Stephen Sondheim

As those of you who saw my Facebook status last night, and who know me in general are aware that I want to meet Stephen Sondheim and that I love him.  And that my favoritest musical is Into the Woods and how crushed I was not to even get a call back for our rendition of ITW at CMU.  Dark days.

Anyway!  I love Sondheim's work and recently won a copy of his book Finishing the Hat. AAHH!!!  I have been reading it when I can, but basically life has been a whirlwind for the last two weeks or so, trying to get everything done.  In the snippets of time that I have managed to carve out to read a page or two, it has been very interesting and I think it will be very illuminating.  I'll be able to talk about it more later when I finish it.  As I write this I am listening to the Company cast recording in iTunes right now.

The point of this post is to emulate how much I love Stephen Sondheim.  His lyrics are amazing, and I wish I possessed an 1/8 of his wit! His songs just are so poignant and beautiful.  He has 8 Tonys (1963: Something Funny Happened on the Way to the Forum, 1971: Company (2), 1972: Follies, 1973: A Little Night Music, 1979: Sweeney Todd, 1988: Into the Woods (which I am now listening to), 1994: Passions) [source]  and a Pulitzer Prize for Drama (Sunday in the Park with George, which funnily enough didn't win a Tony) so I know that I'm not the only one who thinks he's awesome.

And I respect him, even more so now, since I read the introduction to his book in which he says that he won't write about anyone who is alive in this book because he doesn't want to do any inadvertent damage to their careers and that isn't why he wrote the book.

So, to sum it up: I love Stephen Sondheim and I want to meet him.  Even if I just get to shake his hand and stare dumbfoundedly up at him for a little bit, I could die even happier than I am right now.  It would be even better if I could make my tongue work and actually have a conversation with him.

I want to meet Stephen Sondheim.  But I don't think that this will happen in the near future, not without a miracle anyway.  If he somehow manages to stumble upon this, wow, that's unlikely.  And, I would be baffled, but incredibly honored.  Anyway, if he reads this: Happy 80th Birthday, Mr. Sondheim, I hope you have many more years ahead of you!

For all you Sondheim fans out there, here is an interview from pbs.org to watch!