rewrote "Loveland" for the London production. There were only four showgirls in this version, and each one carried a shepard's crook with a letter of the alphabet on it."^[20]

The musical was written in one act, and the original director, Prince, did not want an intermission, while the co-director, Bennett, wanted two acts. It was originally performed in one act.^[21] The 1987 West End, 2005 Barrington Stage Company,^[22] the 2001 Broadway revival^[23] and Kennedy Center 2011 productions were performed in two acts.^[17] However, the August 23, 2011 Broadway preview performance was performed without an intermission.^[24] By opening the 2011 Broadway revival was performed with the intermission, in two acts.^[25]

Productions[link]

1971 Original Broadway[link]

Follies had its pre-Broadway tryout at the Colonial Theatre, Boston, from February 20 through March 20, 1971.^[26][27]

Follies premiered on Broadway on April 4, 1971 at the Winter Garden Theatre. It was directed by Harold Prince and Michael Bennett, with choreography by Bennett, scenic design by Boris Aronson, costumes by Florence Klotz, and lighting by Tharon Musser. It starred Alexis Smith (Phyllis), John McMartin (Benjamin), Dorothy Collins (Sally), Gene Nelson (Buddy), along with several veterans of the Broadway and vaudeville stage. The supporting role of Carlotta was created by Yvonne De Carlo, and usually is given to a well-known veteran performer who can belt out a song. Other notable performers in the original productions were: Fifi D'Orsay as Solange LaFitte, Justine Johnston as Heidi Schiller, Mary McCarty as Stella Deems, Arnold Moss as Dimitri Weismann, Ethel Shutta as Hattie Walker, and Marcie Stringer and Charles Welch as Emily and Theodore Whitman.

The show closed on July 1, 1972 after 522 performances and 12 previews. According to Variety Magazine, the production was a "total financial failure, with a cumulative loss of $792,000."^[28] Prince planned to present the musical on the West Coast and then on a national tour. However, the show did not do well in its Los Angeles engagement and plans for a tour ended.^[29]

Frank Rich, for many years the chief drama critic for The New York Times, had first garnered attention, while an undergraduate at Harvard University, with a lengthy essay for the Harvard Crimson about the show, which he had seen during its pre-Broadway run in Boston. He predicted that the show eventually would achieve recognition as a Broadway classic.^[30] Rich later wrote that audiences at the original production were baffled and restless.^[31]

For commercial reasons, the cast album was cut from two LPs to one early in production. Most songs were therefore heavily abridged and several were left entirely unrecorded. According to Craig Zadan, "It's generally felt that ... Prince made a mistake by giving the recording rights of Follies to Capitol Records, which in order to squeeze the unusually long score onto one disc, mutilated the songs by condensing some and omitting others."^[32] Chapin confirms this: "Alas ... final word came from Capitol that they would not go for two records.... [Dick Jones] now had to propose cuts throughout the score in consultation with Steve."^[33] "One More Kiss" was omitted from the final release but was restored for CD release. Chapin relates that "there was one song that Dick Jones [producer of the cast album] didn't want to include on the album but which Steve Sondheim most definitely did. The song was "One More Kiss", and the compromise was that if there was time, it would be recorded, even if Jones couldn't promise it would end up on the album. (It did get recorded but didn't make its way onto the album until the CD reissue years later.)"^[34][35]

1972 Los Angeles[link]

The musical was produced at The Muny, St. Louis, Missouri in July 1972 and then transferred to the Shubert Theatre, Century City, California, running from July 22, 1972 through October 1, 1972. It was directed by Prince and starred Dorothy Collins (Sally; replaced by Janet Blair), Alexis Smith (Phyllis), John McMartin (Benjamin; replaced by Edward Winter), Gene Nelson (Buddy), and Yvonne De Carlo (Carlotta) reprising their original roles.^[36] The production was the premiere attraction at the newly constructed 1,800-seat theatre, which, ironically, was itself razed thirty years later (in 2002, in order to build a new office building), thus mirroring the Follies plot line upon which the musical is based.^{[citation needed]}

1985 Wythenshawe and Lincoln Center[link]

A full production ran at the Forum Theatre, Wythenshawe, England, from 30 April 1985, directed by Howard Lloyd-Lewis, design by Chris Kinman, costumes by Charles Cusick-Smith, lighting by Tim Wratten, musical direction by Simon Lowe, and choreographed by Paul Kerryson.^[37] The cast included Mary Millar (Sally Durant Plummer), Liz Izen (Young Sally), Meg Johnson (Stella Deems), Les Want (Max Deems), Betty Benfield (Heidi Schiller), Joseph Powell (Roscoe), Chili Bouchier (Hattie Walker), Shirley Greenwood (Emily Whitman), Bryan Burdon (Theodore Whitman), Monica Dell (Solange LaFitte), Jeannie Harris (Carlotta Campion), Josephine Blake (Phyllis Rogers Stone), Kevin Colson (Benjamin Stone), Debbie Snook (Young Phyllis), Stephen Hale (Young Ben), Bill Bradley (Buddy Plummer), Paul Burton (Young Buddy), David Scase (Dimitri Weismann), Lorraine Croft (Young Stella), and Meryl Richardson (Young Heidi).^[38]

A staged concert at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, was performed on September 6 and 7, 1985. The concert starred Barbara Cook (Sally), George Hearn (Ben), Mandy Patinkin (Buddy), and Lee Remick (Phyllis), and featured Carol Burnett (Carlotta), Betty Comden (Emily), Adolph Green (Theodore), Liliane Montevecchi (Solange LaFitte), Elaine Stritch (Hattie Walker), Phyllis Newman (Stella Deems), Jim Walton (Young Buddy), Howard McGillin (Young Ben), Liz Callaway (Young Sally), Daisy Prince (Young Phyllis), Andre Gregory (Dmitri), Arthur Rubin (Roscoe), and Licia Albanese (Heidi Schiller). Rich, in his review, noted that "As performed at Avery Fisher Hall, the score emerged as an original whole, in which the 'modern' music and mock vintage tunes constantly comment on each other, much as the script's action unfolds simultaneously in 1971 (the year of the reunion) and 1941 (the year the Follies disbanded)."^[31]

Among the reasons the concert was staged was to provide an opportunity to record the entire score. The resulting album was more complete than the original cast album.^[31] However, director Herbert Ross took some liberties in adapting the book and score for the concert format—dance music was changed, songs were given false endings, new dialogue was spoken, reprises were added, and Patinkin was allowed to sing "The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues" as a solo instead of a trio with two chorus girls. Portions of the concert were seen by audiences worldwide in the televised documentary about the making of the concert, also released on videotape and DVD, of 'Follies' in Concert.^[39]

1987 West End[link]

The musical played in the West End at the Shaftesbury Theatre on July 21, 1987 and closed on February 4, 1989 after 644 performances. The producer was Cameron Mackintosh, direction was by Mike Ockrent, with choreography by Bob Avian and design by Maria Bjornson. The cast featured Diana Rigg (Phyllis), Daniel Massey (Ben), Julia McKenzie (Sally), David Healy (Buddy), Lynda Baron, Leonard Sachs, Maria Charles, Pearl Carr & Teddy Johnson. Dolores Gray was praised as Carlotta.^[40] During the run, Eartha Kitt replaced Gray, sparking somewhat of a comeback (she went on to perform her own one woman show at The Shaftesbury Theatre to sell-out houses for three weeks from 18 March 1989 after "Follies" closed). Other cast replacements included Millicent Martin as Phyllis. Julia McKenzie returned to the production for the final four performances.^[40]

The book "was extensively reworked by James Goldman, with Sondheim's cooperation and also given an intermission." The producer Cameron Mackintosh did not like "that there was no change in the characters from beginning to end.... In the London production ... the characters come to understand each other." Sondheim "did not think the London script was as good as the original." However, he thought that it was "wonderful" that, at the end of the first act, "the principal characters recognized their younger selves and were able to acknowledge them throughout the last thirty minutes of the piece."^[41] Sondheim wrote four new songs: "Country House" (replacing "The Road You Didn't Take"), "Loveland" (replacing the song of the same title), "Ah, But Underneath" (replacing "The Story of Lucy and Jessie", for the non-dancer Diana Rigg), and "Make the Most of Your Music" (replacing "Live, Laugh, Love").^[40]

Critics who had seen the production in New York (such as Frank Rich) found it substantially more "upbeat" and lacking in the atmosphere it had originally possessed. According to the Associated Press (AP) reviewer, "A revised version of the Broadway hit "Follies" received a standing ovation from its opening-night audience and raves from British critics, who said the show was worth a 16-year wait." The AP quoted Michael Convey of The Financial Times, who wrote: "'Follies' is a great deal more than a camp love-in for old burlesque buffs and Sondheim aficionados."^[42] The New York Times critic wrote: "The initial critics' reviews ranged from unqualified raves to some doubts whether the reworked book of James Goldman is up to the inventiveness of Sondheim's songs. 'A truly fantastic evening,' The Financial Times concluded, while The London Daily News said, 'The musical is inspired,' and The Times described the evening as 'a wonderful idea for a show which has failed to grow into a story.'" He further commented: "In part, the show is a tribute to musical stage history, in which the 57-year-old Mr. Sondheim is steeped, for he first learned song writing at the knee of Oscar Hammerstein II and became the acknowledged master songwriter who bridged past musical stage romance into the modern musical era of irony and neurosis. Follies is a blend of both, and the new production is rounded out with production numbers celebrating love's simple hope for young lovers, its extravagant fantasies for Ziegfeld aficionados, and its fresh lesson for the graying principals."^[43]

This production was also recorded on two CDs and was the first full recording.^[44]

Follies was voted ninth in a BBC Radio 2 listener poll of the UK's "Nation's Number One Essential Musicals."^[45]

U.S. regional productions[link]

Michigan Opera Theatre (MOT) was the first major American opera company to present Follies as part of their main stage repertoire, running from October 21, 1988 through November 6. The MOT production starred Nancy Dussault (Sally), John-Charles Kelly (Buddy), Juliet Prowse (Phyllis) and Ron Raines (Ben), Edie Adams (Carlotta), Thelma Lee (Hattie), and Dennis Grimaldi (Vincent).^[46][47]

A production also ran from March to April 1995 at the Theatre Under the Stars, Houston, Texas and in April to May 1995 at the 5th Avenue Theatre, Seattle with Constance Towers (Phyllis), Judy Kaye (Sally), Edie Adams, Denise Darcel, Virginia Mayo and Karen Morrow (Carlotta).^[48] The 1998 Paper Mill Playhouse production (Millburn, New Jersey) was directed by Robert Johanson with choreography by Jerry Mitchell and starred Donna McKechnie (Sally), Dee Hoty (Phyllis), Laurence Guittard (Ben), Tony Roberts (Buddy), Kaye Ballard (Hattie ), Eddie Bracken (Weismann), and Ann Miller (Carlotta). Phyllis Newman and Liliane Montevecchi reprised the roles they played in the Lincoln Center production.^[49] "Ah, But Underneath" was substituted for "The Story of Lucy and Jessie" in order to accommodate non-dancer Hoty.^[50] This production received a full-length recording on two CDs, including not only the entire score as originally written, but a lengthy appendix of songs cut from the original production in tryouts.^[51]

Julianne Boyd directed a fully staged version of Follies in 2005 by the Barrington Stage Company (Massachusetts) in June–July 2005. Principal cast included Kim Crosby (Sally), Leslie Denniston (Phyllis), Jeff McCarthy (Ben), Lara Teeter (Buddy), Joy Franz (Solange), Marni Nixon (Heidi), and Donna McKechnie (Carlotta). Stephen Sondheim attended one of the performances.^[52]

1996 and 1998 concerts[link]

Dublin concert

The Dublin Concert was held in May 1996 at the National Concert Hall. The cast included Lorna Luft, Millicent Martin, Mary Millar Dave Willetts, Alex Sharpe, Christine Scarry, Aidan Conway and Enda Markey.^[53]

London concert

A concert was held at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London, on December 8, 1996, and broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on February 15, 1997. The cast starred Julia McKenzie (Sally), Donna McKechnie (Phyllis), Denis Quilley (Ben) and Ron Moody (Buddy). This show recreated the original Broadway score.^[54]

Sydney concert

Follies was performed in concert at the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra^[55] in February 1998 as the highlight of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and had three performances. It followed a similar presentation at the 1995 Melbourne Festival of Arts. The show starred Toni Lamond (Sally),^[56] Jill Perryman, Judi Connelli, Terence Donovan, Ron Haddrick, Todd McKenney, and Leonie Page.^[57][58]

2001 Broadway revival[link]

A Broadway revival opened at the Belasco Theatre on April 5, 2001 and closed on July 14, 2001 after 117 performances and 32 previews. This Roundabout Theatre limited engagement had been expected to close on September 30, 2001. Directed by Matthew Warchus with choreography by Kathleen Marshall, it starred Blythe Danner (Phyllis), Judith Ivey (Sally), Treat Williams (Buddy), Gregory Harrison (Benjamin), Marge Champion, Polly Bergen (Carlotta), Joan Roberts (the original Laurey from the original Broadway production of Oklahoma!; later replaced by Marni Nixon), Larry Raiken (Roscoe) and an assortment of famous names from the past. Former MGM and onetime Broadway star Betty Garrett, best-known to younger audiences for her television work, played Hattie.^[59] It was significantly stripped down (earlier productions had featured extravagant sets and costumes) and was not a success critically.

According to an article in The Hollywood Reporter, "almost every performance of the show played to a full house, more often than not to standing-room-only. Tickets always were tough to come by. The reason the final curtain came down Saturday was because, being a production by the Roundabout Theatre Company – a subscription-based 'not-for-profit' theater company – it was presented under special Equity terms, with its actors paid a minimal fee. To extend the show, it would have been necessary to negotiate new contracts with the entire company ... because of the Belasco's limited seating, it wasn't deemed financially feasible to do so."^[60]

Theatre writer and historian John Kenrick wrote, "the bad news is that this Follies is a dramatic and conceptual failure. The good news is that it also features some of the most exciting musical moments Broadway has seen in several seasons. Since you don't get those moments from the production, the book or the leads, that leaves the featured ensemble, and in Follies that amounts to a small army. ... Marge Champion and Donald Saddler are endearing as the old hoofers. ... I dare you not to fall in love with Betty Garrett's understated "Broadway Baby" – you just want to pick her up and hug her. Polly Bergen stops everything cold with "I’m Still Here," bringing a rare degree of introspection to a song that is too often a mere belt-fest.... [T]he emotional highpoint comes when Joan Roberts sings 'One More Kiss'."^[61]

2002 London revival[link]

A production was mounted at London's Royal Festival Hall in a limited engagement. After previews from August 3, 2002, it opened officially on August 6, and closed on August 31, 2002. Paul Kerryson directed, and the cast starred David Durham as Ben, Kathryn Evans as Sally, Louise Gold as Phyllis, Julia Goss as Heidi and Henry Goodman as Buddy. Variety singer and performer Joan Savage sang "Broadway Baby".^[62][63][64] This production featured the original Broadway score.^[65]

2002 Los Angeles[link]

Follies was part of L.A.'s Reprise series, and it was housed at the Wadsworth Theatre, presented as a staged concert, running from June 15 to June 23, 2002. The production was directed by Arthur Allan Seidelman, set design by Ray Klausen, lighting design by Tom Ruzika, costumes by Randy Gardell, sound design by Philip G. Allen, choreography by Kay Cole, musical director Gerald Sternbach.^[66]

The production starred Bob Gunton (Ben), Warren Berlinger (Dimitri Weismann), Patty Duke (Phyllis), Vikki Carr (Sally), Harry Groener (Buddy), Carole Cook (Hattie), Carol Lawrence (Vanessa), Ken Page (Roscoe), Liz Torres (Stella), Amanda McBroom (Solange), Grover Dale (Vincent), Donna McKechnie (Carlotta), Carole Swarbrick (Christine), Stella Stevens (Dee Dee), Mary Jo Catlett (Emily), Justine Johnston (Heidi), Jean Louisa Kelly (Young Sally), Austin Miller (Young Buddy), Tia Riebling (Young Phyllis), Kevin Earley (Young Ben), Abby Feldman (Young Stella), Barbara Chiofalo (Young Heidi), Trevor Brackney (Young Vincent), Melissa Driscoll (Young Vanessa), Stephen Reed (Kevin),and Billy Barnes (Theodore).^[67] Hal Linden was originally going to play Ben, but left because he was cast in the Broadway revival of Cabaret as Herr Schultz.^[68] Tom Bosley was also originally cast as Dimitri Weismann.

2007 New York City Center Encores![link]

New York City Center's Encores! "Great American Musicals in Concert" series featured Follies as its 40th production for six performances in February 2007 in a sold out semi-staged concert. The cast starred Donna Murphy (Phyllis), Victoria Clark (Sally), Victor Garber (Ben) and Michael McGrath (Buddy). Christine Baranski played Carlotta, and Lucine Amara sang Heidi. The cast also included Anne Rogers, Jo Anne Worley and Philip Bosco. The director and choreographer was Casey Nicholaw.^[69][70] This production used the original text and the "Loveland" lyrics performed in the 1987 London production.^[71]

2011 Kennedy Center and Broadway[link]

The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts production at the Eisenhower Theatre started previews on May 7, 2011, with an official opening on May 21, and closed on June 19, 2011.^[72] The cast starred Bernadette Peters as Sally, Jan Maxwell as Phyllis, Elaine Paige as Carlotta, Linda Lavin as Hattie, Ron Raines as Ben and Danny Burstein as Buddy. The production was directed by Eric Schaeffer, with choreography by Warren Carlyle, costumes by Gregg Barnes, set by Derek McLane and lighting by Natasha Katz.^[73] Also featured were Rosalind Elias as Heidi, Régine as Solange, Susan Watson as Emily, and Terri White as Stella. The budget was reported to be $7.3 million.^[17][72] The Kennedy Center production played to 95% capacity.^[74]

Reviews of the production were mixed, with Ben Brantley of The New York Times writing, "It wasn't until the second act that I fell in love all over again with Follies". Peter Marks of The Washington Post wrote that the revival "takes an audience halfway to paradise." He praised a "broodingly luminous Jan Maxwell" and Burstein's "hapless onetime stage-door Johnny", as well as "the show's final 20 minutes, when we ascend with the main characters into an ironic vaudeville dreamscape of assorted neuroses - the most intoxicating articulation of the musical's 'Loveland' sequence that I've ever seen." Variety gave a very favorable review: "The lavish and entirely satisfying production includes a full orchestra, eye-popping designs and a 40-person cast headed by Bernadette Peters", saying that Schaeffer directs "in methodical fashion, building progressively to a crescendo exactly as Sondheim does with so many of his stirring melodies. Several show-stopping routines are provided by choreographer Warren Carlyle." Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal noted that "One of the signal achievements of this 'Follies' is that it succeeds in untangling each and every strand of the show's knotty plot... Mr. Schaeffer is clearly unafraid of the darkness of 'Follies', so much so that the first act is bitter enough to sting. Yet he and Warren Carlyle, the choreographer, just as clearly revel in the richness of the knowing pastiche songs with which Mr. Sondheim evokes the popular music of the prerock era."^[17][75]

The production transferred to Broadway at the Marquis Theatre in a limited engagement starting on August 7, 2011 in previews with the official opening on September 12, and closing on January 22, 2012 after 151 performances and 38 previews.^[76] The four principal performers reprised their roles, as well as Paige as Carlotta, and the production had an 28-piece orchestra and a 41-person cast. Jayne Houdyshell as Hattie Walker, Mary Beth Peil as Solange LaFitte, and Don Correia as Theodore Whitman joined the Broadway cast.^[77] A cast album of this production was recorded by PS Classics in a two-disc album, and was released on November 29, 2011.^[78]

Brantley reviewed the 2011 Broadway revival for The New York Times, and wrote "Somewhere along the road from Washington to Broadway, the Kennedy Center production of 'Follies' picked up a pulse. A vigorous heart now beats at the center of this revitalized revival...I am happy to report that since then, Ms. Peters has connected with her inner frump, Mr. Raines has found the brittle skeleton within his solid flesh, and Ms. Maxwell and Mr. Burstein have only improved. Two new additions to the cast, Jayne Houdyshell and Mary Beth Peil, are terrific. This production has taken on the glint of crystalline sharpness."^[79]

Despite the production having played an extended run and its grosses exceeding expectations, it did not recoup its investment. According to Michael Kaiser (president of the Kennedy Center and one of the producers) "while Follies did not pay off its investment, it had done better financially than anticipated during its 189-performance run."^[80]

The Broadway production won the Drama League Award, Distinguished Production of a Musical Revival for 2011-12.^[81]

2012 Los Angeles[link]

The 2011 Broadway and Kennedy Center production transfered to the Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, California, in a limited engagement, from May 3, 2012 through June 9. Jan Maxwell, Ron Raines, Danny Burstein and Elaine Paige all reprise their roles, and Victoria Clark replaces Peters in the role of Sally, a role she has previously played in New York.^[82][83]

2012-2013 Toulon Opera House (France)[link]

For its first production in France, Follies will be presented in the Toulon Opera House during the 2012–2013 season ^[84]. This English-speaking production will be directed by Olivier Bénézech.

Critical response[link]

In the foreword to "Everything Was Possible", Frank Rich wrote: "From the start, critics have been divided about Follies, passionately pro or con but rarely on the fence... Is it really a great musical, or merely the greatest of all cult musicals?" (Chapin, p. xi) Ted Chapin wrote, "Taken as a whole, the collection of reviews Follies received was as rangy as possible." (Chapin, p. 300) In his New York Times review of the original Broadway production, Clive Barnes wrote: "...it is stylish, innovative, it has some of the best lyrics I have ever encountered, and above all it is a serious attempt to deal with the musical form." Barnes also called the story shallow and Sondheim's words a joy "...even when his music sends shivers of indifference up your spine."^[85]

Walter Kerr wrote in The New York Times about the original production: "Follies is intermissionless and exhausting, an extravaganza that becomes so tedious... because its extravaganzas have nothing to do with its pebble of a plot."^[86] On the other hand, Martin Gottfried wrote: "'Follies is truly awesome and, if it is not consistently good, it is always great."^[87]

Time Magazine wrote about the original Broadway production: "At its worst moments, Follies is mannered and pretentious, overreaching for Significance. At its best moments—and there are many—it is the most imaginative and original new musical that Broadway has seen in years."^[88]

Frank Rich, in reviewing the 1985 concert in The New York Times, wrote: "Friday's performance made the case that this Broadway musical... can take its place among our musical theater's very finest achievements."^[4] Ben Brantley, reviewing the 1998 Paper Mill Playhouse production in The New York Times, concluded that it was a "...fine, heartfelt production, which confirms Follies as a landmark musical and a work of art..."^[89]

The Time Magazine reviewer wrote of the 2001 Broadway revival: "Even in its more modest incarnation, Follies has, no question, the best score on Broadway." He noted, though, that "I'm sorry the cast was reduced from 52 to 38, the orchestra from 26 players to 14...To appreciate the revival, you must buy into James Goldman's book, which is peddling a panoramically bleak take on marriage." Finally, he wrote:"But Follies never makes fun of the honorable musical tradition to which it belongs. The show and the score have a double vision: simultaneously squinting at the messes people make of their lives and wide-eyed at the lingering grace and lift of the music they want to hear. Sondheim's songs aren't parodies or deconstructions; they are evocations that recognize the power of a love song. In 1971 or 2001, Follies validates the legend that a Broadway show can be an event worth dressing up for."^[90]

Brantley, reviewing the 2007 Encores! concert for The New York Times, wrote: "I have never felt the splendid sadness of 'Follies' as acutely as I did watching the emotionally transparent concert production...At almost any moment, to look at the faces of any of the principal performers...is to be aware of people both bewitched and wounded by the contemplation of who they used to be. When they sing, in voices layered with ambivalence and anger and longing, it is clear that it is their past selves whom they are serenading."^[91]

Recordings[link]

There have been five recordings of Follies released: the original 1971 Broadway cast album; Follies in Concert, Avery Fisher Hall (1985); the original London production (1987); and the Paper Mill Playhouse (1998).^[92][93] The cast recording of the 2011 Broadway revival, by PS Classics, was officially released on November 29, 2011, and also was in pre-sale prior to the store release. PS Classics co-founder Tommy Krasker said: "We've never had the kind of reaction that we've had for 'Follies'. Not only has it already outsold every other album at our website, but the steady stream of emails from customers has been amazing."^[78] This recording includes "extended segments of the show's dialogue." The theatremania.com reviewer wrote that "The result is an album that, more so than any of the other existing recordings, allows listeners to re-experience the heartbreaking collision of past and present that's at the core of the piece."^[94]

Awards and nominations[link]

Original Broadway production[link]

Original London production[link]

2001 Broadway revival[link]

2011 Broadway revival[link]

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Chapin, Ted (2003). Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies. New York, New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-375-41328-5
• Secrest, Meryle (1998). Stephen Sondheim: A Life. Dell Publishing, Alfred A. Knopf (reprint). ISBN 0-385-33412-5
• Sondheim, Stephen and Goldman, James (2001). Follies. New York, New York: Theatre Communications Group. ISBN 978-1-55936-196-5
• Sondheim, Stephen (2010). Finishing the Hat. Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-679-43907-3

Further reading[link]

• Prince, Harold (1974). Contradictions: Notes on Twenty-six Years in the Theatre. Dodd, Mead. ISBN 978-0-396-07019-1
• Ilson, Carol (2004). Harold Prince: A Director's Journey, Limelight Editions. ISBN 978-0-87910-296-8
• Mandelbaum, Ken (1990). A Chorus Line and the Musicals of Michael Bennett. St. Martins Press. ISBN 978-0-312-04280-6

External links[link]

• Follies at the Internet Broadway Database
• Follies on The Stephen Sondheim Reference Guide
• Follies at the Internet Movie Database
• Follies listing at MTI Shows (Plot and production information)
• List of references in "I'm Still Here"
• Live, Laugh, Love: Follies

v t e Stephen Sondheim musicals Saturday Night West Side Story Gypsy A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Anyone Can Whistle Do I Hear a Waltz? Evening Primrose The Race to Urga Company Follies A Little Night Music The Frogs Pacific Overtures Side by Side by Sondheim Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Marry Me A Little Merrily We Roll Along Sunday in the Park with George Into the Woods Assassins Putting It Together Passion Road Show Sondheim on Sondheim Book:Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Joshua Sondheim ( /ˈsɒnd.haɪm/) (born March 22, 1930) is an American composer and lyricist known for his contributions to musical theatre. He is the winner of an Academy Award, eight Tony Awards (more than any other composer) including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre,^[1] multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award. Described by Frank Rich of the New York Times as "the greatest, and perhaps best-known artist working in musical theatre",^[2] his most famous works include (as composer/lyricist) A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods. He also wrote the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy.

Sondheim has also written material for movies, including the 1981 Warren Beatty film Reds, contributing the song "Goodbye For Now". He also wrote five songs for the 1990 movie Dick Tracy, including "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)", which won the Academy Award for Best Song.

He was president of the Dramatists Guild from 1973 to 1981. In celebration of his 80th birthday, the Henry Miller's Theatre was renamed the Stephen Sondheim Theatre on September 15, 2010, and the The BBC Proms staged a concert in his honor. Cameron Mackintosh has described Sondheim as "possibly the greatest lyricist ever."^[3]

Early years[link]

Sondheim was born to a Jewish family in New York City, to Etta Janet "Foxy" (née Fox) and Herbert Sondheim.^[4] He grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and later, after his parents divorced, on a farm near Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Herbert was a dress manufacturer and Foxy, his mother, designed the dresses. As an only child of well-to-do parents living in the San Remo on Central Park West, he is described in Meryle Secrest's biography, Stephen Sondheim: A Life, as having had an isolated and emotionally neglected childhood. While living in New York, Sondheim attended the Ethical Culture affiliated Fieldston School. Later, Sondheim attended the New York Military Academy and George School, a private Quaker preparatory school in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where he wrote his first musical ("By George!"). He also spent several summers at Camp Androscoggin.^[4] He graduated from George School in 1946.

Sondheim traces his interest in theatre to Very Warm for May, a Broadway musical he saw at age nine. "The curtain went up and revealed a piano," Sondheim recalled. "A butler took a duster and brushed it up, tinkling the keys. I thought that was thrilling."^[5]

When Sondheim was ten, his father, a distant figure, abandoned him and his mother. His father sought custody of Stephen, but because he had left Foxy for another woman (Alicia), his efforts failed. Herbert and Alicia had two sons together. In his interview with Meryle Secrest, Sondheim explained that he was “what they call an institutionalized child, meaning one who has no contact with any kind of family. You’re in, though it’s luxurious, you’re in an environment that supplies you with everything but human contact. No brothers and sisters, no parents, and yet plenty to eat, and friends to play with and a warm bed, you know?”

Sondheim famously hated his mother;^[6] he once wrote a thank-you note to close friend Mary Rodgers that read, "Dear Mary and Hank, Thanks for the plate, but where was my mother's head? Love, Steve."^[5] His mother was allegedly psychologically abusive,^[7] projecting anger from her failed marriage onto him.^[8] Sondheim said, "When my father left her, she substituted me for him. And she used me the way she used him, to come on to and to berate, beat up on, you see. What she did for five years was treat me like dirt, but come on to me at the same time."^[9] At one point, she wrote him a letter saying that the "only regret [she] ever had was giving him birth." ^[10] When she died in the spring of 1992, he did not attend her funeral.^[6][11]

Career[link]

Mentored by Oscar Hammerstein II[link]

At about the age of ten, around the time of his parents' divorce, Sondheim became friends with James Hammerstein, son of the lyricist and playwright Oscar Hammerstein II. The elder Hammerstein became Sondheim's surrogate father, and had a profound influence on him, especially in developing a love for musical theatre. It was at the opening of South Pacific, the musical Hammerstein wrote with Richard Rodgers, that Sondheim met Harold Prince, who would later direct many of Sondheim's shows. While at George School, Sondheim wrote a comic musical based on the goings-on of his school, entitled By George. It was a major success among his peers, and it considerably buoyed the young songwriter's ego; he took it to Hammerstein, and asked him to evaluate it as though he had no knowledge of its author. Hammerstein said it was the worst thing he had ever seen. "But if you want to know why it's terrible," Hammerstein offered, "I'll tell you." The rest of the day was spent going over the musical, and Sondheim would later say that "in that afternoon I learned more about songwriting and the musical theater than most people learn in a lifetime."^[12]

Thus began one of the most famous apprenticeships in the musical theatre, as Hammerstein designed a kind of course for Sondheim on the construction of a musical. This training primarily involved having Sondheim write four musicals, each with one of the following preconditions:

• Based on a play he admired (which became All That Glitters);
• Based on a play he liked but thought was flawed, choosing the Maxwell Anderson play High Tor;
• Based on an existing novel or short story not previously dramatized (which became his unfinished Mary Poppins entitled Bad Tuesday,^[13] not connected to the musical film and stage play scored by the Sherman Brothers);
• An original (which became Climb High).

None of these "assignment" musicals was ever produced professionally. High Tor and Mary Poppins have never been produced at all; the rights holder for the original High Tor refused permission and his musical Mary Poppins was not finished.^[14]

In 1950, Sondheim graduated magna cum laude from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he was a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity. His first teacher at Williams was Robert Barrow, and according to Sondheim

...everybody hated him because he was very dry, and I thought he was wonderful because he was very dry. And Barrow made me realize that all my romantic views of art were nonsense. I had always thought an angel came down and sat on your shoulder and whispered in your ear 'dah-dah-dah-DUM.' Never occurred to me that art was something worked out. And suddenly it was skies opening up. As soon as you find out what a leading tone is, you think, Oh my God. What a diatonic scale is—Oh my God! The logic of it. And, of course, what that meant to me was: Well, I can do that. Because you just don't know. You think it's a talent, you think you're born with this thing. What I've found out and what I believed is that everybody is talented. It's just that some people get it developed and some don't.^[15]

He went on to study composition with the composer Milton Babbitt. Sondheim told biographer Meryle Secrest, "I just wanted to study composition, theory, and harmony without the attendant musicology that comes in graduate school. But I knew I wanted to write for the theatre, so I wanted someone who did not disdain theatre music. Milton, who was a frustrated show composer, was a perfect combination."^[16] Babbitt and Sondheim were both fascinated with mathematics and together they studied songs by various composers, especially Jerome Kern. Sondheim told Secrest that Kern had the ability "to develop a single motif through tiny variations into a long and never boring line and his maximum development of the minimum of material." Sondheim then said of Babbitt, "I am his maverick, his one student who went into the popular arts with all his serious artillery."^[16]

Sondheim says that when he asked Babbitt if he could study atonality, Babbitt replied "You haven’t exhausted tonal resources for yourself yet, so I’m not going to teach you atonal."^[17] Sondheim agreed, and despite frequent dissonance and a highly chromatic style, his music remains resolutely tonal.

Broadway lyricist[link]

"A few painful years of struggle" followed for Sondheim, during which he continually auditioned songs, living in his father's dining room to save money; he also spent time in Hollywood writing for the television series Topper.^[5] He devoured 1940s and '50s films and has called cinema his "basic language."^[6] (His film knowledge got him through The $64,000 Question contestant tryouts.) Sondheim has expressed his dislike of movie musicals, favoring classic dramas like Citizen Kane, The Grapes of Wrath, and A Matter of Life and Death. He adds that "studio directors like Michael Curtiz and Raoul Walsh ... were heroes of mine. They went from movie to movie to movie, and every third movie was good and every fifth movie was great. There wasn't any cultural pressure to make art."^[18]

In 1954, Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics for Saturday Night, which was never produced on Broadway and was shelved until a 1997 production at London's Bridewell Theatre. In 1998 Saturday Night received a professional recording, followed by a revised version with two new songs and an Off-Broadway run at Second Stage Theatre in 2000 and a full British premiere with the new songs in 2009 at London's Jermyn Street Theatre.^[19] "I don't have any emotional reaction to 'Saturday Night' at all -- except fondness," Sondheim says. "It's not bad stuff for a 23-year-old. There are some things that embarrass me so much in the lyrics -- the missed accents, the obvious jokes. But I decided, Leave it. It's my baby pictures. You don't touch up a baby picture -- you're a baby!"^[6]

Sondheim's big break came when he wrote the lyrics to West Side Story, lyricizing Leonard Bernstein's music and Arthur Laurents's book. When he was 25, Sondheim was introduced to Bernstein, who had heard Saturday Night and quickly hired him to write the lyrics to West Side Story.^[20] The 1957 show, directed by Jerome Robbins, ran for 732 performances. While this may be one of the best-known shows Sondheim ever worked on, he has expressed dissatisfaction with his lyrics, stating they do not always fit the characters and are sometimes too consciously poetic. It has been rumored that while Bernstein was off trying to fix the musical Candide, Sondheim wrote some of the music for West Side Story, and that Bernstein’s co-lyricist billing credit mysteriously disappeared from the credits of West Side Story during the tryout, presumably as a trade-off.^[21] Sondheim himself insisted that Bernstein told the producers to list Sondheim as the sole lyricist.

In 1959, he wrote the lyrics for the musical, Gypsy. Sondheim would have liked to write the music as well, but Ethel Merman, the star, insisted on a composer with a track record. Thus, Jule Styne was hired.^[22] Sondheim questioned if he should write only the lyrics for another show, but Hammerstein told him writing for a star would be valuable experience. Sondheim worked closely with book writer Arthur Laurents to create the show. It ran 702 performances.

Eventually Sondheim wrote both the music and lyrics, for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. It opened in 1962 and ran 964 performances. The book, based on the farces of Plautus, was written by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart. Sondheim's score was not especially well received at the time. Even though the show won several Tony Awards, including best musical, Sondheim did not even receive a nomination. In addition, some critics felt the songs were not properly integrated into the farcical action.

At this point, Sondheim had participated in three straight hits. His next show ended the streak. Anyone Can Whistle (1964) was a 9-performance flop, although it introduced Angela Lansbury to musical theatre and has developed a cult following.

In 1965 he wrote the lyrics only for Do I Hear a Waltz?, with music by Richard Rodgers. He has said that this is the one project he has regretted.^[6] In 1966, he semi-anonymously provided the lyric for "The Boy From...", a parody of "The Girl from Ipanema", a highlight of the off-Broadway revue The Mad Show. (The official songwriting credit went to the linguistically minded pseudonym "Esteban Rio Nido", which translates from the Spanish to "Stephen River Nest". In the show's playbill, the lyrics are credited to "Nom De Plume".)

After completing Evening Primrose, Jerome Robbins had tried to convince Sondheim to adapt Bertolt Brecht's The Measures Taken, but Sondheim admitted that he did not like the play and did not like a lot of his work. Robbins wanted to adapt another Brecht play The Exception and the Rule and called John Guare to adapt the book. Bernstein had not written for the stage in a while, and his contract conducting the New York Philharmonic was ending. Sondheim was invited to Robbins' house, who unbeknownst to him, was trying to be convinced to write the lyrics to a musical adaption of The Exception and the Rule. Guare was asked to convince Sondheim to do the lyrics. According to Robbins, if Sondheim didn't do it, Bernstein wouldn't do it. After Guare told him about the show, Sondheim agreed to do it. Guare asked, "Why haven't you all worked together since 'West Side Story'?" to which Sondheim replied, "You'll see". Guare recalled a moment when Robbins had put him in a house Robbins had rented for Gold and Fizdale, and he put Guare in a locked room, saying he could not come out until he was finished. Any finished papers were slid under the door. Guare said working with Sondheim was like being with an old college roommate, they just talked and talked. Guare heavily depended on Sondheim to help him "decode and decipher their crazy way of working." Guare said that Bernstein only worked after midnight and Robbins only worked in the bright and early morning. Guare also commented that Bernstein's score, which was supposed to be light, was heavily influenced by Bernstein's feeling he needed to make a major musical statement.^[23]

Stuart Ostrow, who had ties with Sondheim with The Girls Upstairs (later titled Follies), agreed to produce the musical, now entitled A Play By Brecht (later titled The Race to Urga). An opening date was set and they were in the middle of auditions when Robbins asked to be excused for a moment. He did not come back and Guare asked where he went and the doorman said he got in a limousine and was headed to Kennedy Airport. This caused Bernstein to burst into tears and said "It's over". Sondheim said of the project, "I was ashamed of the whole project. It was arch and didactic in the worst way."^[24] He wrote one and half songs, and threw them both away (the only time he has ever done that). Eighteen years later, Bernstein and Robbins asked Sondheim to retry adapting the show, but Sondheim refused.^[23]

Collaborations with Hal Prince (1970–1981)[link]

After the completion of Do I Hear a Waltz, Sondheim has devoted himself to both composing and writing lyrics for a series of varied and adventurous musicals, beginning with the innovative "concept musical" Company in 1970.

Sondheim's work is notable for his use of complex polyphony in the vocal parts, such as the chorus of five minor characters who function as a sort of Greek chorus in 1973's A Little Night Music. He also displays a penchant for angular harmonies and intricate melodies. His musical influences are varied; Sondheim has claimed that he "loves Bach" but his favorite period is Brahms to Stravinsky.^[25] To fans, Sondheim's musical sophistication is considered to be greater than that of many of his musical theatre peers, and his lyrics are likewise renowned for their ambiguity, wit, and urbanity.

Sondheim collaborated with producer/director Harold Prince on six musicals between 1970 and 1981. Company (1970) centered on a set of characters and themes rather than a straightforward plot. Follies (1971) was similarly structured, filled with pastiche songs echoing styles of earlier composers. A Little Night Music (1973), a more traditionally plotted show based on the film Smiles of a Summer Night by Ingmar Bergman, was one of his greatest successes. Time magazine called it "Sondheim's most brilliant accomplishment to date."^[26] Notably, the score was mostly composed in waltz time (either ¾ time, or multiples thereof.) Further success was accorded to A Little Night Music when "Send in the Clowns" became a hit single for Judy Collins. Although it was Sondheim's only Top 40 hit, his songs are frequently performed and recorded by cabaret artists and theatre singers in their solo careers.

By Bernstein premiered at the off-Broadway Westside Theatre on November 23, 1975 and closed on December 7, 1975. It ran for 40 previews and 17 performances. The lyrics and music were by Leonard Bernstein, with additional lyrics from other lyricists, including Sondheim. It was conceived and written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and Norman L. Berman. The production was directed by Michael Bawtree with a cast of Jack Bittner, Margery Cohen, Jim Corti, Ed Dixon, Patricia Elliott, Kurt Peterson, and Janie Sell. The two known songs that had Sondheim contributions are "In There" from the adaption of The Exception and the Rule (which would later be named The Race to Urga) and a cut song from West Side Story "Kids Ain't (Like Everybody Else)".^[27]

Pacific Overtures (1976) was the most non-traditional of the Sondheim—Prince collaborations, an intellectual exploration of the westernization of Japan. Sweeney Todd (1979), Sondheim's most operatic score and libretto (which, along with A Little Night Music, has been seen in opera houses), once again explores an unlikely topic, this time murderous revenge and cannibalism. The book, by Hugh Wheeler, is based on Christopher Bond's 1973 stage version of the Victorian original.^{[28][29][30][31][32]}

Merrily We Roll Along (1981), with a book by George Furth, is one of Sondheim's more "traditional" scores and was thought to hold potential to generate some hit songs (Frank Sinatra and Carly Simon each recorded a different song from the show). Sondheim's music director, Paul Gemignani, said, “Part of Steve’s ability is this extraordinary versatility.” Merrily, however, was a 16-performance flop. "Merrily did not succeed, but its score endures thanks to subsequent productions and recordings. According to Martin Gottfried, "Sondheim had set out to write traditional songs... But [despite] that there is nothing ordinary about the music."^[33] Sondheim and Furth have extensively revised the show since its initial opening.

In the late nineties, Sondheim reunited with Hal Prince for the musical comedy Wise Guys, a project that took a long time to complete that follows brothers Addison and Wilson Mizner. Though a Broadway production starring Nathan Lane and Victor Garber and directed by Sam Mendes was announced for Spring 2000,^[34] the New York debut of the musical was delayed. Rechristened Bounce in 2003, the show was mounted at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.. Bounce received disappointing reviews and never reached Broadway. A revised version of Bounce premiered off-Broadway at The Public Theater under the new name Road Show from October 28, 2008 through December 28, 2008, under the direction of John Doyle.

Collaborations with John Weidman (1976–)[link]

Pacific Overtures (1976) had music and lyrics by Sondheim and a book by John Weidman. It opened on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre on January 11, 1976, and closed after 193 performances on June 27, 1976

Assassins (1990) with music and lyrics by Sondheim and a book by Weidman. The show opened off-Broadway at the Playwrights Horizons on December 18, 1990, and closed on February 16, 1991 after 73 performances. The idea came from when Sondheim was a panelist at producer Stuart Ostrow's Musical Theater Lab, and he read a script by playwright Charles Gilbert. Sondheim asked Gilbert for permission to use his idea. Gilbert consented and offered to write the book; but Sondheim declined, having already had collaborator John Weidman in mind.^[35]

Weidman would also write the book for Road Show, with music and lyrics by Sondheim.

Collaborations with James Lapine (1984–1994)[link]

The failure of Merrily greatly affected Sondheim; he was ready to quit theatre and do movies or create video games or write mysteries. He was later quoted as saying, "I wanted to find something to satisfy myself that does not involve Broadway and dealing with all those people who hate me and hate Hal."^[36] The collaboration between Sondheim and Prince would largely end after Merrily – until the 2003 production of Bounce, another failure.

However, instead of quitting the theatre following the failure of Merrily, Sondheim decided "that there are better places to start a show", and found a new collaborator in the "artsy" James Lapine. Lapine has a taste "for the avant-garde and for visually oriented theatre in particular." Their first collaboration was Sunday in the Park with George (1984), in which Sondheim's music evoked the pointillist painting technique of its subject, Georges Seurat. In 1985, he and Lapine won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Sunday in the Park with George. The show had its first revival on Broadway in 2008.

The Sondheim–Lapine collaboration also produced a musical reimagining classic fairy-tales, Into the Woods (1987). Their last work together was the rhapsodic Passion (1994), which was adapted from the Italian film Passione D'Amore by Ettore Scola. After a run of 280 performances, Passion became the shortest-running show to win the Tony Award for Best Musical.^{[citation needed]}

Later work[link]

Regarding his interest in writing new work, Sondheim was quoted in a 2006 Time Out: London interview as saying, "No... It's age. It's a diminution of energy and the worry that there are no new ideas. It’s also an increasing lack of confidence. I’m not the only one. I’ve checked with other people. People expect more of you and you’re aware of it and you shouldn’t be."^[37] In December 2007, however, Sondheim said that, along with continued work on Bounce, he was "nibbling at a couple of things with John Weidman and James Lapine."^[38]

Lapine created a "multimedia revue", formerly titled Sondheim: a Musical Revue, which had been scheduled to premiere in April 2009 at the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta, Georgia. However, that production was canceled, due to "difficulties encountered by the commercial producers attached to the project...in raising the necessary funds".^[39][40] A revised version, Sondheim on Sondheim, was produced by the Roundabout Theatre Company and premiered on Broadway at Studio 54 in a limited engagement from March 19, 2010 in previews, opening April 22 through June 13. The cast featured Barbara Cook, Vanessa L. Williams, Tom Wopat, Norm Lewis and Leslie Kritzer.^[41]

Upcoming projects[link]

It was announced in February 2012 that Sondheim will be collaborating on a new musical with David Ives. Sondheim has said that he has "about 20-30 minutes of the musical completed."^{[42][43][44][45][46]} The show is tentatively called All Together Now and is assumed to follow the format of Merrily We Roll Along. Sondheim said of the project, "two people and what goes into their relationship...We’ll write for a couple of months, then have a workshop. It seemed experimental and fresh 20 years ago. I have a feeling it may not be experimental and fresh any more."^[47]

Conversation with Frank Rich[link]

On April 28, 2002, during the Sondheim Celebration at the Kennedy Center, Sondheim and Frank Rich of the New York Times held a "conversation".^[48][49] In March 2008, Sondheim and Rich appeared in four interviews/conversations in California^[50][51][52] and Portland, Oregon^[53] titled "A Little Night Conversation with Stephen Sondheim".^[54][55] In September 2008, they appeared at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. The Cleveland Jewish News reported on the Oberlin event, writing: "Sondheim said: 'Movies are photographs; the stage is larger than life.' What musicals does Sondheim admire the most? Porgy and Bess tops a list which includes Carousel, She Loves Me, and The Wiz, which he saw six times. Sondheim took a dim view of today’s musicals. What works now, he said, are musicals that are easy to take; audiences don’t want to be challenged."^[56][57] Sondheim and Rich had more conversations on January 18, 2009 at Avery Fisher Hall,^[58] on February 2, 2009 at the Landmark Theatre, Richmond, Virginia,^[59] on February 21, 2009 at the Kimmel Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,^[60] and on April 20, 2009 at the University of Akron College of Fine and Applied Arts, EJ Thomas Hall, Akron, Ohio.^[61] The conversations were reprised at Tufts and Brown Universities in February 2010 and the University of Tulsa in April 2010.^[62] They spoke again at Lafayette College on March 8, 2011.^[63]