Stephen Sondheim
The Hat
By Daniel Felsenfeld
If I had to pick one Sondheim show that speaks most directly to me, it would absolutely be Sunday in the Park With George, the brilliantly-conceived show (written with James Lapine) wherein the Tableau of George Seraut’s Sunday on the Island of Le grande jatte becomes especially vivant. Characters emerge from the [...]
More on Sondheim: The Story So Far
By Daniel Felsenfeld
As I said in an earlier post, one of the prizes of The Story So Far is the original cast recording of Evening Primrose, one of Sondheim’s best—and strangest—offerings. It was written for television, and though I’ve tried for years to get hold of it on video, I’ve never managed (not [...]
My Three Hours with Stephen Sondheim
By Daniel FelsenfeldÂ
As a young composer, I aspired to the Broadway stage, like my two heroes Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. Bernstein having passed a year or so before, I decided, brash 22-year-old that I was, to write a letter to Stephen Sondheim asking him if he took private students. I was pretty sure I [...]
Assassins, A Little Night Music, etc. from Sondheim “The Story So Far”
By Daniel Felsenfeld
Personally, I like theatre to go to extremes. In college, I loved Tenessee Williams, Wedekind, Joe Orton, Howard Barker, Howard Korder, the Peter Brook production of Marat/Sade, and Bertolt Brecht (especially his collaborations with Kurt Weill). They seemed to not just show the same thing onstage that we could see in life but [...]
Stephen Sondheim’s “The Story So Far…”
By Daniel Felsenfeld
I. Am. So. Excited! As a longstanding admirer of Stephen Sondheim, the great theatre genius who made poetry out of urbane bitchiness and who brought music of a certain harmonic spikiness to the mainstream, I was thrilled when this gorgeous boxed set arrived at my doorstep. Sony’s Sondheim: The Story So Far… is [...]