Broadway Musical Stephen Sondheim Week 9

1. Broadway MusicalStephen SondheimWeek 9 段馨君 Iris Hsin-chun Tuan Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences NCTU

2. To survive, the Broadway musical would either destroy the past and construct itself in an entirely new image, or retain to the tradition in a revitalized from suitable to new sense of modern life. • Stephen Sondheim committed himself to the latter course that accounts for a first-rate body of work.

3. Influence • Oscar Hammerstein II, neighbor, friend, father-image, model, and mentor, passed on to Stephen Sondheim that Richard Roaders inherited impersonally from Jerome Kern. Oscar Hammerstein

4. Hammerstein outlined a course of study that became the basis for Sondheim’s serious preparation for professional career. Stephen Sondheim’s production.

5. First, take an admired play and turn it into a musical.Second, take a bad play or one.Third, take a nondramatic work.Fourth, create an entirely original musical. • From Bert Shevelove, coauthor of A funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum, he learned never to “sacrifice smoothness for cleverness.”

6. Philosophy and principles • Stephen Sondheim writes songs for the theater, virtuosic songs. • Before him, a Broadway musical evolved from stories audience wanted to hear.  Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Lyrics by Stephen Sondheum.

7. A lesson learned from Oscar Hammerstein II: Write only what you believe. • The book determines the musical, its style, tone, mood, and nature and placement of the songs- everything. • The book is the show. Comedy TonightThe opening number to Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-hZhr2k2hk

8. Oklahoma! Opened with the uncommon scene because the text generated that kind of an opening. • Sondheim conceived a score where songs interrupt the action and that could be removed from the show without destroying the development of the plot. Oklahoma ! Oh What a Beautiful Morning and More http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C6J9gij5SQ&feature=related

9. Lyrics • First, all lyrics exist in time. • Second, lyrics live on the sound of their music and must be underwritten.

10. A good song in a musical must generate a type of theatrical moment that cannot be duplicated in the nonlyric theater. • The good dramatic songwriter must build subtext into the lyric. Give the actor something to act! Give the director something to play! Kiss Me, Kate (Original 1948)

11. A good lyric reveals to the audience the character who could not have the omniscience to know or explain themselves with total accuracy. • Good song lyrics find humor in character. People make us laugh through the lines they speak. • The humor of character demands an appropriate dramatic situation; it fails out of context. "Wunderbar" - Kiss Me, Kate (1958) - Drake, Morison http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=205BqSO6lwk "Wunderbar" from Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate - performed by original leads Alfred Drake and Patricia Morison from a 1958 television production.

12. Good lyrics use rhyme to focus attention on the rhymed word and make it the most outstanding word in the pattern. Do I Hear a Waltz? - Carol Burnett and George Hearn http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRJ012WnZI0 Carol Burnett and George Hearn sing "Do I Hear a Waltz?", originally from Stephen Sondheim's musical of the same name.

13. Music • It shows in his shows- in their complexity, their uncompromising artistry, their unwillingness to cater to public sentiment. • It shows in his music as well.

14. As theater composer, Sondheim writes music to sound the specific drama at hand. • It might reflect period, atmosphere, character or tone, embody concept, or reveal motive, but aim it must for a perfect fit with dramatic and theatrical function. "Opening Doors" - Merrily We Roll Along http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qukaC5ri-QQ From the ECU workshop production of Merrily We Roll Along by Stephen Sondheim, featuring Erinn Nelson, Andrew Britt, Ashley Burke, Jonathan Coarsey, Daniela Hart, Lauren Wenick and Kate Blain.

15. Predictable, Stephen Sondheim composes highly personal music to match the character and tone of his lyrics. • Music and lyrics develop in the same way and climax at the same time. 'Merrily We Roll Along'

16. The individual song to become the specific content of a dramatic moment on stage. • The entire score to reflect the concept of the show. • To capture the delicate, romantic old world flavor of A Little Night Music. • Sondheim commits totally to creative freedom and its corollary incentive to experiment.

17. Those detractors who grant him intellect, skill, and craft, find fault in their product. • Sondheim and his collaborators continue to experiment from a solid base within the established tradition they know and love.

18. Stephen Joshua Sondheim • Stephen Joshua Sondheim (born March 22, 1930)is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. • He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize. Stephen Joshua Sondheim

19. Described by Frank Rich of the New York Times as "the greatest, and perhaps best-known artist working in musical theatre", his most famous scores include A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, and Assassins. He also wrote the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy.

20. In addition to theatre, he has contributed to movies as well, 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.