Stephen Sondheim

Writer

March 22, 1930 (91 years)

† November 26, 2021

New York City, New York, USA

Biography

Stephen Joshua Sondheim (/ˈsɒndhaɪm/; March 22, 1930 – November 26, 2021) was an American composer and lyricist. Regarded as one of the most important figures in 20th-century musical theatre, he is credited with reinventing the American musical. With his frequent collaborators Harold Prince and James Lapine, Sondheim's Broadway musicals tackled unexpected themes beyond the genre's traditional subjects while addressing darker elements of the human experience. His music and lyrics are tinged with …

Filmography

7.2

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

The infamous story of Benjamin Barker, a.k.a Sweeney Todd, who sets up a barber shop down in London which is the basis for a sinister partnership with his fellow tenant, Mrs. Lovett. Based on the hit Broadway musical.

6.9

West Side Story

Two youngsters from rival New York City gangs fall in love, but tensions between their respective friends build toward tragedy.

8.7

Live from Lincoln Center

Since premiering in 1976, the landmark series has sought to democratize the world of the performing arts by making Lincoln Center's historic concerts and events available for public broadcast across the country. And it continues to push the boundaries, both technical and creative, of what is possible in the realm of stage performance capture.

5.8

Into the Woods

In a woods filled with magic and fairy tale characters, a baker and his wife set out to end the curse put on them by their neighbor, a spiteful witch.

7.2

West Side Story

In Manhattan’s Upper West Side, rival gangs of Polish-Americans and newly arrived Puerto Ricans clash for control of the neighborhood, even as two young members from opposite sides fall dangerously in love.

6.8

Merrily We Roll Along

Franklin Shepard is a talented Broadway composer who abandons his theater career and all his friends in New York in order to produce films in Los Angeles. The story begins at the height of his Hollywood fame and moves backwards in time, showing snapshots of the most important moments in Frank’s life that shaped the man he is today. A live recording of the 2024 Tony Award-winning Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's musical, filmed at the Hudson Theatre in New York City.

6.3

Gypsy

Gypsy's mother Rose dreams of a life in show business for her daughters, but Louise becomes a huge burlesque star. Stage musical loosely based on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee.

7.4

Sunday in the Park with George

The days leading up to the completion of his most famous painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, Georges Seurat is struggling to make meaningful art and maintaining a relationship with his lover, Dot. Amid the scorn of the artistic community, Seurat's artistic ability thrives while his love diminishes. A century later, Seurat's descendant – named George and also an artist – finds himself burnt out and in search of what artistic path to follow, but he finds the answer to his future in the past.

7.0

The Last of Sheila

A year after Sheila is killed in a hit-and-run, her multimillionaire husband invites a group of friends to spend a week on his yacht playing a scavenger hunt-style mystery game—but the game turns out to be all too real and all too deadly.

7.1

Six by Sondheim

This intimate documentary explores the life and career of the stage legend Stephen Sondheim through six of his best-known songs.

6.1

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

A wily slave must unite a virgin courtesan and his young smitten master to earn his freedom.

8.1

Into the Woods

In a woods filled with magic and fairy tale characters, a baker and his wife set out to end the curse put on them by their neighbor, a spiteful witch.

6.3

Gypsy

Gypsy's mother Rose dreams of a life in show business for her daughters, but Louise becomes a huge burlesque star. Stage musical loosely based on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee.

6.5

All You Need Is Love: The Story of Popular Music

A 17-part television documentary series on the history of modern pop music covering some of the many different genres that have fallen under the label of "popular music" between the mid-19th century and 1976, including folk, ragtime, Tin Pan Alley, vaudeville and music hall, musical theatre, country, swing, jazz, blues, R&B, rock 'n' roll and others.

6.9

Company

Set in modern upper-crust Manhattan, an exploration of love and commitment as seen through the eyes of a charming perpetual bachelor questioning his single state and his enthusiastically married, slightly envious friends.

8.2

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

In 1846, Anthony Hope sails into London with the mysterious Sweeney Todd, a once-naive barber whose life and marriage was uprooted by a corrupt justice system. Todd confides in Nellie Lovett, the owner of a local meat pie shop, and the two become partners, as Todd swears revenge on those that have wronged him and decides to take up his old profession.

7.5

Evening Primrose

A man becomes part of a secret society of people who live in a department store and quickly falls in love with their leader’s young maid.

6.2

A Little Night Music

A tangled web of affairs is weaved around actress Desirée Armfeldt and the men who love her: lawyer Fredrik Egerman and Count Carl-Magnus Malcom. When Desirée's show travels through Fredrik's town, the estranged lovers' passion rekindles.

N/A

A Tribute to Stephen Sondheim

This special is a recording of the presentation of the Algur H. Meadows Award for Excellence in the Arts presented by Southern Methodist University in 1994. The performance, by students at the school and guest artists Bernadette Peters, Chip Zien and Debra Monk, is intercut with interviews with Sondheim, Hal Prince, James Lapine and videotaped testimonials from Angela Lansbury and Jason Alexander.

9.0

Pacific Overtures

In 1853 Japan, the story follows the Westernization of Japan, mainly through the story of Kayama, a samurai, and Manjiro, a fisherman. The lives of both men are radically changed by the coming of American ships to Japan.