:Stephen Sondheim

Sondheim was born on March 22, 1930, into a Jewish family in New York City, the son of Etta Janet ("Foxy"; née Fox; 1897–1992) and Herbert Sondheim (1895–1966). His paternal grandparents, Isaac and Rosa, were German Jews, and his maternal grandparents, Joseph and Bessie, were Lithuanian Jews from Vilnius.{{harvnb|Secrest|1998|loc=[https://web.archive.org/web/20170828024544/http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/secrest-sondheim.html Ch. 1]}} His father manufactured dresses designed by his mother. The composer grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and, after his parents divorced, on a farm near Doylestown, Pennsylvania. The only child of affluent parents living in the San Remo at 145 Central Park West, he was described in Meryle Secrest's biography Stephen Sondheim: A Life as an isolated, emotionally neglected child. When he lived in New York City, Sondheim attended the Ethical Culture Fieldston School. He spent several summers at Camp Androscoggin.{{r|Secrest book}} His mother sent him to New York Military Academy in 1940.{{cite web |url=https://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/exploring/mt/sondheim/sond/timeline.html |title=A Stephen Sondheim Timeline |work=John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts |access-date=May 26, 2021 |archive-date=May 26, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210526095922/https://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/exploring/mt/sondheim/sond/timeline.html |url-status=live }} From 1942 to 1947, he attended George School, a private Quaker preparatory school in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where he wrote his first musical, By George, in 1946.{{r|timeline}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/8022755/Still-cutting-it-at-80-Stephen-Sondheim-interview.html|title=Still cutting it at 80: Stephen Sondheim interview|newspaper=The Daily Telegraph|last=Brown|first=Mick|author-link=Mick Brown (journalist)|date=September 27, 2010|access-date=February 9, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180422011134/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/8022755/Still-cutting-it-at-80-Stephen-Sondheim-interview.html|archive-date=April 22, 2018|url-status=live}} From 1946 to 1950, Sondheim attended Williams College. He graduated magna cum laude and received the Hubbard Hutchinson Prize, a two-year fellowship to study music.{{r|timeline}}

Sondheim traced his interest in theater to Very Warm for May, a Broadway musical he saw when he was nine. "The curtain went up and revealed a piano", Sondheim recalled. "A butler took a duster and brushed it up, tinkling the keys. I thought that was thrilling."{{cite magazine|last = Henry|first = William A III|url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,966141,00.html|title = Master of the Musical; Stephen Sondheim Applies a Relentless|magazine = Time|date = December 7, 1987|access-date = March 19, 2007|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070930120011/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,966141,00.html|archive-date = September 30, 2007|url-status = dead}}

Sondheim detested his mother,{{cite news |last=Rich |first=Frank |url=http://partners.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20000312mag-sondheim.html |title=Conversations With Sondheim |work=The New York Times |date=March 12, 2000 |access-date=January 17, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061123120705/http://partners.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20000312mag-sondheim.html |archive-date=November 23, 2006 |url-status=live }} who was said to be psychologically abusive{{cite book|last=King|first=Robert A.|title=The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child|year=1972|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=0-300-11996-8|page=310}} and to have projected her anger from her failed marriage onto her son:{{sfn|Secrest|1998|p=30}} "When my father left her, she substituted me for him. And she used me the way she used him, to come on to and to berate, beat up on, you see. What she did for five years was treat me like dirt, but come on to me at the same time."{{cite journal|last=Schiff|first=Stephen|author-link=Stephen Schiff|year=2010 |title=Deconstructing Sondheim |journal=The Sondheim Review|volume=XVII |issue=2 |page=17}} She once wrote him a letter saying that the only regret she ever had was giving birth to him.{{cite news|last = Kakutani|first = Michiko|url = https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/07/19/specials/sondheim-compassion.html|title = Sondheim's Passionate "Passion"|work = The New York Times|date = March 20, 1994|access-date = April 7, 2012|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130515154923/http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/07/19/specials/sondheim-compassion.html|archive-date = May 15, 2013|url-status = live |quote=... she wrote me a letter, hand-delivered because she thought she was going to die and she wanted to make sure I got it. She said, 'The night before I undergo open heart surgery,' – underlined three times. Open parenthesis. 'My surgeon's term.' Close parenthesis. 'The only regret I have in life is giving you birth.'}} When she died in 1992, Sondheim did not attend her funeral. He had been estranged from her for nearly 20 years.{{r|rich}}{{sfn|Secrest|1998|loc=p. 272: "Sondheim was in London when his mother died and did not return for her funeral."}}

File:Oscar Hammerstein - portrait.jpg {{circa|1940}}]]

When Sondheim was about ten years old (around the time of his parents' divorce), he formed a close friendship with James Hammerstein, son of lyricist and playwright Oscar Hammerstein II, who were neighbors in Bucks County. The elder Hammerstein became Sondheim's surrogate father, influencing him profoundly and developing his love of musical theater. Sondheim met Hal Prince, who later directed many of his shows, at the opening of South Pacific, Hammerstein's musical with Richard Rodgers. The comic musical Sondheim wrote at George School, By George, was a success among his peers and buoyed his self-esteem. When he asked Hammerstein to evaluate it as though he had no knowledge of its author, he said it was the worst thing he had ever seen: "But if you want to know why it's terrible, I'll tell you." They spent the rest of the day going over the musical, and Sondheim later said, "In that afternoon I learned more about songwriting and the musical theater than most people learn in a lifetime."{{sfn|Zadan|1986|p=4}}

Hammerstein designed a course of sorts for Sondheim on constructing a musical. He had the young composer write four musicals, each with one of the following conditions:{{Cite news|last=Kaufman|first=David|date=October 5, 1998|title=Book review: Stephen Sondheim: A Life|work=The Nation|url=https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Stephen+Sondheim%3A+A+Life-a021250311|access-date=November 29, 2021}}

• Based on a play he admired; Sondheim chose George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly's Beggar on Horseback (which became All That Glitters)
• Based on a play he liked but thought flawed; Sondheim chose Maxwell Anderson's High Tor
• Based on an existing novel or short story not previously dramatized, which became his unfinished version of Mary Poppins (Bad Tuesday,{{cite web |url=http://www.musicalcriticism.com/opera/saturday-night-0209.shtml |title=Sondheim's Saturday Night at the Jermyn Street Theatre – MusicalCriticism.com (Musical Theatre review) |publisher=MusicalCriticism.com |access-date=October 18, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111028021622/http://www.musicalcriticism.com/opera/saturday-night-0209.shtml |archive-date=October 28, 2011 |url-status=dead }} unrelated to the musical film and stage play scored by the Sherman Brothers)
• An original, which became Climb High

None of the "assignment" musicals were produced professionally. High Tor and Mary Poppins have never been produced: the rights holder for the original High Tor refused permission (though a musical version by Arthur Schwartz was produced for television in 1956), and Mary Poppins was unfinished.{{sfn|Secrest|1998|pp=78–79}}

{{anchor|Death of Oscar Hammerstein II}}Hammerstein's death

Hammerstein died of stomach cancer on August 23, 1960, aged 65.{{Cite news|date=August 23, 1960|title=Oscar Hammerstein 2d Is Dead; Librettist and Producer Was 65|newspaper=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1960/08/23/archives/oscar-hammerstein-2d-is-dead-librettist-and-producer-was-65-did.html|access-date=November 29, 2021}}{{Cite web|url=http://partners.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20000312mag-sondheim.html|title=Conversations With Sondheim|website=The New York Times|access-date=February 9, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070318054150/http://partners.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20000312mag-sondheim.html|archive-date=March 18, 2007|url-status=live}} Sondheim later recalled that Hammerstein had given him a portrait of himself. Sondheim asked him to inscribe it, and said later of the request that it was "weird...it's like asking your father to inscribe something." Reading the inscription ("For Stevie, My Friend and Teacher") choked up the composer, who said, "That describes Oscar better than anything I could say."{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFSq1mNkB2U |title=Stephen Sondheim with Adam Guettel |via=YouTube |date=December 7, 2010 |access-date=July 4, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140601052043/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFSq1mNkB2U |archive-date=June 1, 2014 |url-status=live }}

Sondheim began attending Williams College, a liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts, whose theater program attracted him.{{Cite web|url=https://musopen.org/pt/education/instrument/323/piano/great-composers/20th-century-composers/stephen-sondheim/|title=Stephen Sondheim for Piano – Guides|website=musopen.org|language=pt|access-date=February 9, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180210002843/https://musopen.org/pt/education/instrument/323/piano/great-composers/20th-century-composers/stephen-sondheim/|archive-date=February 10, 2018|url-status=live}} His first teacher there was Robert Barrow:

everybody hated him because he was very dry, and I thought he was wonderful because he was very dry. And Barrow made me realize that all my romantic views of art were nonsense. I had always thought an angel came down and sat on your shoulder and whispered in your ear "dah-dah-dah-DUM." It never occurred to me that art was something worked out. And suddenly it was skies opening up. As soon as you find out what a leading tone is, you think, Oh my God. What a diatonic scale is—Oh my God! The logic of it. And, of course, what that meant to me was: Well, I can do that. Because you just don't know. You think it's a talent, you think you're born with this thing. What I've found out and what I believed is that everybody is talented. It's just that some people get it developed and some don't.

The composer told Meryle Secrest: "I just wanted to study composition, theory, and harmony without the attendant musicology that comes in graduate school. But I knew I wanted to write for the theater, so I wanted someone who did not disdain theater music."{{cite journal |year=2011 |title=An early influence |journal=The Sondheim Review|volume=XVII |issue=4 |page=6}} Barrow suggested that Sondheim study with Milton Babbitt, whom Sondheim called "a frustrated show composer" with whom he formed "a perfect combination".{{r|An early influence}} When they met, Babbitt was working on a musical for Mary Martin based on the myth of Helen of Troy. The two met once a week in New York City for four hours. (At the time, Babbitt was teaching at Princeton University.) According to Sondheim, they spent the first hour dissecting Rodgers and Hart or George Gershwin or studying Babbitt's favorites (Buddy DeSylva, Lew Brown, and Ray Henderson). They then proceeded to other forms of music (such as Mozart's Jupiter Symphony), critiquing them the same way.{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tBVLHv01WE|title=A Conversation with Stephen Sondheim|date=May 9, 2012|access-date=December 9, 2017|via=YouTube|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190409142524/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tBVLHv01WE|archive-date=April 9, 2019|url-status=live}} Fascinated by mathematics, Babbitt and Sondheim studied songs by a variety of composers (especially Jerome Kern). Sondheim told Secrest that Kern had the ability "to develop a single motif through tiny variations into a long and never boring line and his maximum development of the minimum of material". He said of Babbitt, "I am his maverick, his one student who went into the popular arts with all his serious artillery".{{r|An early influence}} At Williams, Sondheim wrote a musical adaption of Beggar on Horseback (a 1924 play by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly, with Kaufman's permission) that had three performances.{{cite magazine|last=Lipton|first=James|author-link=James Lipton|url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1283/the-art-of-the-musical-stephen-sondheim|title=The Art of the Musical Stephen Sondheim|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101027183725/http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1283/the-art-of-the-musical-stephen-sondheim |archive-date=October 27, 2010|magazine=The Paris Review|year=1997 |volume=Spring 1997 |issue=142 |access-date=September 4, 2013}} A member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity,{{cite book |last1=Citron |first1=Stephen |title=Sondheim and Lloyd-Webber: The New Musical |year=2001 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-509601-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a4XmCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA38 |page=238 |language=en}} he graduated magna cum laude in 1950.Citron 2001, p. 47

"A few painful years of struggle" followed, when Sondheim auditioned songs, lived in his father's dining room to save money, and spent time in Hollywood writing for the television series Topper.{{r|master}} He devoured 1940s and 1950s films, and called cinema his "basic language";{{r|rich}} his film knowledge got him through The $64,000 Question contestant tryouts. Sondheim disliked movie musicals, favoring classic dramas such as Citizen Kane, The Grapes of Wrath, and A Matter of Life and Death: "Studio directors like Michael Curtiz and Raoul Walsh ... were heroes of mine. They went from movie to movie to movie, and every third movie was good and every fifth movie was great. There wasn't any cultural pressure to make art".{{cite news |last=Mitchell |first=Elvis|author-link=Elvis Mitchell|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/28/movies/sondheim-film-aficionado-choices-for-telluride-festival-show-nonmusical-side.html|title=Sondheim, Film Aficionado; Choices for Telluride Festival Show Nonmusical Side|newspaper=The New York Times|date=August 28, 2003 |access-date=December 18, 2024|archive-date=November 27, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211127024337/https://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/28/movies/sondheim-film-aficionado-choices-for-telluride-festival-show-nonmusical-side.html |url-status=live }}

At age 22, Sondheim had finished the four shows Hammerstein requested. Screenwriters Julius and Philip Epstein's Front Porch in Flatbush, unproduced at the time, was being shopped around by designer and producer Lemuel Ayers. Ayers approached Frank Loesser and another composer; both turned him down. Ayers and Sondheim met as ushers at a wedding, and Ayers commissioned Sondheim for three songs for the show; Julius Epstein flew in from California and hired Sondheim, who worked with him in California for four or five months. After eight auditions for backers, half the money needed was raised. The show, retitled Saturday Night, was intended to open during the 1954–55 Broadway season, but Ayers died of leukemia in his early forties. The production rights transferred to his widow, Shirley, and due to her inexperience the show did not continue as planned;{{cite web|title=Stephen Sondheim Biography and Interview|website=achievement.org|publisher=American Academy of Achievement|url=https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-sondheim/#interview|access-date=April 16, 2020|archive-date=December 19, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161219192108/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-sondheim/#interview|url-status=live}} it opened off-Broadway in 2000. Sondheim later said, "I don't have any emotional reaction to Saturday Night at all—except fondness. It's not bad stuff for a 23-year-old. There are some things that embarrass me so much in the lyrics—the missed accents, the obvious jokes. But I decided, leave it. It's my baby pictures. You don't touch up a baby picture—you're a baby!"{{r|rich}}

Burt Shevelove invited Sondheim to a party where Sondheim arrived before him but knew no one else well. He saw a familiar face, Arthur Laurents, who had seen one of the auditions of Saturday Night, and they began talking. Laurents told him he was working on a musical version of Romeo and Juliet with Leonard Bernstein, but they needed a lyricist; Betty Comden and Adolph Green, who were supposed to write the lyrics, were under contract in Hollywood. He said that although he was not a big fan of Sondheim's music, he enjoyed the lyrics from Saturday Night and he could audition for Bernstein. The next day, Sondheim met and played for Bernstein, who said he would let him know. Sondheim wanted to write music and lyrics; he consulted with Hammerstein, who said, as Sondheim related in a 2008 New York Times video interview, "Look, you have a chance to work with very gifted professionals on a show that sounds interesting, and you could always write your own music eventually. My advice would be to take the job."{{r|ReferenceA}} West Side Story, directed by Jerome Robbins, opened in 1957 and ran for 732 performances. Sondheim expressed dissatisfaction with his lyrics, saying they did not always fit the characters and were sometimes too consciously poetic. Initially Bernstein was also credited as a co-writer of the lyrics, but he later offered Sondheim solo credit, as Sondheim had essentially done all of them. The New York Times review of the show did not mention the lyrics.{{cite news |title=Isn't He Something |author=Jesse Green | issue=Theater p. AR 11 |work=The New York Times |date=March 15, 2020}} Sondheim described the division of the royalties, saying that Bernstein received 3% and he received 1%. Bernstein suggested evening the percentage at 2% each, but Sondheim refused because he was satisfied with just getting the credit. Sondheim later said he wished "someone stuffed a handkerchief in my mouth because it would have been nice to get that extra percentage".{{r|ReferenceA}}

After West Side Story opened, Shevelove lamented the lack of "lowbrow comedy" on Broadway and mentioned a possible musical based on Plautus's Roman comedies. Sondheim was interested in the idea and called a friend, Larry Gelbart, to co-write the script. The show went through a number of drafts, and was interrupted briefly by Sondheim's next project.Dembin, Russell M. [http://www.sondheimreview.com/v18n4.htm "Forum at 50? It's possible! Sondheim 101: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714145938/http://www.sondheimreview.com/v18n4.htm |date=July 14, 2014 }} sondheimreview.com, 2012

In 1959, Laurents and Robbins approached Sondheim for a musical version of Gypsy Rose Lee's memoir after Irving Berlin and Cole Porter turned it down. Sondheim agreed, but Ethel Merman – cast as Mama Rose – had just finished Happy Hunting with an unknown composer (Harold Karr) and lyricist (Matt Dubey). Although Sondheim wanted to write the music and lyrics, Merman refused to let another first-time composer write for her and demanded that Jule Styne write the music.{{sfn|Zadan|1986|p=38}} Sondheim, concerned that writing lyrics again would pigeonhole him as a lyricist, called his mentor for advice. Hammerstein told him he should take the job, because writing a vehicle for a star would be a good learning experience. Sondheim agreed; Gypsy opened on May 21, 1959, and ran for 702 performances.{{r|ReferenceA}}

The first Broadway production for which Sondheim wrote the music and lyrics was A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, which opened in 1962 and ran for 964 performances.{{cite news|url = https://www.playbill.com/article/look-back-at-the-original-production-of-a-funny-thing-happened-on-the-way-to-the-forum|title = Look Back at the Original Production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum|work = Playbill|date = May 8, 2021|access-date = November 28, 2021|last = Skethway|first = Nathan}} The book, based on farces by Plautus, was by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart. The show won six Tony Awards (including Best Musical){{cite web|year=1963|title=The Tony Award Nominations|url=https://www.tonyawards.com/nominees/year/1963/category/any/show/any/|website=Tony Awards|access-date=November 28, 2021}} and had the longest Broadway run of any show for which Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics.{{r|Weber}}

Sondheim had participated in three straight hits, but his next show—1964's Anyone Can Whistle—was a nine-performance bomb (although it introduced Angela Lansbury to musical theater).

Do I Hear a Waltz?, based on Laurents's 1952 play The Time of the Cuckoo, was intended as another Rodgers and Hammerstein musical with Mary Martin in the lead. A new lyricist was needed,Laurents, Arthur (2000) Original Story By, New York: Alfred A. Knopf {{ISBN|0-375-40055-9}}, p. 212 and Laurents and Mary Rodgers, Rodgers's daughter, asked Sondheim to fill in. Although Richard Rodgers and Sondheim agreed that the original play did not lend itself to musicalization, they began writing a musical version.{{sfn|Secrest|1998|pp=174–175}} The project had many difficulties, including Rodgers's alcoholism. Sondheim later called it the one project he truly regretted writing, given that the reasons he wrote it—as a favor to Mary, as a favor to Hammerstein, as an opportunity to work again with Laurents, and as an opportunity to make money—were not reasons to write a musical. He then decided to work only when he could write both music and lyrics.{{r|rich}}

Sondheim asked author and playwright James Goldman to join him as bookwriter for a new musical inspired by a gathering of former Ziegfeld Follies showgirls: initially titled The Girls Upstairs, it became Follies.Chapin, Ted (2003) Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies, New York: Alfred A. Knopf. {{ISBN|978-0-375-41328-5}}

In 1966, Sondheim semi-anonymously provided lyrics for "The Boy From...", a parody of "The Girl from Ipanema" in the off-Broadway revue The Mad Show. The song was credited to "Esteban Río Nido",The Mad Show: A Musical Revue Based on Mad Magazine, Samuel French Inc Spanish for "Stephen River Nest", and in the show's playbill the lyrics were credited to "Nom De Plume". That year Goldman and Sondheim hit a creative wall on The Girls Upstairs, and Goldman asked Sondheim about writing a TV musical. The result was Evening Primrose, with Anthony Perkins and Charmian Carr. Written for the anthology series ABC Stage 67 and produced by Hubbell Robinson, it was broadcast on November 16, 1966. According to Sondheim and director Paul Bogart, the musical was written only because Goldman needed money for rent. The network disliked the title and Sondheim's alternative, A Little Night Music.{{cite web|url=http://www.playbill.com/features/article/144210-I-Remember-Original-Evening-Primrose-Director-Recalls-Making-of-TV-Musical/pg2 |title="I Remember": Original "Evening Primrose" Director Recalls Making of TV Musical |work=Playbill |date=October 22, 2010 |access-date=July 4, 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714162610/http://www.playbill.com/features/article/144210-I-Remember-Original-Evening-Primrose-Director-Recalls-Making-of-TV-Musical/pg2 |archive-date=July 14, 2014}}

After Sondheim finished Evening Primrose, Jerome Robbins asked him to adapt Bertolt Brecht's The Measures Taken despite the composer's general dislike of Brecht's work. Robbins wanted to adapt another Brecht play, The Exception and the Rule, and asked John Guare to adapt the book. Leonard Bernstein had not written for the stage in some time, and his contract as conductor of the New York Philharmonic was ending. Sondheim was invited to Robbins's house in the hope that Guare would convince him to write the lyrics for a musical version of The Exception and the Rule; according to Robbins, Bernstein would not work without Sondheim. When Sondheim agreed, Guare asked: "Why haven't you all worked together since West Side Story?" Sondheim answered, "You'll see". Guare said that working with Sondheim was like being with an old college roommate, and he depended on him to "decode and decipher their crazy way of working"; Bernstein worked only after midnight, and Robbins only in the early morning. Bernstein's score, which was supposed to be light, was influenced by his need to make a musical statement.{{cite book|last=Secrest|first=Meryle|authorlink=Meryle Secrest|title=Stephen Sondheim: A Life|chapter-url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=ndlY6OTKM-sC|page=1188}}|year=2011|publisher=Vintage Books|isbn=978-0-307-94684-3|pages=1188–|chapter=Being Alive}} Stuart Ostrow, who worked with Sondheim on The Girls Upstairs, agreed to produce the musical, initially titled A Pray by Blecht, then The Race to Urga. An opening night was scheduled, but during auditions Robbins asked to be excused for a moment. When he did not return, a doorman said he had gotten into a limousine to go to John F. Kennedy International Airport. Bernstein burst into tears and said, "It's over". Sondheim later said of this experience: "I was ashamed of the whole project. It was arch and didactic in the worst way."Abernathy, June.[http://www.sondheim.com/commentary/blecht.html "Sondheim's Lost Musical"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120320143349/http://www.sondheim.com/commentary/blecht.html |date=March 20, 2012 }} sondheim.com. Retrieved February 5, 2012. He wrote one and a half songs and threw them away, the only time he ever did that. Eighteen years later, Sondheim refused Bernstein's and Robbins's request to retry the show.{{r|urga}}

Sondheim lived in a Turtle Bay, Manhattan brownstone from his writing of Gypsy in 1959. Ten years later, he heard a knock on the door. His neighbor, Katharine Hepburn, was in "bare feet—this angry, red-faced lady" and told him, "You have been keeping me awake all night!" (she was practicing for her musical debut in Coco). "I remember asking Hepburn why she didn't just call me, but she claimed not to have my phone number. My guess is that she wanted to stand there in her bare feet, suffering for her art".Wolf, Matt. [https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/stephen-sondheim-an-audience-with-a-theatre-legend-8559902.html "Stephen Sondheim: An audience with a theatre legend"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170927052552/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/stephen-sondheim-an-audience-with-a-theatre-legend-8559902.html |date=September 27, 2017 }} The Independent, April 2013

File:Stephen Sondheim, New York.jpg

After Do I Hear a Waltz?, Sondheim devoted himself solely to writing both music and lyrics for the theater—and in 1970, he began a collaboration with director Harold Prince resulting in a body of work that is considered one of the high water marks of musical theater history, with critic Howard Kissel writing that the duo had set "Broadway's highest standards".{{cite book|title = Harold Prince: A Director's Journey|last = Ilson|first = Carol|year = 1989|publisher = Limelight Editions|page = 239|isbn = 978-0879102968}}{{cite news|url = https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/8/1/20748998/hal-prince-dies-at-91-company-cabaret-sondheim-phantom|title = Broadway director Harold Prince left an unparalleled legacy of masterworks|last = Romano|first = Aja|work = Vox|date = August 1, 2019|access-date = November 28, 2021}}

The first Sondheim show with Prince as director was 1970's Company. A show about a single man and his married friends, Company (with a book by George Furth) lacked a straightforward plot, instead centering on themes such as marriage and the difficulty of making an emotional connection with another person. It opened on April 26, 1970, at the Alvin Theatre, running for 705 performances after seven previews, and won Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Music, and Best Lyrics.{{cite news|url = https://www.playbill.com/article/look-back-at-the-original-production-of-company-on-broadway|title = Look Back at the Original Production of Company on Broadway

|last = Franklin|first = Marc J.|date = April 26, 2021|access-date = November 28, 2021|work = Playbill}} The original cast included Dean Jones, Elaine Stritch, and Charles Kimbrough. Popular songs include "Company", "The Little Things You Do Together", "Sorry-Grateful", "You Could Drive a Person Crazy", "Another Hundred People", "Getting Married Today", "Side by Side", "The Ladies Who Lunch", and "Being Alive". Walter Kerr of The New York Times praised the production, the performances, and the score, writing, "Sondheim has never written a more sophisticated, more pertinent, or—this is the surprising thing in the circumstances—more melodious score".{{cite news|url= https://www.nytimes.com/1970/05/03/archives/company-original-and-uncompromising-company-is-uncompromising.html|title= Company: Original and Uncompromising|newspaper=The New York Times|date= May 3, 1970|access-date= November 3, 2023|last=Kerr|first=Walter|author-link=Walter Kerr}}

Documentary filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker captured the making of the original cast recording shortly after the show opened on Broadway in his 1970 film Original Cast Album: Company.{{Cite magazine|last=Brody|first=Richard|title=The Unstrung Power of Elaine Stritch in "Original Cast Album: Company"|url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/the-unstrung-power-of-elaine-stritch-in-original-cast-album-company|access-date=August 6, 2020|magazine=The New Yorker|date=July 10, 2020|language=en-us}}{{Cite news|last=Saltz|first=Rachel|date=October 11, 2014|title=Invincible Bunch, 44 Years Later|newspaper=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/movies/invincible-bunch-44-years-later-.html|access-date=August 6, 2020}} Stritch, Sondheim, and producer Thomas Z. Shepard are featured prominently. Company was revived on Broadway in 1995, 2006, and 2020/2021 (the last revival began previews in March 2020, but shut down before resuming in November 2021 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic; in this revival, the main character was a woman, Bobbie, portrayed by Katrina Lenk).{{r|Franklin}} The 2006 and 2021 productions won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical.

Follies (1971), with a book by James Goldman, opened on April 4, 1971, at the Winter Garden Theatre and ran for 522 performances after 12 previews.{{cite news|url = https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-04-07-vl-43340-story.html|title = Theater Review : Conejo Follies Not Same Old Song, Dance : The Sondheim musical may have fizzled on Broadway, but the local production spotlights the show's strengths|newspaper= Los Angeles Times|date = April 7, 1994|access-date = November 28, 2021|last = Everett|first = Todd}} The plot centers on a reunion, in a crumbling Broadway theater scheduled for demolition, of performers in Weismann's Follies (a musical revue, based on the Ziegfeld Follies, that played in that theater between the world wars). The production also featured choreography and co-direction by Michael Bennett, who later created A Chorus Line.

The original production starred Dorothy Collins, John McMartin, Alexis Smith, and Gene Nelson. It included the songs "I'm Still Here", "Could I Leave You?", and "Losing My Mind". The production earned 11 Tony Award nominations, including Best Musical. It won 7 Tony Awards, including Best Original Score. The show was revived on Broadway in 2001 and 2011.{{cite web|url = https://www.playbill.com/production/follies-belasco-theatre-vault-0000010759|title = Follies|year = 2001|website = Playbill|access-date = November 28, 2021}}{{cite news|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/theater/reviews/follies-on-broadway-review.html|title = Darkness Around the Spotlight|date = September 13, 2011|access-date = November 28, 2021|last = Brantley|first = Ben|author-link = Ben Brantley|newspaper= The New York Times}}

A Little Night Music (1973), based on Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night and with a score primarily in waltz time, was among Sondheim's greatest commercial successes. Time magazine called it his "most brilliant accomplishment to date".{{cite magazine|url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,906953,00.html|title = A Precious Fancy|magazine = Time|date = March 19, 1973|access-date = March 19, 2007|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070930141833/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,906953,00.html|archive-date = September 30, 2007|url-status = dead}} The original cast included Glynis Johns, Len Cariou, Hermione Gingold, and Judy Kahan. The show opened on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre on February 25, 1973, and ran for 601 performances and 12 previews.{{IBDB title|3176|A Little Night Music}} Clive Barnes of The New York Times wrote, "A Little Night Music is soft on the ears, easy on the eyes, and pleasant on the mind. It is less than brash, but more than brassy, and it should give a lot of pleasure. It is the remembrance of a few things past, and all to the sound of a waltz and the understanding smile of a memory. Good God!—[an] adult musical!"{{cite news|url= https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/07/19/specials/sondheim-night.html|title= The Theater: A Little Night Music|author=Clive Barnes|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=December 18, 2024}}

The production earned 12 Tony Award nominations and won 6 awards, including Best Musical and Best Original Score. "Send in the Clowns", a song from the musical, was a hit for Judy Collins and became Sondheim's best-known song. It has since been covered by Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, and Judi Dench. The production was adapted to screen in the 1977 film of the same name starring Elizabeth Taylor, Dianna Rigg, Len Cariou, and Hermione Gingold. It was revived on Broadway in 2009 in a production starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury.{{cite news|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/theater/reviews/14little.html|title = A Weekend in the Country With Eros and Thanatos|work = The New York Times|date = December 14, 2009|access-date = November 28, 2021|last = Brantley|first = Ben|author-link = Ben Brantley}}

Pacific Overtures (1976), with a book by John Weidman, was one of Sondheim's most unconventional efforts: it explored the westernization of Japan, and was originally presented in a mock-Kabuki style.{{cite news|url = https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-jul-15-et-swed15-story.html|title = Cultural Fine-Tuning of Pacific Overtures|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date = July 15, 2002|access-date = November 28, 2021|last = Swed|first = Mark|author-link=Mark Swed}} The show closed after a run of 193 performances,{{IBDB title|3785|Pacific Overtures}} and was revived on Broadway in 2004.{{cite news|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/03/theater/reviews/repatriating-the-japanese-sondheim.html|title = Repatriating the Japanese Sondheim|newspaper=The New York Times|date = December 3, 2004|access-date = November 28, 2021|last = Brantley|first = Ben|author-link = Ben Brantley}}

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979), with a score by Sondheim and a book by Hugh Wheeler, is based on Christopher Bond's 1973 stage play derived from the Victorian original.Berkvist, Robert. [https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/07/19/specials/sondheim-guignol.html "Stephen Sondheim Takes a Stab at Grand Guignol"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170929044520/http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/07/19/specials/sondheim-guignol.html |date=September 29, 2017 }}. The New York Times, February 25, 1979{{cite web|url=http://www.sondheim.com/works/sweeney_todd/|title=Sweeney Todd|publisher=Sondheim.com|access-date=September 28, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141116040932/http://www.sondheim.com/works/sweeney_todd/|archive-date=November 16, 2014|url-status=live}}Wheeler, Hugh; Sondheim, Stephen. "Sweeney Todd script, Introduction by Christopher Bond". Hal Leonard Corporation, 1991, {{ISBN|1-55783-066-5}}, p. 1{{cite web|url=http://www.sondheimguide.com/sweeney.html|title='Sweeney Todd' listing" "Based on a Version of "Sweeney Todd" by Christopher Bond|publisher=Sondheimguide.com|access-date=September 28, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160525042858/http://www.sondheimguide.com/sweeney.html|archive-date=May 25, 2016|url-status=dead}}Brown, Larry. [http://larryavisbrown.homestead.com/files/Sondheim/sweeneytodd.htm "'Sweeney Todd' Notes"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090307034807/http://larryavisbrown.homestead.com/files/Sondheim/sweeneytodd.htm |date=March 7, 2009 }}. Larryavisbrown.homestead.com. Retrieved March 22, 2010. The original production starred Angela Lansbury, Len Cariou, Victor Garber, and Edmund Lyndeck. Popular songs from the musical include "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd", "The Worst Pies in London", "Pretty Women", "A Little Priest", "Not While I'm Around", "By the Sea", and "Johanna". The production earned 9 Tony Award nominations and won 8 awards, including Best Musical, Best Original Score, Best Actress, and Best Actor. Richard Eder of The New York Times wrote: "Mr. Sondheim's lyrics can be endlessly inventive. There is a hugely amusing recitation of the attributes given by the different professions—priest, lawyer, and so on—to the pies they contribute to. At other times the lyrics have a black, piercing poetry to them."{{cite web|url= https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/07/19/specials/sondheim-todd.html|title= Stage: Introducing Sweeney Todd|author=Richard Eder|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date= November 3, 2023}}

Lansbury's performance was captured alongside George Hearn in the Los Angeles production, which was filmed and shown on PBS as part of Masterpiece Theatre. It later earned five Primetime Emmy Award nominations. It has been revived on Broadway in 1989, 2005, and 2023. The 2023 production starred Josh Groban, Annaleigh Ashford, Jordan Fisher, and Gaten Matarazzo. A film adaptation was made in 2007 directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Alan Rickman.

Merrily We Roll Along (1981), with a book by George Furth, is one of Sondheim's most traditional scores; songs from the musical were recorded by Frank Sinatra and Carly Simon. According to Sondheim's music director Paul Gemignani, "Part of Steve's ability is this extraordinary versatility". The show was not the success their previous collaborations had been: after a chaotic series of preview performances, it opened to widely negative reviews, and closed after a run of less than two weeks. Due to the high quality of Sondheim's score, the show has been repeatedly revised and produced in the ensuing years. Martin Gottfried wrote, "Sondheim had set out to write traditional songs ... But [despite] that there is nothing ordinary about the music."{{sfn|Gottfried|1993|pp=146–147}} Sondheim later said: "Did I feel betrayed? I'm not sure I would put it like that. What did surprise me was the feeling around the Broadway community—if you can call it that, though I guess I will for lack of a better word—that they wanted Hal and me to fail."{{r|wolf}} Sondheim and Furth continued to revise the show in subsequent years. An acclaimed feature documentary on the show and its aftermath, Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened, directed by Merrily cast member Lonny Price, and produced by Bruce David Klein, Kitt Lavoie, and Ted Schillinger, premiered at the New York Film Festival on November 18, 2016. A film adaptation of Merrily We Roll Along, directed by Richard Linklater, began production in 2019 and is planned to continue for the next two decades to allow the actors to age in real time.{{cite news|url = https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/richard-linklater-film-merrily-we-roll-along-be-shot-20-years-1235414/|title = Richard Linklater Musical to Be Filmed Over 20-Year Span|last = Galuppo|first = Mia|work = The Hollywood Reporter|access-date = November 28, 2021|date = August 29, 2019}} An off-Broadway revival starring Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lindsay Mendez ran from November 2022 to January 2023 at the New York Theatre Workshop; it moved to Broadway in fall 2023. Merrily won 2024 Tony Awards for Best Revival of a Musical, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Jonathan Groff), Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical (Daniel Radcliffe), and Best Orchestrations (Jonathan Tunick).[https://www.tonyawards.com/winners/year/2024/category/any/show/any/ "Winners 2024"], Tony Awards

Merrily{{'}}s failure greatly affected Sondheim; he was ready to quit theater and do movies, create video games or write mysteries: "I wanted to find something to satisfy myself that does not involve Broadway and dealing with all those people who hate me and hate Hal."{{sfn|Gottfried|1993|p=153}} After Merrily, Sondheim and Prince did not collaborate again until their 2003 production of Bounce.{{Cite magazine|last1=Simonson|first1=Robert|last2=Jones|first2=Kenneth|date=June 30, 2003|title=Sondheim and Prince Bounce Back After 20 Years with Goodman Theatre Premiere, June 30|url=http://www.playbill.com/article/sondheim-and-prince-bounce-back-after-20-years-with-goodman-theatre-premiere-june-30-com-113986|access-date=November 29, 2021|magazine=Playbill}}

Sondheim decided "that there are better places to start a show" and found a new collaborator in James Lapine after he saw Lapine's Twelve Dreams off-Broadway in 1981: "I was discouraged, and I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't discovered Twelve Dreams at the Public Theatre";{{r|wolf}} Lapine has a taste "for the avant-garde and for visually oriented theater in particular". Their first collaboration was Sunday in the Park with George (1984), with Sondheim's music evoking Georges Seurat's pointillism. Sondheim and Lapine won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the play,{{Cite web|title=1985 Pulitzer Prizes|url=https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-year/1985|access-date=November 29, 2021|website=pulitzer.org|language=en}} and it was revived on Broadway in 2008, and again in a limited run in 2017.{{Cite news|last=Zinoman|first=Jason|author-link=Jason Zinoman|date=February 17, 2008|title=Who's That Kid Staging Sondheim?|newspaper=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/theater/17zino.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080218235152/http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/theater/17zino.html |archive-date=February 18, 2008 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|access-date=November 29, 2021}}{{Cite web|last=McPhee|first=Ryan|date=February 23, 2017|title=Jake Gyllenhaal-Led Sunday in the Park With George Opens on Broadway Feb. 23|url=http://www.playbill.com/article/jake-gyllenhaal-sunday-in-the-park-with-george-opens-on-broadway-feb-23|access-date=November 29, 2021|website=Playbill|language=en}}

They collaborated on Into the Woods (1987), a musical based on several Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Although Sondheim has been called the first composer to bring rap music to Broadway (with the Witch in the opening number of Into the Woods), he attributed the first rap in theater to Meredith Willson's "Rock Island" from The Music Man (1957).{{r|Bermel}} Into the Woods was revived on Broadway in 2002{{Cite news|last=Pressley|first=Nelson|date=May 1, 2002|title=A Spruced-Up 'Into the Woods' Grows on Broadway|newspaper=The Washington Post|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2002/05/01/a-spruced-up-into-the-woods-grows-on-broadway/fe46862c-9c17-4ab4-bdeb-1c0e014373c1/|access-date=November 29, 2021}} and at the St. James Theatre in 2022.

Sondheim's and Lapine's last collaboration on a musical was the rhapsodic Passion (1994), adapted from Ettore Scola's Italian film Passione D'Amore. With a run of 280 performances, Passion was the shortest-running show to win a Tony Award for Best Musical.{{cite web |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323384604578328292325351774 |title=A Theater Group Breaks Into Song |work=The Wall Street Journal |last=Simon |first=Lizzie |date=February 26, 2013 |access-date=August 9, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171111183252/https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323384604578328292325351774 |archive-date=November 11, 2017 |url-status=live }}

Assassins opened off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on December 18, 1990, with a book by John Weidman. The show explored, in revue form, a group of historical figures who tried (with varying success) to assassinate the President of the United States. The musical closed on February 16, 1991, after 73 performances. The Los Angeles Times reported the show "has been sold out since previews began, reflecting the strong appeal of Sondheim's work among the theater crowd."Fox, David.[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-01-29-ca-251-story.html "Critics Say 'Assassins' Will Have to Bite the Bullet : Stage: Some reviewers find Stephen Sondheim's Off Broadway musical fails to hit the target."] Los Angeles Times, January 29, 1991 In his review for The New York Times, Frank Rich wrote, "Assassins will have to fire with sharper aim and fewer blanks if it is to shoot to kill."Evans, Greg. "Crix Hang 'Assassins;' B'way Out of Range?" Variety (February 4, 1991): 95. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 147. Detroit: Gale Group, 2002Rich, Frank.[https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/28/theater/review-theater-sondheim-and-those-who-would-kill.html?scp=1&sq=&pagewanted=1 "Review/Theater; Sondheim and Those Who Would Kill"], The New York Times, January 28, 1991. Assassins was eventually staged on Broadway in 2004.{{Cite web|last=Grady|first=Constance|date=November 26, 2021|title=In Sondheim's Assassins, cornball Americana can't cover a seething mass of violent rage|url=https://www.vox.com/culture/22796368/assassins-review-stephen-sondheim-john-doyle-classic-stage-company|access-date=November 29, 2021|website=Vox|language=en}}

Saturday Night was shelved until its 1997 production at London's Bridewell Theatre. The next year, its score was recorded; a revised version, with two new songs, ran off-Broadway at Second Stage Theatre in 2000 and at London's Jermyn Street Theatre in 2009.{{cite web|url=http://www.playbill.com/news/article/119611-Sondheims-Saturday-Night-to-Play-Londons-Jermyn-Street-Theatre-in-2009 |title=Sondheim's Saturday Night to Play London's Jermyn Street Theatre in 2009 |work=Playbill |access-date=October 18, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111227144112/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/119611-Sondheims-Saturday-Night-to-Play-Londons-Jermyn-Street-Theatre-in-2009 |archive-date=December 27, 2011}}

Sondheim and Weidman reunited during the late 1990s for Wise Guys, a musical comedy based on the lives of colorful businessmen Addison and Wilson Mizner. A Broadway production starring Nathan Lane and Victor Garber, directed by Sam Mendes, and planned for spring 2000,{{cite news|last=Bahr|first=David|url=http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1589/is_1999_Oct_12/ai_55983616|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130807171726/http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1589/is_1999_Oct_12/ai_55983616|url-status=dead|archive-date=August 7, 2013|title=Everything's coming up Sondheim|publisher=The Advocate|date=October 12, 1999 |access-date=March 19, 2007 }} was delayed. Renamed Bounce in 2003, the show premiered at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in a production directed by Harold Prince, his first collaboration with Sondheim since 1981.{{cite news |last1=Jones |first1=Kenneth |title=Sondheim and Prince Reunite for Musical Comedy, Bounce, Bowing in Chicago Prior to DC |url=https://www.playbill.com/article/sondheim-and-prince-reunite-for-musical-comedy-bounce-bowing-in-chicago-prior-to-dc-com-113869 |access-date=December 5, 2021 |work=Playbill |date=June 20, 2003}} Poor reviews prevented Bounce from reaching Broadway, but a revised version opened off-Broadway as Road Show at the Public Theater on October 28, 2008. Directed by John Doyle, it closed December 28, 2008.{{cite news

|last=Jones |first=Kenneth |url=http://www.playbill.com/article/sondheim-weidmans-bounce-is-now-called-road-show-cast-announced-com-152408 |title=Sondheim & Weidman's Bounce Is Now Called Road Show; Cast Announced |work=Playbill |date=August 12, 2008 |access-date=June 24, 2019}}{{cite web

|url=http://www.publictheater.org/content/view/145/153 |title=Public Theater 2008–09 listing |publisher=The Public Theater |access-date=August 2, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080801000300/http://www.publictheater.org/content/view/145/153 |archive-date=August 1, 2008 |url-status=dead

}}{{cite news |last=Hetrick |first=Adam |url=https://www.playbill.com/article/sondheim-and-weidmans-road-show-pulls-into-the-public-oct-28-com-154657|title=Sondheim and Weidman's Road Show Pulls Into the Public Oct. 28 |work=Playbill |date=October 28, 2008}} The production won the 2009 Obie Award for Music and Lyrics{{cite news |last=Jones |first=Kenneth |url=http://www.playbill.com/article/groff-nottage-sondheim-cromer-pisoni-korins-among-2009-obie-award-winners-com-161006# |title=Groff, Nottage, Sondheim, Cromer, Pisoni, Korins Among 2009 OBIE Award Winners |work=Playbill |date=May 19, 2009 |access-date=June 24, 2019}} and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics.{{cite news |last=Gans |first=Andrew |url=http://www.playbill.com/article/ruined-and-billy-elliot-win-top-honors-at-drama-desk-awards-com-160988# |title=Ruined and Billy Elliot Win Top Honors at Drama Desk Awards |work=Playbill |date=May 18, 2009 |access-date=April 27, 2019}}

Asked about writing new work, Sondheim replied in 2006: "No ... It's age. It's a diminution of energy and the worry that there are no new ideas. It's also an increasing lack of confidence. I'm not the only one. I've checked with other people. People expect more of you and you're aware of it and you shouldn't be."{{cite magazine |last=Edwardes |first=Jane |date=May 9, 2006 |title=Stephen Sondheim: Interview |url=https://www.timeout.com/london/theatre/features/303.html |magazine=Time Out |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081228091937/http://www.timeout.com/london/theatre/features/303.html |archive-date=December 28, 2008}} In December 2007, he said that in addition to continuing work on Bounce, he was "nibbling at a couple of things with John Weidman and James Lapine".{{cite web |title=2007 Interview: Stephen Sondheim for "Sweeney Todd" |url=http://darkhorizons.com/news07/sondheim.php |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071214180303/http://www.darkhorizons.com/news07/sondheim.php |archive-date=December 14, 2007 |access-date=September 28, 2014 |publisher=Darkhorizons.com}}

Lapine prepared the multimedia production iSondheim: aMusical Revue, which was scheduled to open in April 2009 at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta; it was canceled due to "difficulties encountered by the commercial producers attached to the project ... in raising the necessary funds".Hetrick, Adam. [https://playbill.com/article/lapine-to-create-isondheim-amusical-revue-for-alliance-theatre-com-153257 "Lapine to Create iSondheim: aMusical Revue for Alliance Theatre"] Playbill, September 12, 2008.Hetrick, Adam. [https://playbill.com/article/liz-callaway-cast-in-world-premiere-of-isondheim-amusical-revue-com-157672 "Liz Callaway Cast in World Premiere of iSondheim: aMusical Revue"] Playbill, February 4, 2009.Gans, Andrew and Hetrick, Adam. [https://www.playbill.com/article/atlantas-alliance-theatre-cancels-isondheim-revue-brel-will-play-instead-com-158415 "Atlanta's Alliance Theatre Cancels Sondheim Revue; Brel Will Play Instead"] Playbill, February 26, 2009. Later revised as Sondheim on Sondheim, the revue was produced at Studio 54 by the Roundabout Theatre Company; previews began on March 19, 2010, and ran from April 22 to June 13. The revue's cast included Barbara Cook, Vanessa L. Williams, Tom Wopat, Norm Lewis, and Leslie Kritzer.Jones, Kenneth. [https://www.playbill.com/article/sondheim-on-sondheim-a-new-musical-reflection-of-a-life-in-art-begins-on-broadway-com-166910 "Sondheim on Sondheim, a New Musical Reflection of a Life in Art, Begins on Broadway"] Playbill, March 19, 2010.

File:Danya Polykov and Stephen Sondheim, 04.2014, NYC (cropped).jpg

In 2013, Lapine directed the HBO feature-length documentary Six by Sondheim, which he executive produced with former New York Times theater critic Frank Rich, a longtime champion of Sondheim's work.{{cite news |last1=Rooney |first1=David |title=Six by Sondheim: TV Review |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/six-by-sondheim-tv-review-660845/ |access-date=November 29, 2021 |work=The Hollywood Reporter |date=December 2, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211129000729/https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/six-by-sondheim-tv-review-660845/ |archive-date=November 29, 2021 |url-status=live }} Sondheim himself acts and sings in the documentary as Joe, the cynical theater producer in the song "Opening Doors".{{cite web |last1=Wontorek |first1=Paul |title=James Lapine on Making Six by Sondheim, His Hollywood Dreams for Sunday in the Park and Getting Sondheim to Actually Sing on Screen |url=https://www.broadway.com/buzz/173143/james-lapine-on-making-six-by-sondheim-his-hollywood-dreams-for-sunday-in-the-park-and-getting-sondheim-to-actually-sing-on-screen/ |website=Broadway.com |access-date=November 29, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131211043052/http://www.broadway.com/buzz/173143/james-lapine-on-making-six-by-sondheim-his-hollywood-dreams-for-sunday-in-the-park-and-getting-sondheim-to-actually-sing-on-screen/ |archive-date=December 11, 2013 |language=en |date=December 8, 2013}}

Sondheim collaborated with Wynton Marsalis on A Bed and a Chair: A New York Love Affair, an Encores! concert on November 13–17, 2013, at New York City Center. Directed by John Doyle with choreography by Parker Esse, it consisted of "more than two dozen Sondheim compositions, each piece newly reimagined by Marsalis".{{cite web|url=http://www.playbill.com/news/article/181139-Stephen-Sondheim-and-Wynton-Marsalis-Collaboration-for-City-Center-Has-New-Title-Parker-Esse-Will-Choreograph |title=Stephen Sondheim and Wynton Marsalis' Collaboration for City Center Has New Title; Parker Esse Will Choreograph |work=Playbill |access-date=September 28, 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131109192533/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/181139-Stephen-Sondheim-and-Wynton-Marsalis-Collaboration-for-City-Center-Has-New-Title-Parker-Esse-Will-Choreograph |archive-date=November 9, 2013}} The concert featured Bernadette Peters, Jeremy Jordan, Norm Lewis, Cyrille Aimée, four dancers, and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra conducted by David Loud.Champion, Lindsay. [http://www.broadway.com/buzz/172920/meet-the-jazzy-cast-of-sondheim-marsalis-a-bed-and-a-chair-starring-bernadette-peters-jeremy-jordan/ "Meet the Jazzy Cast of Sondheim & Marsalis' 'A Bed and a Chair', Starring Bernadette Peters & Jeremy Jordan"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131109052417/http://www.broadway.com/buzz/172920/meet-the-jazzy-cast-of-sondheim-marsalis-a-bed-and-a-chair-starring-bernadette-peters-jeremy-jordan/ |date=November 9, 2013 }} broadway.com, November 7, 2013 In Playbill, Steven Suskin called the concert "neither a new musical, a revival, nor a standard songbook revue; it is, rather, a staged-and-sung chamber jazz rendition of a string of songs ... Half of the songs come from Company and Follies; most of the other Sondheim musicals are represented, including the lesser-known Passion and Road Show".Suskin, Steven. [http://www.playbill.com/news/article/184418-Stephen-Sondheim-and-Wynton-Marsalis-Offer-a-Comfortable-Bed-and-a-Chair-at-City-Center?tsrc=hph "Stephen Sondheim and Wynton Marsalis Offer a Comfortable Bed and a Chair at City Center"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131212104538/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/184418-Stephen-Sondheim-and-Wynton-Marsalis-Offer-a-Comfortable-Bed-and-a-Chair-at-City-Center?tsrc=hph |date=December 12, 2013 }} playbill.com, November 14, 2013

For the 2014 film adaptation of Into the Woods, Sondheim wrote the new song "She'll Be Back", sung by The Witch, which was cut from the film.{{cite news|url = https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/VIDEO-Meryl-Streep-Performs-INTO-THE-WOODS-Deleted-Song-Shell-Be-Back-20150227|title = Video: Meryl Streep Performs Into the Woods Deleted Song 'She'll Be Back'!|work = BroadwayWorld|date = February 27, 2015|access-date = November 27, 2021|last = Robbins|first = Caryn}}

Sondheim began collaborating with David Ives in 2014 on a musical based on the Luis Buñuel films The Exterminating Angel and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, initially slated for previews at the Public Theater in 2017.{{cite web|date=October 12, 2014|title=Stephen Sondheim and David Ives at Work on New Musical Based on Films of Luis Buñuel|url=http://www.playbill.com/news/article/stephen-sondheim-and-david-ives-at-work-on-new-musical-based-on-films-of-luis-buuel-333041|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141115141429/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/stephen-sondheim-and-david-ives-at-work-on-new-musical-based-on-films-of-luis-buuel-333041|archive-date=November 15, 2014|access-date=November 29, 2014|work=Playbill}} That date was cast into doubt after an August 2016 reading for the musical had only the first act finished.Riedel, Michael [https://nypost.com/2016/08/23/stephen-sondheim-is-halfway-done-with-his-new-musical/ "Stephen Sondheim is halfway done with his new musical"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180209063845/https://nypost.com/2016/08/23/stephen-sondheim-is-halfway-done-with-his-new-musical/|date=February 9, 2018}} New York Post, August 26, 2016 A November 2016 workshop included Matthew Morrison, Shuler Hensley, Heidi Blickenstaff, Sierra Boggess, Gabriel Ebert, Sarah Stiles, Michael Cerveris, and Jennifer Simard.Viagas, Robert. [http://www.playbill.com/article/matthew-morrison-says-sondheims-new-bunuel-musical-is-challenging# "Matthew Morrison Says Sondheim's New Buñuel Musical Is "Challenging" "] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180116081313/http://www.playbill.com/article/matthew-morrison-says-sondheims-new-bunuel-musical-is-challenging|date=January 16, 2018}} Playbill, January 4, 2017 After media outlets mistakenly reported that the show had the working title Buñuel, Sondheim said that it still lacked a title in 2017.Wong, Wayman. [https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/BWW-Exclusive-Sondheim-Knocks-Riedels-Reporting-Says-His-New-Musical-Was-Never-Called-BUNUEL-20170426 "BWW Exclusive: Sondheim Knocks Riedel's Reporting; Says His New Musical Was Never Called Bunuel"]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180209064205/https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/BWW-Exclusive-Sondheim-Knocks-Riedels-Reporting-Says-His-New-Musical-Was-Never-Called-BUNUEL-20170426|date=February 9, 2018}} BroadwayWorld.com, April 26, 2017 The Public Theatre denied reports that the show would be part of its 2019–20 season, but hoped to produce the musical "when it is ready".{{Cite news|last1=Paulson|first1=Michael|date=June 6, 2019|title='For Colored Girls' and 'Soft Power' Will be Part of Public Theater Season|newspaper=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/theater/public-theater-season.html|url-status=live|access-date=July 24, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190724220907/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/theater/public-theater-season.html|archive-date=July 24, 2019}} Development reportedly ceased for a time,{{cite web|last=Gans|first=Andrew|date=April 27, 2021|title=Stephen Sondheim Musical Buñuel No Longer in Development|url=http://www.playbill.com/article/stephen-sondheim-musical-bunuel-no-longer-in-development|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210501180053/https://www.playbill.com/article/stephen-sondheim-musical-bunuel-no-longer-in-development|archive-date=May 1, 2021|access-date=May 2, 2021|website=Playbill}} but resumed for a September 2021 reading of the show, then called Square One.Sondheim shared news of the reading during a September 15, 2021, appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. {{Citation|title=Stephen Sondheim Is Still Writing New Works, As "Company" Returns To Broadway| date=September 16, 2021 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKSYeMgamIA| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211030/GKSYeMgamIA| archive-date=October 30, 2021|language=en|access-date=September 16, 2021}}{{cbignore}} Nathan Lane and Bernadette Peters were involved in a reading of this new work,{{Cite web|last=Major|first=Michael|title=Video: Nathan Lane Talks Reading of a New Sondheim Musical With Bernadette Peters|url=https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/VIDEO-Nathan-Lane-Talks-Reading-of-a-New-Sondheim-Musical-With-Bernadette-Peters-20210915|access-date=September 16, 2021|website=BroadwayWorld.com|language=en|archive-date=September 16, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210916144446/https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/VIDEO-Nathan-Lane-Talks-Reading-of-a-New-Sondheim-Musical-With-Bernadette-Peters-20210915|url-status=live}} and Sondheim discussed adapting the Buñuel films in the final interview before his death.{{Cite news|last=Paulson|first=Michael|date=November 27, 2021|title=Days Before Dying, Stephen Sondheim Reflected: 'I've Been Lucky'|newspaper=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/26/theater/stephen-sondheim-final-interview.html|access-date=November 29, 2021|ref=none}} A posthumous production of the collaboration, directed by Joe Mantello, premiered at The Shed in September 2023 as Here We Are.{{Cite web |last=Evans |first=Greg |date=March 16, 2023 |title=Final Stephen Sondheim Musical Here We Are to Make Off Broadway World Premiere This Fall with Joe Mantello Directing |url=https://deadline.com/2023/07/stephen-sondheim-final-musical-here-we-are-off-broadway-joe-mantello-1235301303/ |access-date=March 16, 2023 |website=Deadline Hollywood}}

The Kennedy Center staged a 15-week repertory festival of six Sondheim musicals—Sweeney Todd, Company, Sunday in the Park with George, Merrily We Roll Along, Passion, and A Little Night Music—from May to August 2002.{{cite web |url=http://www.sondheimguide.com/concerts3.html#Kennedy |title=Sondheim Guide listing for Kennedy Center Celebration, 2002 |publisher=Sondheimguide.com |access-date=October 18, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110929024138/http://www.sondheimguide.com/concerts3.html#Kennedy |archive-date=September 29, 2011 |url-status=live }}Jones, Kenneth. [http://www.playbill.com/news/article/its-a-hit-kennedy-centers-sondheim-celebration-is-already-half-sold-103944 'It's a Hit! Kennedy Center's Sondheim Celebration Is Already Half-Sold"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924195804/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/its-a-hit-kennedy-centers-sondheim-celebration-is-already-half-sold-103944 |date=September 24, 2015 }}, playbill.com, February 13, 2002.[http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/newseason/sondheim/cast.html "Sondheim Cast"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151016040946/http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/newseason/sondheim/cast.html |date=October 16, 2015 }}, kennedy-center.org. Retrieved May 17, 2015. The Kennedy Center Sondheim Celebration also included Pacific Overtures, a junior version of Into the Woods, and Frank Rich of The New York Times speaking with the composer for Sondheim on Sondheim on April 28, 2002.{{r|kencen}}{{cite web |url=http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/newseason/sondheim/ |title=Kennedy Center Sondheim Celebration |publisher=Kennedy-center.org |access-date=October 18, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190112210210/http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/newseason/sondheim/ |archive-date=January 12, 2019 |url-status=live }} The two men took their discussion, dubbed "A Little Night Conversation with Stephen Sondheim", on a West Coast tour of different U.S. cities{{cite magazine |author=A. M. Homes |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/03/ontheroad200803 |title=On the Road: Rich evenings with Sondheim |magazine=Vanity Fair |date=February 22, 2008 |access-date=October 18, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111129134330/http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/03/ontheroad200803 |archive-date=November 29, 2011 |url-status=live }}{{cite web |url=http://www.independent.com/news/2008/mar/06/stephen-sondheim-and-frank-rich-stage-em-little-ni/ |title=Santa Barbara Independent, Interview with Sondheim about the talks, March 6, 2008 |work=Santa Barbara Independent |date=March 6, 2008 |access-date=October 18, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111227140511/http://www.independent.com/news/2008/mar/06/stephen-sondheim-and-frank-rich-stage-em-little-ni/ |archive-date=December 27, 2011 |url-status=dead }} including Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Los Angeles,{{cite web |author=Student Affairs Information Systems, webmaster@sa.ucsb.edu |url=https://artsandlectures.sa.ucsb.edu/Details.aspx?PerfNum=889 |title=UCSB listing |publisher=Artsandlectures.sa.ucsb.edu |access-date=October 18, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111009112315/https://artsandlectures.sa.ucsb.edu/Details.aspx?PerfNum=889 |archive-date=October 9, 2011 |url-status=live }}{{cite web |url=http://www.magazine.ucla.edu/depts/happenings/stephen-sondheim/ |title=UCLA listing |work=UCLA Magazine |publisher=Magazine.ucla.edu |access-date=October 18, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110807170054/http://magazine.ucla.edu/depts/happenings/stephen-sondheim/ |archive-date=August 7, 2011 |url-status=live }}{{cite web |url=http://www.frankrich.com/schedule.htm |title=Rich schedule |publisher=Frankrich.com |access-date=October 18, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111005051321/http://www.frankrich.com/schedule.htm |archive-date=October 5, 2011 }} and Portland, Oregon in March 2008,{{cite web |first=Rebecca |last=Webb |title=Stephen Sondheim |publisher=KINK |url=http://www.kink.fm/pages/1614757.php |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081226204033/http://www.kink.fm/pages/1614757.php |archive-date=December 26, 2008}} then to Oberlin College in September. The Cleveland Jewish News reported on their Oberlin appearance: "Sondheim said: 'Movies are photographs; the stage is larger than life.' What musicals does Sondheim admire the most? Porgy and Bess tops a list which includes Carousel, She Loves Me, and The Wiz, which he saw six times. Sondheim took a dim view of today's musicals. What works now, he said, are musicals that are easy to take; audiences don't want to be challenged".[http://www.oberlin.edu/artsguide/convocation-series/1-sondheim-rich.shtml] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090705114133/http://www.oberlin.edu/artsguide/convocation-series/1-sondheim-rich.shtml|date=July 5, 2009}}Heller, Fran. [http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2008/10/10/features/arts/aarts1010.txt "Sondheim scores a hit at Oberlin College"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090424071859/http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2008/10/10/features/arts/aarts1010.txt |date=April 24, 2009 }}. Cleveland Jewish News, October 10, 2008 Sondheim and Rich had additional conversations: January 18, 2009, at Avery Fisher Hall;Gans, Andrew. [http://www.playbill.com/news/article/123236.html "Sondheim and Rich Will Discuss A Life in the Theater in January 2009"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090107163019/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/123236.html |date=January 7, 2009 }}. Playbill.com, November 11, 2008 February 2 at the Landmark Theatre in Richmond, Virginia;[http://modlin.richmond.edu/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1708] {{dead link|date=September 2014}} February 21 at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia;[http://www.phillyfunguide.com/event.php?id=23642] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081227000350/http://www.phillyfunguide.com/event.php?id=23642|date=December 27, 2008}} and April 20 at the University of Akron in Ohio.{{cite web|url=http://www.ejthomashall.com/eventsearch/event_detail.php?id=544|title=Stephen Sondheim with Frank Rich listing|publisher=Ejthomashall.com|access-date=September 28, 2014}}{{dead link|date=July 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} The conversations were reprised at Tufts and Brown University in February 2010, at the University of Tulsa in April,{{cite news |url=http://www.tulsaworld.com/scene/article.aspx?subjectid=272&articleid=20100418_272_D4_Thefre754390 |title=Sondheim conversation set for TU |newspaper=Tulsa World |date=April 18, 2010 |access-date=October 18, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120119141448/http://www.tulsaworld.com/scene/article.aspx?subjectid=272&articleid=20100418_272_D4_Thefre754390 |archive-date=January 19, 2012 |url-status=live }} and at Lafayette College in March 2011.{{cite web |url=http://www.lafayette.edu/about/news/2011/03/09/a-life-in-the-theater-broadway-legend-stephen-sondheim-visits-campus/ |title=A Life in the Theater: Broadway Legend Stephen Sondheim Visits Campus · About · Lafayette College |publisher=Lafayette.edu |date=March 9, 2011 |access-date=October 18, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120308023022/http://www.lafayette.edu/about/news/2011/03/09/a-life-in-the-theater-broadway-legend-stephen-sondheim-visits-campus/ |archive-date=March 8, 2012 |url-status=dead }} Sondheim had another "conversation with" Sean Patrick Flahaven (associate editor of The Sondheim Review) at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach on February 4, 2009, in which he discussed many of his songs and shows: "On the perennial struggles of Broadway: 'I don't see any solution for Broadway's problems except subsidized theatre, as in most civilized countries of the world.'"Maupin, Elizabeth. [http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_stage_theat/2009/02/sondheim-talks-and-talks-and-talks.html "Sondheim talks. And talks. And talks."] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130826144038/http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_stage_theat/2009/02/sondheim-talks-and-talks-and-talks.html |date=August 26, 2013 }} Orlandosentinel.com, February 5, 2009

On February 1, 2011, Sondheim joined former Salt Lake Tribune theater critic Nancy Melich before an audience of 1,200 at Kingsbury Hall. Melich described the evening:

He was visibly taken by the university choir, who sang two songs during the evening, "Children Will Listen" and "Sunday", and then returned to reprise "Sunday". During that final moment, Sondheim and I were standing, facing the choir of students from the University of Utah's opera program, our backs to the audience, and I could see tears welling in his eyes as the voices rang out. Then, all of a sudden, he raised his arms and began conducting, urging the student singers to go full out, which they did, the crescendo building, their eyes locked with his, until the final "on an ordinary Sunday" was sung. It was thrilling, and a perfect conclusion to a remarkable evening—nothing ordinary about it.{{cite journal |year=2011 |title=More from Sondheim |journal=The Sondheim Review|volume=XVII |issue=4 |page=6}}

On March 13, 2008, A Salon with Stephen Sondheim (which sold out in three minutes) was hosted by the Academy for New Musical Theatre in Hollywood.{{cite web |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-07-et-quick7.s4-story.html |title=Sondheim salon is a hot ticket|work=Los Angeles Times |date=April 2, 2009 |access-date=July 4, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306120209/http://articles.latimes.com/2008/feb/07/entertainment/et-quick7.S4 |archive-date=March 6, 2016 |url-status=live }}{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIR-olTvKjU&list=PLBB4D7F7A8D337EA6&index=4 |title=A Salon with Stephen Sondheim at ANMT |via=YouTube |date=June 20, 2008 |access-date=July 4, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150523015109/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIR-olTvKjU&list=PLBB4D7F7A8D337EA6&index=4 |archive-date=May 23, 2015 |url-status=live }}

Sondheim was an avid fan of puzzles and games. He is credited with introducing cryptic crosswords, a British invention, to American audiences through a series of cryptic crossword puzzles he created for New York magazine in 1968 and 1969.{{multiref2

|{{cite news |last1=Healy |first1=Patrick |title=This Time It's Crosswords (Not Cross Words) That Surface From Sondheim |url=https://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/16/this-time-its-crosswords-not-cross-words-that-surface-from-sondheim/ |newspaper=The New York Times|date=September 16, 2011 |access-date=November 27, 2021 |archive-date=November 11, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111223539/https://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/16/this-time-its-crosswords-not-cross-words-that-surface-from-sondheim/ |url-status=live|ref=none}}

|{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2015/apr/16/1|title=The story of how cryptic crosswords crossed the Atlantic|last=Stephenson|first=Hugh|date=April 16, 2015|newspaper=The Guardian|access-date=November 27, 2021|ref=none}}

|{{cite magazine |last1=Parr |first1=Andrew |title=Call Me Steve |magazine=Games World of Puzzles |date=May 2021 |volume=45 |issue=4 |pages=33–37 |url=https://gamesmagazine-online.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Sondheim_GAMESmag.pdf|ref=none}}

|{{cite book |last1=Pender |first1=Rick |title=The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia |date=2021 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |location=Lanham |isbn=9781538115862 |pages=423–425 |chapter=Puzzles, Games, and Mysteries|ref=none}}

|{{cite magazine|last1=Zimmer |first1=Ben |title=Stephen Sondheim Didn't Just Change Musicals. He Changed Crosswords|url=https://slate.com/culture/2021/12/stephen-sondheim-crossword-puzzles-cryptic-west-side-story.html |magazine=Slate|date=December 4, 2021|ref=none}}}} {{Excessive citations inline|date=December 2024}} Sondheim was "legendary" in theater circles for "concocting puzzles, scavenger hunts and murder-mystery games",{{r|master}} inspiring the central character of Anthony Shaffer's 1970 play Sleuth.Producer Morton Gottlieb shared a manuscript bearing Who's Afraid of Stephen Sondheim? as the play's working title. [https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/07/19/specials/sondheim-shaffer.html "Theater: Of Mystery, Murder and Other Delights"], The New York Times Books, March 10, 1996. Sondheim's love of puzzles and mysteries is evident in The Last of Sheila, an intricate whodunit written with longtime friend Anthony Perkins. The 1973 film, directed by Herbert Ross, featured Dyan Cannon, Joan Hackett, Raquel Welch, James Mason, James Coburn, Ian McShane, and Richard Benjamin.{{cite book |last1=Gordon |first1=Joanne |title=Stephen Sondheim: A Casebook |date=2014 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-70210-6 |pages=85–88 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XC9pAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA85 |access-date=December 7, 2021}}

Sondheim also wrote occasional music for film: most notably, he contributed five songs to Warren Beatty's 1990 film Dick Tracy, including the ballad "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)", sung in the film by Madonna, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. He also contributed to Reds (both to the score, and with the song "Goodbye for Now"), The Seven-Per-Cent Solution ("The Madam's Song", later recorded as "I Never Do Anything Twice"), Stavisky (writing the score), and The Birdcage ("Little Dream", and the eventually cut "It Takes All Kinds"). For the 2014 movie adaptation of Into the Woods, Sondheim wrote the new song "She'll Be Back" for the character of The Witch (played by Meryl Streep), which was eventually cut. Sondheim made a posthumous cameo appearance as himself in the 2022 Netflix film Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.{{Cite magazine |last=Lee Lenker |first=Maureen |date=November 25, 2022 |title=Angela Lansbury filmed her Glass Onion role on a laptop: Inside all the Knives Out 2 cameos |url=https://ew.com/movies/glass-onion-knives-out-cameos-stephen-sondheim-angela-lansbury-more/ |magazine=Entertainment Weekly |access-date=November 25, 2022}}

Sondheim collaborated with Company librettist George Furth to write the play Getting Away with Murder in 1996; the Broadway production closed after 31 previews and only 17 performances.{{IBDB title|4322|Getting Away with Murder}}

In 2003, he was invited to serve as guest curator for the Telluride Film Festival.

After he was mentored by Hammerstein,{{sfn|Zadan|1986|p=4}} Sondheim returned the favor, saying that he loved "passing on what Oscar passed on to me".{{r|youtube.com}} In an interview with Sondheim for The Legacy Project, composer-lyricist Adam Guettel (son of Mary Rodgers and grandson of Richard Rodgers) recalled how as a 14-year-old boy he showed Sondheim his work. Guettel was "crestfallen" since he had come in "sort of all puffed up thinking [he] would be rained with compliments and things", which was not the case since Sondheim had some "very direct things to say". Later, Sondheim wrote and apologized to Guettel for being "not very encouraging" when he was actually trying to be "constructive".{{cite AV media| people = Stephen Sondheim, Adam Guettel| title = The Legacy Project: Stephen Sondheim (In Conversation with Adam Guettel) – Educational Version with Public Performance Rights | medium = DVD| publisher = Transient Pictures |year = 2011}}

Sondheim also mentored a fledgling Jonathan Larson, attending Larson's workshop for his Superbia (originally an adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four). In Larson's musical Tick, Tick... Boom!, the phone message is played in which Sondheim apologizes for leaving early, says he wants to meet him and is impressed with his work. After Larson's death, Sondheim called him one of the few composers "attempting to blend contemporary pop music with theater music, which doesn't work very well; he was on his way to finding a real synthesis. A good deal of pop music has interesting lyrics, but they are not theater lyrics". A musical-theater composer "must have a sense of what is theatrical, of how you use music to tell a story, as opposed to writing a song. Jonathan understood that instinctively."{{cite web |author=Anthony Tommasini|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/11/theater/theater-a-composer-s-death-echoes-in-his-musical.html?src=pm&pagewanted=1 |title=Theater; A Composer's Death Echoes in His Musical|work=The New York Times |date=February 11, 1996 |access-date=July 4, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170406111532/http://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/11/theater/theater-a-composer-s-death-echoes-in-his-musical.html?src=pm&pagewanted=1 |archive-date=April 6, 2017 |url-status=live }}

Around 2008, Sondheim approached Lin-Manuel Miranda to work with him translating West Side Story lyrics into Spanish for an upcoming Broadway revival.{{cite web |url=https://nymag.com/guides/fallpreview/2008/theater/49532 |title=This Could Drive a Person Crazy |work=New York |first=Jeremy |last=McCarter |date=August 24, 2008 |access-date=April 17, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160318120646/http://nymag.com/guides/fallpreview/2008/theater/49532/ |archive-date=March 18, 2016 |url-status=live }}{{cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/hamiltons|title=All About The Hamiltons|magazine=The New Yorker|author=Rebecca Mead|date=February 9, 2015|access-date=June 15, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170930211838/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/hamiltons|archive-date=September 30, 2017|url-status=live}} Miranda then approached Sondheim with his new project Hamilton, then called The Hamilton Mixtape, which Sondheim gave notes on.{{r|Rebecca Mead}}{{cite web |last=Rosen |first=Jody |title=The American Revolutionary |work=The New York Times Style Magazine |date=July 8, 2015 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/08/t-magazine/hamilton-lin-manuel-miranda-roots-sondheim.html |access-date=June 15, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160617013314/http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/08/t-magazine/hamilton-lin-manuel-miranda-roots-sondheim.html |archive-date=June 17, 2016 |url-status=live }} Sondheim was originally wary of the project, saying he was "worried that an evening of rap might get monotonous". But he believed Miranda's attention to, and respect for, good rhyming made it work.{{r|Rosen}}

Sondheim provided a voice cameo for the 2021 film adaptation of Tick, Tick... Boom!, directed by Miranda, for the scene in which a fictionalized version of himself leaves a phone message. Sondheim worked on a revised text of the message and voiced it himself after Bradley Whitford, who portrays him, was unavailable to rerecord the line.{{Cite web|date=November 29, 2021|title=Lin-Manuel Miranda Reveals That Stephen Sondheim Rewrote His Voicemail Scene in 'Tick, Tick... BOOM!'|url=https://decider.com/2021/11/29/lin-manuel-miranda-stephen-sondheim-rewrite-tick-tick-boom/|access-date=December 2, 2021|website=Decider|language=en-US}}

A supporter of writers' rights in the theater industry, Sondheim was an active member of the Dramatists Guild of America. In 1973, he was elected as the Guild's 16th president, serving until 1981.{{Cite web|url=https://dgf.org/staff/stephen-sondheim/|title=Stephen Sondheim – Dramatists Guild Foundation|website=dgf.org|access-date=November 28, 2021|archive-date=November 28, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211128101733/https://dgf.org/staff/stephen-sondheim/|url-status=dead}}

According to Sondheim, he was asked to translate Mahagonny-Songspiel: "But I'm not a Brecht/Weill fan and that's really all there is to it. I'm an apostate: I like Weill's music when he came to America better than I do his stuff before ... I love The Threepenny Opera but, outside of The Threepenny Opera, the music of his I like is the stuff he wrote in America—when he was not writing with Brecht, when he was writing for Broadway."Cerasaro, Pat.[http://broadwayworld.com/article/BWW_EXCLUSIVE_Stephen_Sondheim_Talks_Past_Present_Future_20101103 "Stephen Sondheim Talks Past Present Future"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101114012522/http://broadwayworld.com/article/BWW_EXCLUSIVE_Stephen_Sondheim_Talks_Past_Present_Future_20101103 |date=November 14, 2010 }} broadwayworld.com, November 3, 2010 He turned down an offer to musicalize Nathanael West's A Cool Million with James Lapine {{circa|1982}}.{{cite journal |last1=Bixby |first1=Suzanne |year=2008 |title=Jumping In |journal=The Sondheim Review|volume=XVI |issue=4 |page=28}}Isenberg, Barbara.[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-08-01-ca-19137-story.html "Meet Mr. Plucky : To James Lapine, directing his new play 'Luck, Pluck & Virtue' means booting Horatio Alger smack dab into the '90s"] Los Angeles Times, August 1, 1993

Around 1960, Sondheim and Burt Shevelove considered making a musical of the film Sunset Boulevard, and had sketched out the opening scenes when they approached the film's director Billy Wilder at a cocktail party on the possibility. Wilder rejected the idea, believing the story was more suited to opera than musical theater. Sondheim agreed, and resisted a later offer from Prince and Hugh Wheeler to create a musical version starring Angela Lansbury. This occurred several years before a musical version was produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber.Sondheim, Stephen (2011). Look I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981–2011) with Attendant Comments, Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Digressions, Anecdotes and Miscellany. Alfred A. Knopf. p. 146

Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein wrote The Race to Urga, scheduled for Lincoln Center in 1969, but after Jerome Robbins left the project, it was not produced.Long, Robert. "Broadway, The Golden Years: Jerome Robbins And The Great Choreographer-Directors: 1940 To The Present" (2003). Continuum International Publishing Group. {{ISBN|0-8264-1462-1}}, pp 133–134

After writing The Last of Sheila together, Sondheim and Anthony Perkins tried to collaborate again two more times, but the projects were unrealized. In 1975, Perkins said he and Sondheim were working on another script, The Chorus Girl Murder Case: "It's a sort of stew based on all those Bob Hope wartime comedies, plus a little Lady of Burlesque and a little Orson Welles magic show, all cooked into a Last of Sheila-type plot".{{Cite news|author=Flatley, Guy|date=December 28, 1975|title=It's Been One of Tony Perkins' Better Years: A Good Year for Tony Perkins|page=O27|work=Los Angeles Times}} He later said other inspirations were They Got Me Covered, The Ipcress File, and Cloak and Dagger.{{Cite news|author=Flatley, Guy|date=February 19, 1978|title=Perkins: Film 'sickie' turns to reel bigamy|page=E23|work=Chicago Tribune}} They had sold the synopsis in October 1974.{{Cite news|author=Winer, Linda|date=October 20, 1974|title=Filling blanks in the puzzle of Sondheim", Chicago Tribune|page=E3}} At one point, Michael Bennett was to direct, with Tommy Tune to star.{{cite book|last=Winecoff|first=Charles|title=Split image: the life of Anthony Perkins|publisher=Dutton|year=1996|page=327}} In November 1979, Sondheim said they had finished it,{{cite news|author=Mann, Roderick|date=November 29, 1979|title=Cool Down on 'Rough Cut'|page=G25|work=Los Angeles Times}} but the film was never made.{{Cite web|title=Side by Side With Stephen Sondheim|url=http://www.sondheim.com/features/stephen_sondheim.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200922170652/http://www.sondheim.com/features/stephen_sondheim.html|archive-date=September 22, 2020|access-date=September 10, 2021|website=sondheim.com}} In the 1980s, Perkins and Sondheim collaborated on another project, the seven-part Crime and Variations for Motown Productions. In October 1984 they had submitted a treatment to Motown.{{Cite news|author=Mann, Roderick|date=October 7, 1984|title=TONY PERKINS: THE 'CRIMES' OF HIS HEART|page=X24|work=Los Angeles Times}} It was a 75-page treatment set in the New York socialite world about a crime puzzle; another writer was to write the script. It, too, was never made.{{sfn|Zadan|1986|pp=352–53}}

In 1991, Sondheim worked with Terrence McNally on a musical, All Together Now. McNally said, "Steve was interested in telling the story of a relationship from the present back to the moment when the couple first met. We worked together a while, but we were both involved with so many other projects that this one fell through". The story follows Arden Scott, a 30-something female sculptor, and Daniel Nevin, a slightly younger, sexually attractive restaurateur. Its script, with concept notes by McNally and Sondheim, is archived in the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.{{cite journal |last1=Frontain |first1=Raymond-Jean |year=2011 |title=Mutual admiration |journal=The Sondheim Review|volume=XVII |issue=3 |pages=30–33}} In February 2012, it was announced that Sondheim would collaborate on a musical titled All Together Now with David Ives and he had "about 20–30 minutes of the musical completed".{{cite web |title=Powerhouse Scribes Stephen Sondheim & David Ives at Work on New Musical |url=http://broadwayworld.com/article/Powerhouse-Scribes-Stephen-Sondheim-David-Ives-at-Work-on-New-Musical-20120229# |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141021090749/http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Powerhouse-Scribes-Stephen-Sondheim-David-Ives-at-Work-on-New-Musical-20120229 |archive-date=October 21, 2014 |access-date=September 28, 2014 |work=BroadwayWorld.com}}Kepler, Adam W. and Healy, Patrick. [http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/29/rolling-along-sondheim-discloses-hes-working-on-a-new-show/?partner=rss&emc=rss "Rolling Along: Sondheim Discloses He's Working on a New Show"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140726143703/http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/29/rolling-along-sondheim-discloses-hes-working-on-a-new-show/?partner=rss&emc=rss|date=July 26, 2014}} The New York Times (artsbeat.blogs), February 29, 2012Wappler, Margaret. [http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2012/02/stephen-sondheim-has-20-or-30-minutes-written-of-a-new-musical.html "Stephen Sondheim has '20 or 30 minutes' written of a new musical"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120304021612/http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2012/02/stephen-sondheim-has-20-or-30-minutes-written-of-a-new-musical.html|date=March 4, 2012}} Los Angeles Times (blogs), February 2012{{cite web |title=BWW Exclusive: Stephen Sondheim Drops Hint About New Musical with David Ives! |url=http://broadwayworld.com/article/BWW-Exclusive-Stephen-Sondheim-Drops-Hit-About-New-Musical-with-David-Ives-20120229 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141021090646/http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/BWW-Exclusive-Stephen-Sondheim-Drops-Hit-About-New-Musical-with-David-Ives-20120229 |archive-date=October 21, 2014 |access-date=September 28, 2014 |work=BroadwayWorld.com}}Jones, Kenneth. [http://www.playbill.com/news/article/160206-Stephen-Sondheim-Collaborating-With-David-Ives-on-New-Musical "Stephen Sondheim Collaborating With David Ives on New Musical"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140726015515/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/160206-Stephen-Sondheim-Collaborating-With-David-Ives-on-New-Musical|date=July 26, 2014}} Playbill.com, February 29, 2012 The show was assumed to follow the format of Merrily We Roll Along. Sondheim described the project as "two people and what goes into their relationship ... We'll write for a couple of months, then have a workshop. It seemed experimental and fresh 20 years ago. I have a feeling it may not be experimental and fresh anymore".{{cite web |title=Stephen Sondheim Reveals New Details on David Ives Collaboration |url=http://broadwayworld.com/article/Stephen-Sondheim-Reveals-New-Details-on-David-Ives-Collaboration-ALL-TOGETHER-NOW-20120305 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141021091039/http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Stephen-Sondheim-Reveals-New-Details-on-David-Ives-Collaboration-ALL-TOGETHER-NOW-20120305 |archive-date=October 21, 2014 |access-date=September 28, 2014 |work=BroadwayWorld.com}} Ives later described All Together Now as "a musical that exploded a single moment in the lives of two people meeting for the first time. We'd see the moment without music and then we'd explore it musically." Ives and Sondheim worked on the piece intermittently until Sondheim's death, but it was ultimately unrealized.{{Cite web |last=Rich |first=Frank |date=August 28, 2023 |title=The Final Sondheim |url=https://www.vulture.com/article/stephen-sondheim-here-we-are-musical.html |access-date=August 29, 2023 |website=Vulture |language=en-us}}

Sondheim worked with William Goldman on Singing Out Loud, a musical film, in 1992, penning the song "Water Under the Bridge".Robert Gordon – 2014 The Oxford Handbook of Sondheim Studies – Page 294 019990927X "Omitted from this survey are the song "Water under the Bridge" composed for the film Singing out Loud, which was never produced."{{cite web|url=http://www.sondheimguide.com/unproduced.html#Singing|title='Singing Out Loud' listing|publisher=Sondheimguide.com|access-date=September 28, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714191540/http://www.sondheimguide.com/unproduced.html#Singing|archive-date=July 14, 2014|url-status=live}} According to Sondheim, he had written six and a half songs and Goldman one or two drafts of the script when director Rob Reiner lost interest in the project. "Dawn" and "Sand", from the film, were recorded for the albums Sondheim at the Movies and Unsung Sondheim.{{r|bww}}

In August 2003, Sondheim expressed interest in the idea of creating a musical adaptation of the 1993 comedy film Groundhog Day,{{cite web|url=http://www.playbill.com/news/article/sondheim-talks-about-bounce-revisions-in-works-114941|title=Sondheim Talks About Bounce; Revisions in Works|date=August 26, 2003|work=Playbill|access-date=May 16, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170425153623/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/sondheim-talks-about-bounce-revisions-in-works-114941|archive-date=April 25, 2017|url-status=live}} but in a 2008 live chat, he said that "to make a musical of Groundhog Day would be to gild the lily. It cannot be improved."{{cite web|url=http://www.roundaboutchat.com/chat/chat_transcript.html|title=Roundabout Live Chat|date=May 5, 2008|publisher=Roundabout Theatre|access-date=May 19, 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080510183510/http://www.roundaboutchat.com/chat/chat_transcript.html|archive-date=May 10, 2008}} The musical was later created and premiered in 2016 with music and lyrics by Tim Minchin and book by Danny Rubin (screenwriter of the film) with Sondheim's blessing.{{cite web|url=http://www.timminchin.com/2014/01/12/groundhog-day-a-new-stage-musical-by-us/|title=Tim Minchin · Groundhog Day: A new stage musical by us|website=Tim Minchin|access-date=May 1, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170917074431/http://www.timminchin.com/2014/01/12/groundhog-day-a-new-stage-musical-by-us/|archive-date=September 17, 2017|url-status=live}}

Nathan Lane said that he once approached Sondheim about creating a musical based on the film Being There with Lane starring as the central character of Chance. Sondheim declined on the basis that the central character is essentially a cipher, whom an audience would not accept expressing himself through song.{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQfYMeRjR1g&t=7s | archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211030/iQfYMeRjR1g| archive-date=October 30, 2021|title=Nathan Lane's Closet Picks |author=criterioncollection |via=YouTube |date=June 10, 2021 |access-date=August 25, 2021 |url-status=live}}{{cbignore}}

{{main|Works of Stephen Sondheim}}

{{main|List of awards and nominations received by Stephen Sondheim}}

Sondheim received an Academy Award, eight Tony Awards, and eight Grammy Awards. He also received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Sunday in the Park with George (1985, shared with James Lapine) and was honored with the Kennedy Center Honors, Lifetime Achievement (1993).{{r|:0}} He received the Hutchinson Prize for Music Composition (1950) and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1983). He was also awarded the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member James Earl Jones (2005),{{cite web|title=Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement|website=achievement.org|publisher=American Academy of Achievement|url=https://achievement.org/our-history/golden-plate-awards/#the-arts|access-date=April 16, 2020|archive-date=June 8, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200608012051/https://achievement.org/our-history/golden-plate-awards/#the-arts|url-status=live}}{{cite news |year=2005 |title=Summit Overview Photo |url=https://achievement.org/summit/ |quote=Composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim receives the Academy's Gold Medal from Awards Council member James Earl Jones at the 2005 International Achievement Summit during a Broadway symposium in New York City. |access-date=December 28, 2020 |archive-date=September 5, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051833/https://achievement.org/summit/ |url-status=live }} the Algur H. Meadows Award from Southern Methodist University (1994),{{cite web|url=http://www.sondheimguide.com/television.html#Part%20Three|title=Television and Radio listings|publisher=Sondheimguide.com|access-date=September 28, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150206005318/http://sondheimguide.com/television.html#Part%20Three|archive-date=February 6, 2015|url-status=live}} a Special Laurence Olivier Award (2011) "in recognition of his contribution to London theatre",{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12644755|title=Stephen Sondheim to receive special Olivier Award|newspaper=BBC News|access-date=September 28, 2014|date=March 4, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151016040946/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12644755|archive-date=October 16, 2015|url-status=live}}Bennett, Ray.[https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/olivier-awards-2011-legally-blonde-167171 Olivier Awards 2011: 'Legally Blonde,' Stephen Sondheim Dominate"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190401105604/https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/olivier-awards-2011-legally-blonde-167171 |date=April 1, 2019 }} HollywoodReporter.com, March 13, 2011 and a Critics' Circle Theatre Award (2012), which according to drama section chair Mark Shenton "is effectively a lifetime achievement award."Gans, Andrew. [http://www.playbill.com/news/article/160551-Stephen-Sondheim-Receives-UK-Critics-Circle-2011-Award-for-Distinguished-Services-to-the-Arts Stephen Sondheim Receives UK Critics' Circle 2011 Award for Distinguished Services to the Arts"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130906031259/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/160551-Stephen-Sondheim-Receives-UK-Critics-Circle-2011-Award-for-Distinguished-Services-to-the-Arts |date=September 6, 2013 }} Playbill.com, March 9, 2012 He became a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame (2014).{{cite web|url=http://www.theaterhalloffame.org/members.html#S|title=Theater Hall of Fame members|access-date=February 9, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150118013544/http://www.theaterhalloffame.org/members.html#S|archive-date=January 18, 2015|url-status=dead}} In 2013, Sondheim was awarded The Edward MacDowell Medal by The MacDowell Colony for outstanding contributions to American culture{{cite web|url=https://www.macdowell.org/medal-day-history|title=Macdowell Medalists|access-date=August 22, 2022}} In November 2015, Sondheim was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in a ceremony at the White House.{{efn|Sondheim was named for this award for 2014, but was unable to attend the ceremony, and thus was named again for the 2015 award and ceremony.Ledbetter, Lucie. [http://www.theatermania.com/washington-dc-theater/news/2015-presidential-medals-of-freedom-recipients_75005.html "Stephen Sondheim, Barbra Streisand, and More to Receive Presidential Medal of Freedom"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151125225524/http://www.theatermania.com/washington-dc-theater/news/2015-presidential-medals-of-freedom-recipients_75005.html |date=November 25, 2015 }} theatermania.com, November 17, 2015}}{{cite web |url=https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2014/11/10/president-obama-announces-presidential-medal-freedom-recipients |title=President Obama Announces the Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipients |access-date=November 11, 2014 |date=November 10, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170121131137/https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2014/11/10/president-obama-announces-presidential-medal-freedom-recipients |archive-date=January 21, 2017 |via=National Archives |publisher=White House |url-status=live }}Phil Helsel – [http://www.aol.com/article/2015/11/24/obama-honoring-spielberg-streisand-and-more-with-medal-of-freed/21272337/?icid=maing-grid7%7Chtmlws-sb-bb%7Cdl3%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D-40526639 "Obama honoring Spielberg, Streisand and more with medal of freedom"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151125221354/http://www.aol.com/article/2015/11/24/obama-honoring-spielberg-streisand-and-more-with-medal-of-freed/21272337/?icid=maing-grid7%7Chtmlws-sb-bb%7Cdl3%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D-40526639 |date=November 25, 2015 }}, NBC News, November 24, 2015. Retrieved November 25, 2015.

Sondheim founded Young Playwrights Inc. in 1981 to introduce young people to writing for the theater, and was the organization's executive vice-president.{{cite web |url=http://www.youngplaywrights.org/ |title=Young Playwrights site |publisher=Youngplaywrights.org |access-date=October 18, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111104205112/http://www.youngplaywrights.org/ |archive-date=November 4, 2011 |url-status=dead }} The Stephen Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts, at the Fairfield Arts and Convention Center in Fairfield, Iowa, opened in December 2007 with performances by Len Cariou, Liz Callaway, and Richard Kind, all of whom had participated in Sondheim musicals.Jones, Kenneth. [http://www.playbill.com/news/article/108442.html "Near Cornfields Worthy of Hammerstein, a Theatre Named for Sondheim Rises in Midwest"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081229090356/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/108442.html |date=December 29, 2008 }}. Playbill.com, May 31, 2007Hetrick, Adam. [http://www.playbill.com/news/article/113277.html "Original Cast Members Fete Sondheim at New Midwest Arts Center Dec. 7–9"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081229092415/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/113277.html |date=December 29, 2008 }}. Playbill.com, December 4, 2007

The Stephen Sondheim Society was established in 1993 to provide information about his work, with its Sondheim – the Magazine provided to its membership. The society maintains a database, organizes productions, meetings, outings, and other events, and assists with publicity. Its annual Student Performer of the Year Competition awards a £1,000 prize to one of twelve musical-theatre students from UK drama schools and universities. At Sondheim's request, an additional prize is offered for a new song by a young composer. Judged by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, each contestant performs a Sondheim song and a new song.{{Cite web|url=https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/7d786c9a-2979-39be-806d-79b751993ea8#:~:text=The%20Stephen%20Sondheim%20Society%20was,musical%20theatre%2C%20including%20Sondheim%20himself.|title = Stephen Sondheim Society Archive – Archives Hub}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.londontheatre1.com/theatre-news/the-stephen-sondheim-society-student-performer-of-the-year-2/|title=The Stephen Sondheim Society Student Performer of the Year|date=June 10, 2019}}{{Cite web|url=https://theatreweekly.com/final-judges-and-guest-performers-announced-for-the-2019-west-end-gala-of-the-stephen-sondheim-society-student-performer-of-the-year-and-stiles-drewe-prize/|title=Final Judges And Guest Performers Announced For The 2019 West End Gala Of The Stephen Sondheim Society Student Performer Of The Year And Stiles + Drewe Prize|date=May 31, 2019}}

Most episode titles of the television series Desperate Housewives refer to Sondheim's song titles or lyrics,Hetrick, Adam. [http://www.playbill.com/news/article/121283.html "Tomlin to Join Fifth Season of 'Desperate Housewives'"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081229090406/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/121283.html |date=December 29, 2008 }}. Playbill.com, September 12, 2008{{cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0410975/episodes|title=Episode list, "Desperate Housewives"|publisher=IMDb|access-date=September 28, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140719062307/http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0410975/episodes|archive-date=July 19, 2014|url-status=live}}Widdicombe, Ben. Gossip, Daily News (New York), March 23, 2005, p. 22; "Desperate Housewives" writer Marc Cherry, who congratulated Sondheim in a filmed statement, admitted the composer was such an inspiration that each episode of his blockbuster show is named after a Sondheim song."Chang, Justin. Variety, "Sondheim, Streisand infuse Wisteria Lane", December 20–26, 2004, p. 8; "Broadway-literate fans may have noticed the skein's first three post-pilot episodes ... are all named after classic Stephen Sondheim showtunes ..." and the series finale is titled "Finishing the Hat".Sperling, Daniel. [http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/s21/desperate-housewives/news/a377387/desperate-housewives-final-episode-title-revealed.html "'Desperate Housewives' final episode title revealed"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120427083034/http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/s21/desperate-housewives/news/a377387/desperate-housewives-final-episode-title-revealed.html |date=April 27, 2012 }} digitalspy.com, April 19, 2012 In 1990, Sondheim, as the Cameron Mackintosh chair in musical theater at Oxford,{{Cite web | url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-08-10-8901030668-story.html | title=Sondheim Will Teach at Oxford | website=Chicago Tribune | date=August 10, 1989 | access-date=July 2, 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190702224851/https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-08-10-8901030668-story.html | archive-date=July 2, 2019 | url-status=live }} conducted workshops with promising musical writers including George Stiles, Anthony Drewe, Andrew Peggie, Paul James, Kit Hesketh-Harvey, and Stephen Keeling. The writers founded the Mercury Workshop in 1992, which merged with the New Musicals Alliance to become MMD (a UK-based organization to develop new musical theater, of which Sondheim was a patron).{{Cite web|url=http://www.mercurymusicals.com/|title=Welcome to MMD|website=Mercury Musical Developments}}

Signature Theatre in Arlington County, Virginia established its Sondheim Award, which includes a $5,000 donation to a nonprofit organization of the recipient's choice, "as a tribute to America's most influential contemporary musical theatre composer". The first award, to Sondheim, was presented at an April 27, 2009, benefit with performances by Bernadette Peters, Michael Cerveris, Will Gartshore, and Eleasha Gamble.Jones, Kenneth. [http://www.playbill.com/news/article/122069.html "Signature Creates Sondheim Award, to Be Presented at April 2009 Gala"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081229092728/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/122069.html |date=December 29, 2008 }}. Playbill.com, October 6, 2008Horwitz, Jane. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/07/AR2008100702732.html "Backstage" column] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170322203325/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/07/AR2008100702732.html |date=March 22, 2017 }} Washington Post, October 8, 2008Jones, Kenneth. [https://archive.today/20120909060339/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/128598-Peters_and_Cerveris_Celebrate_Sondheim_at_DC_Sondheim_Award_Gala_April_27 Peters and Cerveris Celebrate Sondheim at DC Sondheim Award Gala April 27"]. Playbill, April 27, 2009 The 2010 recipient was Angela Lansbury, with Peters and Catherine Zeta-Jones hosting the April benefit.Jones, Kenneth. [http://www.playbill.com/news/article/138636-Garber-Mazzie-Danieley-and-More-Celebrate-Lansbury-in-DC-Gala-April-12 "Garber, Mazzie, Danieley and More Celebrate Lansbury in DC Gala April 12"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140317225737/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/138636-Garber-Mazzie-Danieley-and-More-Celebrate-Lansbury-in-DC-Gala-April-12 |date=March 17, 2014 }} Playbill.com, April 12, 2010 The 2011 honoree was Bernadette Peters.Jones, Kenneth. [http://www.playbill.com/news/article/149660-Bernadette-Peters-Gets-Sondheim-Award-April-11-Stephen-Buntrock-Rebecca-Luker-Euan-Morton-Sing "Bernadette Peters Gets Sondheim Award April 11; Stephen Buntrock, Rebecca Luker, Euan Morton Sing"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140408213559/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/149660-Bernadette-Peters-Gets-Sondheim-Award-April-11-Stephen-Buntrock-Rebecca-Luker-Euan-Morton-Sing |date=April 8, 2014 }}. Playbill.com, April 11, 2011 Other recipients were Patti LuPone in 2012,Jones, Kenneth. [http://www.playbill.com/news/article/164887-Laura-Benanti-Howard-McGillin-and-More-Sing-the-Praises-of-Patti-LuPone-in-DC-Sondheim-Award-Gala-April-16 "Laura Benanti, Howard McGillin and More Sing the Praises of Patti LuPone in DC Sondheim Award Gala April 16"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140408211610/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/164887-Laura-Benanti-Howard-McGillin-and-More-Sing-the-Praises-of-Patti-LuPone-in-DC-Sondheim-Award-Gala-April-16 |date=April 8, 2014 }} Playbill.com, April 16, 2012 Hal Prince in 2013, Jonathan Tunick in 2014,Purcell, Carey. [http://www.playbill.com/news/article/189672-Signatures-Sondheim-Award-Gala-Featuring-Ron-Raines-Heidi-Blickenstaff-and-Pamela-Myers-Honors-Jonathan-Tunick-April-7 "Signature's Sondheim Award Gala, Featuring Ron Raines, Heidi Blickenstaff and Pamela Myers, Honors Jonathan Tunick April 7"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140412112111/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/189672-Signatures-Sondheim-Award-Gala-Featuring-Ron-Raines-Heidi-Blickenstaff-and-Pamela-Myers-Honors-Jonathan-Tunick-April-7 |date=April 12, 2014 }} playbill.com, April 7, 2014 and James Lapine in 2015.[http://www.broadwayworld.com/washington-dc/article/James-Lapine-to-Receive-Signature-Theatres-2015-Stephen-Sondheim-Award-20141119 "James Lapine to Receive Signature Theatre's 2015 Stephen Sondheim Award"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170323053758/http://www.broadwayworld.com/washington-dc/article/James-Lapine-to-Receive-Signature-Theatres-2015-Stephen-Sondheim-Award-20141119 |date=March 23, 2017 }}

broadwayworld.com, November 19, 2014 The 2016 awardee was John WeidmanRitzel, Rebecca. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater_dance/a-two-time-tony-award-winner-headlines-signature-theatres-annual-gala/2016/04/07/b2204a18-fb5b-11e5-813a-90ab563f0dde_story.html "A two-time Tony Award winner headlines Signature Theatre's annual gala"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170413071047/https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater_dance/a-two-time-tony-award-winner-headlines-signature-theatres-annual-gala/2016/04/07/b2204a18-fb5b-11e5-813a-90ab563f0dde_story.html |date=April 13, 2017 }} The Washington Post, April 8, 2016 and the 2017 awardee was Cameron Mackintosh.McBride, Walter. [http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Photo-Coverage-Signature-Theatre-Honors-Cameron-Mackintosh-with-Stephen-Sondheim-Award-20170321 "Photo Coverage: Signature Theatre Honors Cameron Mackintosh with Stephen Sondheim Award"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170323052425/http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Photo-Coverage-Signature-Theatre-Honors-Cameron-Mackintosh-with-Stephen-Sondheim-Award-20170321 |date=March 23, 2017 }} broadwayworld.com, March 21, 2017

Henry Miller's Theatre, on West 43rd Street in New York City, was renamed the Stephen Sondheim Theatre on September 15, 2010, for the composer's 80th birthday. In attendance were Nathan Lane, Patti LuPone, and John Weidman. Sondheim said in response to the honor, "I'm deeply embarrassed. Thrilled, but deeply embarrassed. I've always hated my last name. It just doesn't sing. I mean, it's not Belasco. And it's not Rodgers and it's not Simon. And it's not Wilson. It just doesn't sing. It sings better than Schoenfeld and Jacobs. But it just doesn't sing". Lane said, "We love our corporate sponsors and we love their money, but there's something sacred about naming a theatre, and there's something about this that is right and just".{{cite journal |year=2011 |title=It might not sing, but it's right and just |journal=The Sondheim Review|volume=XVII |issue=3 |page=4}}

In 2010, The Daily Telegraph wrote that Sondheim was "almost certainly" the only living composer with a quarterly journal published in his name; The Sondheim Review, founded in 1994, chronicled and promoted his work. It ceased publication in 2016.{{cite web|url=http://www.sondheimreview.com/index.html|title=Now in our 19th year!|work=The Sondheim Review|access-date=September 28, 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141017142037/http://sondheimreview.com/index.html |archive-date=October 17, 2014}}

In Greta Gerwig's 2017 film Lady Bird, characters perform songs from Merrily We Roll Along, Into the Woods, and Anyone Can Whistle. In 2019, it was observed in the media that three major films of that year prominently featured Sondheim songs: Joker (Wall Street businessmen sing "Send In the Clowns" on the subway),{{cite web|url= https://www.indiewire.com/2019/11/stephen-sondheim-movies-joker-marriage-story-knives-out-1202188339/|title= Sondheim Is All Over the Movies This Year, but 'Joker' and 'Marriage Story' Don't Do Him Justice|website= IndieWire|access-date= April 25, 2020|last= Dry|first= Jude|date= November 9, 2019|archive-date= July 15, 2020|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200715142657/https://www.indiewire.com/2019/11/stephen-sondheim-movies-joker-marriage-story-knives-out-1202188339/|url-status= live}} Marriage Story (Adam Driver sings "Being Alive"; Scarlett Johansson, Merritt Wever, and Julie Hagerty sing "You Can Drive a Person Crazy"),{{cite web|url= https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/12/8902157/what-does-adam-driver-sing-in-marriage-story-being-alive|title= If Adam Driver's Song In Marriage Story Destroyed You, Read This|website= Refinery29.com|access-date= April 25, 2020|archive-date= May 15, 2020|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200515041509/https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/12/8902157/what-does-adam-driver-sing-in-marriage-story-being-alive|url-status= live}} and Knives Out (Daniel Craig sings "Losing My Mind").{{r|Indiewire}} Sondheim's work has also been referenced in television, such as The Morning Show (Jennifer Aniston and Billy Crudup sing "Not While I'm Around").{{cite web|url= https://www.vulture.com/2019/11/the-morning-show-sweeney-todd-karaoke.html|title= The Morning Show Did a Surprise Jennifer Aniston–Billy Crudup Sweeney Todd Duet|website= Vulture|date= November 15, 2019|access-date= April 25, 2020|archive-date= August 10, 2020|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200810121606/https://www.vulture.com/2019/11/the-morning-show-sweeney-todd-karaoke.html|url-status= live}}

{{Main | Sondheim! The Birthday Concert}}

Several benefits and concerts were performed to celebrate Sondheim's 80th birthday in 2010. Among them were the New York Philharmonic's March 15 and 16 Sondheim: The Birthday Concert at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, hosted by David Hyde Pierce. The concert included Sondheim's music, performed by some of the original performers. Lonny Price directed, and Paul Gemignani conducted; performers included Laura Benanti, Matt Cavenaugh, Michael Cerveris, Victoria Clark, Jenn Colella, Jason Danieley, Alexander Gemignani, Joanna Gleason, Nathan Gunn, George Hearn, Patti LuPone, Marin Mazzie, Audra McDonald, John McMartin, Donna Murphy, Karen Olivo, Laura Osnes, Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Bobby Steggert, Elaine Stritch, Jim Walton, Chip Zien, and the 2009 Broadway revival cast of West Side Story. A ballet was performed by Blaine Hoven and María Noel Riccetto to Sondheim's score for Reds, and Jonathan Tunick paid tribute to his longtime collaborator.Gans, Andrew. [http://www.playbill.com/news/article/135797-Benanti-Gleason-Pierce-Stritch-Walton-Zien-Join-Philharmonic-Sondheim-Celebration "Benanti, Gleason, Pierce, Stritch, Walton, Zien Join Philharmonic Sondheim Celebration"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130826222935/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/135797-Benanti-Gleason-Pierce-Stritch-Walton-Zien-Join-Philharmonic-Sondheim-Celebration |date=August 26, 2013 }}. Playbill.com, January 8, 2010Ross, Blake. [http://www.playbill.com/insidetrack/?p=1849#more-1849 "About Last Night: The Stars on Sondheim"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151016040947/http://www.playbill.com/insidetrack/?p=1849#more-1849 |date=October 16, 2015 }}. Playbill, March 16, 2010 The concert was broadcast on PBS's Great Performances show in November,Hetrick, Adam.[http://www.playbill.com/news/article/145244-Starry-Sondheim-The-Birthday-Concert-Airs-on-Great-Performances-Nov-24 "Starry Sondheim: The Birthday Concert Airs on "Great Performances" Nov. 24"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130826222131/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/145244-Starry-Sondheim-The-Birthday-Concert-Airs-on-Great-Performances-Nov-24 |date=August 26, 2013 }}. Playbill, November 24, 2010 and its DVD was released on November 16.

Sondheim 80, a Roundabout Theatre Company benefit, was held on March 22. The evening included a performance of Sondheim on Sondheim, dinner and a show at the New York Sheraton. "A very personal star-studded musical tribute" featured new songs by contemporary musical-theater writers. The composers (who sang their own songs) included Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, Michael John LaChiusa, Andrew Lippa, Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Lin-Manuel Miranda (accompanied by Rita Moreno), Duncan Sheik, and Jeanine Tesori and David Lindsay-Abaire. Bernadette Peters performed a song that had been cut from a Sondheim show.Jones, Kenneth. [http://www.playbill.com/news/article/138013-Everybody-Rise-Roundabouts-Sondheim-80-Celebrates-a-Masters-Milestone "Everybody Rise! Roundabout's Sondheim 80 Celebrates a Master's Milestone"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140726015628/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/138013-Everybody-Rise-Roundabouts-Sondheim-80-Celebrates-a-Masters-Milestone |date=July 26, 2014 }}. Playbill.com, March 22, 2010Ross, Blake.[http://www.playbill.com/insidetrack/2010/03/about-last-night-inside-sondheim%e2%80%99s-birthday/ "About Last Night: Inside Sondheim's Birthday"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160101174727/http://www.playbill.com/insidetrack/2010/03/about-last-night-inside-sondheim%E2%80%99s-birthday/ |date=January 1, 2016 }}. Playbill.com. Retrieved March 23, 2010.

An April 26 New York City Center birthday celebration and concert to benefit Young Playwrights, among others, featured (in order of appearance) Michael Cerveris, Alexander Gemignani, Donna Murphy, Debra Monk, Joanna Gleason, Maria Friedman, Mark Jacoby, Len Cariou, BD Wong, Claybourne Elder, Alexander Hanson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Raúl Esparza, Sutton Foster, Nathan Lane, Michele Pawk, the original cast of Into the Woods, Kim Crosby, Chip Zien, Danielle Ferland, and Ben Wright, Angela Lansbury, and Jim Walton. The concert, directed by John Doyle, was co-hosted by Mia Farrow; greetings from Sheila Hancock, Julia McKenzie, Milton Babbitt, Judi Dench, and Glynis Johns were read. After Catherine Zeta-Jones performed "Send in the Clowns", Julie Andrews sang part of "Not a Day Goes By" in a recorded greeting. Patti LuPone, Barbara Cook, Bernadette Peters, Tom Aldredge, and Victor Garber were originally scheduled to perform, but did not appear.Hetrick, Adam. [https://archive.today/20120909185212/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/138991- "Lansbury, Zeta-Jones, Lane, Cariou, Gleason, Zien Sing Sondheim at City Center April 26"]. Playbill, April 26, 2010Gardner, Elysa.[https://www.usatoday.com/life/theater/news/2010-04-27-sondheimat8027_ST_N.htm "Broadway stars salute Stephen Sondheim"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110129005510/http://www.usatoday.com/life/theater/news/2010-04-27-sondheimat8027_ST_N.htm |date=January 29, 2011 }}USA Today, April 27, 2010

A July 31 BBC Proms concert celebrated Sondheim's 80th birthday at the Royal Albert Hall. The concert featured songs from many of his musicals, including "Send in the Clowns" sung by Judi Dench (reprising her role as Desirée in the 1995 production of A Little Night Music), and performances by Bryn Terfel and Maria Friedman.{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2010/whatson/notes/prom19/|title=BBC Proms Programme|work=BBC Proms|access-date=September 28, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100804233932/http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2010/whatson/notes/prom19/|archive-date=August 4, 2010|url-status=live}}{{cite web|url=http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/STAGE_TUBE_Judi_Dench_Sings_Send_in_the_Clowns_for_Sondheims_80th_20100731|title=Judi Dench Sings 'Send in the Clowns' for Sondheim's 80th|work=BroadwayWorld.com|access-date=September 28, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120621050134/http://broadwayworld.com/article/STAGE_TUBE_Judi_Dench_Sings_Send_in_the_Clowns_for_Sondheims_80th_20100731|archive-date=June 21, 2012|url-status=live}}

On November 19 the New York Pops, led by Steven Reineke, performed at Carnegie Hall for the composer's 80th birthday. Kate Baldwin, Aaron Lazar, Christiane Noll, Paul Betz, Renee Rakelle, Marilyn Maye (singing "I'm Still Here"), and Alexander Gemignani appeared, and songs included "I Remember", "Another Hundred People", "Children Will Listen", and "Getting Married Today". Sondheim took the stage during an encore of his song, "Old Friends".Rafter Keddy, Genevieve.[http://broadwayworld.com/article/Photo_Coverage_The_New_York_Pops_Celebrate_Stephen_Sondheims_80th_Birthday_20101121 "Photo Coverage: The New York Pops Celebrate Stephen Sondheim's 80th Birthday"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101124154804/http://broadwayworld.com/article/Photo_Coverage_The_New_York_Pops_Celebrate_Stephen_Sondheims_80th_Birthday_20101121 |date=November 24, 2010 }} broadwayworld.com, November 21, 2010Jones, Kenneth. [http://www.playbill.com/playblog/2010/11/sondheim-at-carnegie-hall/ "Sondheim at Carnegie Hall"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111227135902/http://www.playbill.com/playblog/2010/11/sondheim-at-carnegie-hall/ |date=December 27, 2011 }} playbill.com, November 21, 2010

{{Main|Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration}}

To honor Sondheim's 90th birthday, The New York Times published a special nine-page Theater supplement on March 15, 2020, featuring comments by "Critics, Performers and Fans on the Bard of Broadway."{{cite news|url= https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/theater/stephen-sondheim-songs.html|title= What Are the Stephen Sondheim Songs Close to Your Heart|newspaper= The New York Times|date= March 13, 2020|access-date= April 25, 2020|archive-date= March 19, 2020|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200319181504/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/theater/stephen-sondheim-songs.html|url-status= live}} Due to theater closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Broadway revival of Company set to open on March 22, 2020, Sondheim's 90th birthday, was delayed.{{Cite web|url=http://www.playbill.com/article/watch-this-epic-video-of-broadway-stars-singing-birthday-wishes-and-sondheim-tunes-to-wish-stephen-sondheim-a-happy-birthday|title=Watch This Epic Video of Broadway Stars Singing Birthday Wishes and Sondheim Tunes to Wish Stephen Sondheim a 'Happy Birthday'|last=Fierberg|first=Ruthie|date=March 22, 2020|website=Playbill.com|language=en|access-date=April 26, 2020|archive-date=March 30, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200330155552/https://www.playbill.com/article/watch-this-epic-video-of-broadway-stars-singing-birthday-wishes-and-sondheim-tunes-to-wish-stephen-sondheim-a-happy-birthday|url-status=live}} But the virtual concert Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration was livestreamed on the Broadway.com YouTube channel on April 26. Participants in the event included Lin-Manuel Miranda, Steven Spielberg, Meryl Streep, Nathan Lane, Mandy Patinkin, Victor Garber, Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone, Neil Patrick Harris, Jake Gyllenhaal, Christine Baranski, Sutton Foster, Josh Groban, Ben Platt, Brandon Uranowitz, Katrina Lenk, Kelli O'Hara, Jason Alexander, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Beanie Feldstein, Audra McDonald, Laura Benanti, and Raúl Esparza.{{cite web|url= https://www.broadway.com/buzz/199153/more-stars-take-me-to-the-world-a-sondheim-90th-birthday-celebration-just-got-even-bigger/|title= More Stars! Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration Just Got Even Bigger|website= Broadway.com|access-date= April 25, 2020|archive-date= April 26, 2020|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200426164206/https://www.broadway.com/buzz/199153/more-stars-take-me-to-the-world-a-sondheim-90th-birthday-celebration-just-got-even-bigger/|url-status= live}}{{cite web|url= https://www.indiewire.com/2020/07/take-me-to-the-world-sondheim-concert-1234572699/|title= How 'Take Me to the World' Became One of the Best Sondheim Concerts Ever|website= IndieWire|date= July 13, 2020|access-date= December 30, 2020|archive-date= December 22, 2020|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20201222033426/https://www.indiewire.com/2020/07/take-me-to-the-world-sondheim-concert-1234572699/|url-status= live}}{{cite web|url= https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/take-me-world-a-sondheim-90th-birthday-celebration-watch-live-1291510|title= Watch Live: Meryl Streep, Patti LuPone and More Stars Pay Tribute to Stephen Sondheim|website= The Hollywood Reporter|date= April 26, 2020|access-date= December 30, 2020|archive-date= May 27, 2020|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200527175002/https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/take-me-world-a-sondheim-90th-birthday-celebration-watch-live-1291510|url-status= live}} After New York City theaters reopened in 2021, Sondheim attended revivals of two of his musicals: the opening night of Assassins at the Classic Stage Company on November 14, and the first post-shutdown preview of Company at the Jacobs Theatre on November 15.{{r|Weber}}{{cite web | title=Days Before Dying, Stephen Sondheim Reflected: 'I've Been Lucky'|author=Michael Paulson|newspaper=The New York Times| date=November 27, 2021 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/26/theater/stephen-sondheim-final-interview.html | access-date=December 18, 2024}}

{{Main|Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends}}

In 2022, Cameron Mackintosh presented Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends, a two-hour concert tribute to the late Sondheim. The concert happened in the West End in May and aired on BBC Two in December. Performers at the event included Helena Bonham Carter, Rob Brydon, Petula Clark, Judi Dench, Damian Lewis, Julia McKenzie, Bernadette Peters, and Imelda Staunton. Highlights included Dench singing "Send in the Clowns", Peters singing "Children Will Listen", and Staunton's "Everything's Coming Up Roses".

Mackintosh revived the tribute for a limited run at the Gielgud Theatre beginning previews on September 16, 2023, with a planned closing on January 6, 2024.{{Cite news |last=Gans |first=Andrew |date=February 13, 2023 |title=Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga Will Star in Limited West End Run of Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends |work=Playbill |url=https://playbill.com/article/bernadette-peters-and-lea-salonga-will-star-in-limited-west-end-run-of-stephen-sondheims-old-friends |access-date=February 13, 2023}} The production stars Bernadette Peters, marking her West End debut, and Lea Salonga, returning to the West End for the first time since 1996.

According to Sondheim, when he asked Milton Babbitt if he could study atonality, Babbitt replied: "You haven't exhausted tonal resources for yourself yet, so I'm not going to teach you atonal".Horowitz, Mark Eden, Sondheim on Music, New York: Scarecrow Press, 2003, p. 117, {{ISBN|978-0-8108-4437-7}}, {{ISBN|0-8108-4437-0}} Music critic Anthony Tommasini wrote that Sondheim's work, "while hewing to a tonal musical language, activated harmonies and folded elements of jazz and Impressionist styles in his own distinctive, exhilarating voice."{{Cite news|last=Tommasini|first=Anthony|author-link=Anthony Tommasini|date=November 28, 2021|title=Stephen Sondheim, as Great a Composer as He Was a Lyricist|newspaper=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/28/arts/music/stephen-sondheim-music.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20211228/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/28/arts/music/stephen-sondheim-music.html |archive-date=December 28, 2021 |url-access=limited|access-date=November 29, 2021}}{{cbignore}}

Sondheim is known for complex polyphony in his vocals, such as the five minor characters who make up a Greek chorus in 1973's A Little Night Music. He used angular harmonies and intricate melodies. His musical influences were varied; although he said that he "loves Bach", his favorite musical period was from Brahms to Stravinsky.interview on Sunday Arts, ABC (Australia) TV August 5, 2007 An Audience With Stephen Sondheim[http://www.abc.net.au/tv/sundayarts/txt/s1994677.htm 2007 ABC Australia TV interview] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150403003233/http://www.abc.net.au/tv/sundayarts/txt/s1994677.htm |date=April 3, 2015 }} downloadable [http://www.abc.net.au/tv/sundayarts/video/ ("Episode 26")] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070716225707/http://www.abc.net.au/tv/sundayarts/video/ |date=July 16, 2007 }}

Raymond-Jean Frontain writes that thematically, Sondheim's musicals occupy a paradoxical place in gay culture, describing him as a gay creative artist who never created an explicitly gay character, but nevertheless attained gay cult status. Frontain continues:

He incarnates the paradox of a highly intellectualized gay perspective that prizes ambivalence, undercuts traditional American progressivism, and rejects the musical's historically idealistic view of sex, romance, and the family; but that at the same time eschews camp, deconstructs the diva, and is apparently oblivious to AIDS, the post-Stonewall struggle for civil equality, and other socio-political issues that concern most gay men of his generation.{{cite web |last1=Frontain |first1=Raymond-Jean |title=Sondheim, Stephen (b. 1930) |url=http://www.glbtqarchive.com/arts/sondheim_s_A.pdf |website=GLBTQ: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lebian, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Culture |access-date=29 November 2021 |page=1 |year=2015}}

Luca Prono described Sondheim's work as rejecting the traditional image of the Western world typically presented in Broadway productions, and instead depicting it as "predatory and alienating". His works have acquired a cult following with queer audiences, and his songs have been adopted as life scores for successive generations of gays, and have often had a primary role in AIDS fundraising events.{{cite book |title=Encyclopedia of Gay and Lesbian Popular Culture |year=2008 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-0-313-33599-0 |page=239 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y3FYzMPH2OwC&pg=PT252 |language=en}} "Somewhere" from West Side Story was informally adopted as a gay anthem before the start of the gay liberation movement, but Sondheim rejected that reading, saying, "If you think that's a gay song, then all songs about getting away from the realities of life are gay songs."{{cite book |last1=Kaiser |first1=Charles |title=The Gay Metropolis: The Landmark History of Gay Life in America |year=2007 |publisher=Grove Press |isbn=978-0-8021-4317-4 |page=93 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HO7IKU79zgAC&pg=PA93 |language=en}}

In an interview with Terry Gross for the Fresh Air program on NPR, Sondheim stated,

I'm interested in the theater because I'm interested in communication with audiences," [...] "Otherwise I would be in concert music. I'd be in another kind of profession. I love the theater as much as music, and the whole idea of getting across to an audience and making them laugh, making them cry – just making them feel – is paramount to me."{{cite web |last1=Gross |first1=Terry |title='On Sondheim:' The Musical-Theater Legend At 80 |url=https://www.npr.org/2010/04/21/124907187/on-sondheim-the-musical-theater-legend-at-80 |website=NPR.org |access-date=29 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110513060546/http://www.npr.org/2010/04/21/124907187/on-sondheim-the-musical-theater-legend-at-80 |archive-date=13 May 2011 |language=en |date=21 April 2010}}

Matt Zoller Seitz characterized Sondheim's work for its bravery to express the truth, in all its complexity: "compassionately but without sugarcoating anything", devoid of the "easy reassurances and neat resolutions" typically demanded in the marketplace.{{cite web | last=Seitz | first=Matt Zoller | title=Being Alive: Stephen Sondheim, 1930–2021 | website=RogerEbert.com | date=November 28, 2021 | url=https://www.rogerebert.com/mzs/being-alive-stephen-sondheim-1930-1991 | access-date=December 31, 2021}}

File:I Stephen Sondheim House, New York City, NY, USA (2).jpg, New York]]

Sondheim was often described as introverted and solitary. In an interview with Frank Rich, he said: "The outsider feeling—somebody who people want to both kiss and kill—occurred quite early in my life". Sondheim jokingly told the New York Times in 1966: "I've never found anybody I could work with as quickly as myself, or with less argument", although he described himself as "naturally a collaborative animal".{{cite news |last1=Lawson |first1=Mark |title=Stephen Sondheim: a daring and dazzling musical theatre icon |url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2021/nov/26/stephen-sondheim-a-daring-and-dazzling-musical-theatre-icon |access-date=November 28, 2021 |work=The Guardian |date=November 26, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211126234529/https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2021/nov/26/stephen-sondheim-a-daring-and-dazzling-musical-theatre-icon |archive-date=November 26, 2021 |language=en}}

Sondheim came out as gay at the age of 40.{{r|rich}}{{harvnb|Brown|2010}} "Sondheim has spoken in the past of feeling like an outsider – 'somebody who people want to both kiss and kill' – from quite early on in his life. He spent some 25 years – from his thirties through his fifties – in analysis, did not come out as gay until he was about 40, and did not live with a partner, a dramatist named Peter Jones, until he was 61. They separated in 1999.  ..." He rarely discussed his personal life, though he said in 2013 that he had not been in love before he turned 60, when he entered into a roughly eight-year relationship with dramatist Peter Jones.{{cite news |last1=Cooper |first1=Alex |title=Stephen Sondheim, Musical Theater Legend, Dead at 91 |url=https://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/2021/11/26/stephen-sondheim-musical-theater-legend-dead-91 |access-date=November 29, 2021 |work=The Advocate |date=November 26, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211127050157/https://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/2021/11/26/stephen-sondheim-musical-theater-legend-dead-91 |archive-date=November 27, 2021 |language=en |url-status=live }}{{cite book |last1=Schanke |first1=Robert A. |title=The Gay & Lesbian Theatrical Legacy: A Biographical Dictionary of Major Figures in American Stage History in the Pre-Stonewall Era |year=2005 |publisher=University of Michigan Press |isbn=978-0-472-09858-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zeaFlyP8-CwC&pg=PP362 |pages=362–363 |language=en}} Sondheim married Jeffrey Scott Romley, a digital technologist, in 2017; they lived in Manhattan and Roxbury, Connecticut.{{r|Lawson2021}}

In 2010–2011, Sondheim published, in two volumes, his autobiography, Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954–1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes{{cite book |last1=Sondheim |first1=Stephen |title=Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954–1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes |year=2010 |publisher=Knopf |isbn=978-0-679-43907-3 |page=iv |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NSSdczSC13gC&pg=PR4 |language=en}} and Look, I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981–2011) with Attendant Comments, Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Digressions, Anecdotes and Miscellany.{{cite book |last1=Sondheim |first1=Stephen |title=Look, I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981–2011), With Attendant Comments, Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Digressions, Anecdotes and Miscellany |year=2011 |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |isbn=978-0-307-59341-2 |page=iii |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dBSr1MLX3hkC&pg=PR3 |language=en}} The memoir included Sondheim's lyrical declaration of principle, stating that four principles underpinned "everything I've ever written". These were: "Content Dictates Form, Less is More, God is in the Details – all in the service of Clarity."{{r|Lawson2021}}

In Six by Sondheim, James Lapine's 2013 documentary film about the creative process, Sondheim revealed that he liked to write his music lying down and would occasionally have a cocktail to help him write.{{cite web |last1=Seitz |first1=Matt Zoller |author-link=Matt Zoller Seitz |title=Seitz: Six by Sondheim Is One of the Best Films About the Artistic Process I've Seen |url=https://www.vulture.com/2013/12/tv-review-six-by-sondheim-hbo.html |website=Vulture|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131211192053/http://www.vulture.com/2013/12/tv-review-six-by-sondheim-hbo.html |archive-date=December 11, 2013|date=December 9, 2013}}

Sondheim died of cardiovascular disease at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut, on November 26, 2021, at age 91.{{r|Weber}} Collaborator and friend Jeremy Sams said Sondheim "died in the arms of his husband, Jeff".{{cite interview|last=Sams|first=Jeremy|subject-link=Jeremy Sams|title=Jeremy Sams remembers Stephen Sondheim, and Braille music with Ria Andriani|url=https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/musicshow/jeremy-sams-sondheim-ria-andriani-braille/13659104|access-date=December 18, 2021|work=The Music Show|publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio National|date=December 4, 2021|interviewer-last=Ford|interviewer-first=Andrew|at=42:22}} On November 29, theatres across the West End of London dimmed their lights for two minutes to mark Sondheim's passing. Broadway theaters similarly dimmed their marquee lights for one minute on December 8.{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-59447170|title=Stephen Sondheim: London's West End to dim lights for theatre icon|date=November 27, 2021|work=BBC News|access-date=October 6, 2024}}{{cite news|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/theater/stephen-sondheim-music-shows.html|title = A Sondheim Surge: Interest in His Work Soars After His Death|date = December 8, 2021|access-date = December 9, 2021|newspaper=The New York Times|last=Paulson|first=Michael|author-link=Michael Paulson|url-access = subscription|ref=none}}

It is estimated that Sondheim's estate, including the rights to his work, was valued at around $75 million, the entirety of which was placed in trust. In his will, he named F. Richard Pappas and a second unnamed individual as the executors. Beneficiaries included his husband, Jeff; his frequent collaborator James Lapine; former lover Peter Jones; former assistant Steven Clar; designer Peter Wooster; gardener Rob Girard; the Smithsonian Institution; the Library of Congress; and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.{{cite news| title=Stephen Sondheim Leaves Rights to His Works to a Trust | work=The New York Times | last=Paulson | first=Michael | date=January 24, 2022 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/theater/stephen-sondheim-will-estate-trust.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220124204219/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/theater/stephen-sondheim-will-estate-trust.html |archive-date=January 24, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live }}

• Stephen Sondheim's Crossword Puzzles: From New York Magazine (1980) {{ISBN|0-06-090708-8}}
• Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954–1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes (2010) {{ISBN|978-0-679-43907-3}}
• Look, I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981–2011) with Attendant Comments, Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Digressions, Anecdotes and Miscellany (2011) {{ISBN|9780307593412}}

{{notelist}}

{{Reflist|30em}}

• {{cite book|last=Gottfried|first=Martin|author-link=Martin Gottfried|others=photos by Martha Swope|year=1993|title=Sondheim|location=New York|publisher=Harry N. Abrams|isbn=0-8109-3844-8}}
• {{cite book|last=Secrest|first=Meryle|author-link=Meryle Secrest|year=1998|title=Stephen Sondheim: A Life|location=New York|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|isbn=0-679-44817-9}}
• {{cite book|last=Zadan|first=Craig|author-link=Craig Zadan|year=1986|title=Sondheim & Co|edition=2|location=New York|publisher=Harper & Row|isbn=0-06-015649-X}}

• {{cite book|editor-last=Guernsey|editor-first=Otis L.|editor-link=Otis Guernsey Jr.|title=Broadway Song and Story: Playwrights/Lyricists/Composers Discuss Their Hits|year=1986|publisher=Dodd Mead|isbn=0-396-08753-1|ref=none}}
• {{cite book|last=Schoch|first=Richard|title=How Sondheim Can Change Your Life|year=2024|publisher=Ebury Press|isbn=9781529947908|ref=none}}

{{Wikiquote}}

{{Commons category}}

• [http://www.sondheim.org "The Stephen Sondheim Society"]
• [https://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-us0066an Stephen Sondheim Papers] at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research
• {{Playbill person|id=stephen-sondheim-vault-0000007373}}
• {{IBDB name|12430}}
• {{IOBDB name|2008}}
• {{IMDb name|814227}}
• {{Discogs artist|Stephen Sondheim}}
• [https://www.sondheimdatabase.com Sondheim Database]: Comprehensive database of the works of Stephen Sondheim
• [http://www.sondheim.com/ Stephen Sondheim online-with Finishing The Chat]
• [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1111437 Fresh Air NPR radio interview] with Sondheim from 2000 (20 minutes, streaming audio)
• [http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/newseason/sondheim/# Kennedy Center interview] with Sondheim, conducted by Frank Rich in 2002 (90 minutes, streaming video)
• [https://fairfieldacc.com/about/ Stephen Sondheim Center for Performing Arts]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20190616211403/http://www.mercurymusicals.com/ MMD – developing new musical theatre with Sondheim as patron]
• [http://broadwayworld.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=33336 News article "Sondheim 'Story So Far' available 9/30, including previously unreleased tracks"], BroadwayWorld.com
• [https://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2008-10-08-sondheim-main_N.htm Review "Sondheim has more story to tell"] USA Today, October 8, 2008
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110727134947/https://www.nyma.org/page.cfm?p=318&pback=317 Stephen Sondeim: Alumni of Distinction] – New York Military Academy archives page
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070309175005/http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/sondheim/ Stephen Sondheim symposium] held at Goldsmiths, University of London, in 2005
• [http://www.broadwayworld.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=23311 BroadwayWorld.com interview with Stephen Sondheim, December 20, 2007]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20101222044705/http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/the-tao-of-steve/ Review of "Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954–1981)"] November 2010
• [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009mvzn Stephen Sondheim] interview on BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs, August 22, 1980

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{{Stephen Sondheim}}

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