Stephen Sondheim quotes - page 2

Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten. (Stephen Sondheim)

In the Rodgers and Hammerstein generation, popular hits came out of shows and movies.

Stephen Sondheim

By the time I was 22, I was a professional. A young and flawed professional, but not an amateur.

Stephen Sondheim

Everyone I used to play with has either given up or is dead.

Stephen Sondheim

I played the organ when I went to military school, when I was 10. They had a huge organ, the second-largest pipe organ in New York State. I loved all the buttons and the gadgets. I've always been a gadget man.

Stephen Sondheim

I fell into lyric writing because of music. I backed into it.

Stephen Sondheim

I really don't want to write a score until the whole show is cast and staged.

Stephen Sondheim

A close-up on screen can say all a song can.

Stephen Sondheim

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

After the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution, songs became part of the story, as opposed to just entertainments in between comedy scenes.

Stephen Sondheim

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. (Stephen Sondheim)

Gotta watch out for directors.

Stephen Sondheim

So many good songs get written fast, because you know exactly what has to work.

Stephen Sondheim

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

Nowadays, there are sometimes more producers than there are people in the cast, because it takes that much money to put a show on.

Stephen Sondheim

My personal life and my artistic life do not interfere with each other.

Stephen Sondheim

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

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.

Stephen Sondheim

I firmly believe lyrics have to breathe and give the audience's ear a chance to understand what's going on. Particularly in the theater, where you have costume, story, acting, orchestra.

Stephen Sondheim

There's something inimical about the camera and song.

Stephen Sondheim

When the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you've written. (Stephen Sondheim)

Making lyrics feel natural, sit on music in such a way that you dont feel the effort of the author, so that they shine and bubble and rise and fall, is very, very hard to do. Whereas you can sit at the piano and just play and feel youre making art.

Stephen Sondheim

Every writer I've ever spoken to feels fraudulent in some way or other.

Stephen Sondheim

Generally, the best recording is the original cast, because that's the way the piece grew: integrally, with them.

Stephen Sondheim

I don't listen to recordings of my songs. I don't avoid it, I just don't go out of my way to do it.

Stephen Sondheim

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Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Sondheim - Image

Occupation: American Composer
Born: March 22, 1930
Died: November 26, 2021
Quotes count: 62
Wikipedia: Stephen Sondheim

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