I’m so excited – Stephen Sondheim (my favorite musical theatre composer/lyricist) is coming to Benaroya Hall on October 26th! I’ve been debating to get tickets, but decided to go ahead and get them.

A Life in the Theater: An Onstage Conversation with Stephen Sondheim and Frank Rich

At 79, Sondheim has spent more than 50 years in professional musical theater. He’s won 7 Tonys, multiple Grammy Awards, and in 1985 his Sunday in the Park with George won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. (The Pulitzer was shared with James Lapine, who wrote the book for the musical.) He’s also worked in film and wrote the score to Warren Beatty’s 1981 movie Reds. And having collaborated as a young man with such titans of the American musical theater as songwriter Jule Stein and composer-director Leonard Bernstein, Sondheim is a living link to the mid-20th-century artists who made the musical theater one of America’s great art forms.

Frank Rich is The New York Times columnist who writes a 1,500-word essay every Sunday in the opinion section. In his column Rich, whose political bent is unabashedly progressive, skewers captains of industry, the media, cultural watchdogs, religiosity, and politicians of all stripes. But before Rich became an essayist on the “intersection of culture and news,” as The New York Times describes his current job, he was for many years the paper’s chief drama critic.

And that’s the connection that makes an evening of Sondheim and Rich so engaging. The two men took A Life in the Theater on the road last year and it earned rave reviews. Rich asks questions and Sondheim answers them, offering up stories and anecdotes from his decades in musical theater. (It’s probably no surprise that Sondheim is funny and has an actor’s excellent timing.) Having worked with everyone from actor Zero Mostel and choreographer Jerome Robbins to actress Ethel Merman and director Harold Prince, Sondheim’s stories are fascinating glimpses at the inner workings of Broadway.

Program Notes