Stephen Sondheim, One of Broadway’s Greatest Creators, Is Dead at Age 91

He was a legend among legends, a titan of Broadway who has left an indelible mark on theater, transforming it in ways that we may never see again. Stephen Sondheim, a man of boundless talent and generosity—and by all accounts of uncommon modesty—died suddenly on November 26 at his country home in Roxbury, CT. He was a youthful 91 and had been active right up to the end.

The outpouring of emotion and reaction to the news of Sondheim’s death on social media and in reportage on traditional media channels has been overwhelming, befitting of a man who gave such a huge and magnificent body of work to the world. His genius as a composer was only exceeded by his genius as a lyricist. Stephen Sondheim was a philosopher of music whose extensive output influenced many in ways large and small, not only in theatrical circles but way beyond into the world at large. So many have noted that there never will be anyone like him, and that statement not only speaks to Sondheim’s greatness, but may be presciently true.

Over all, he wrote both the music and the lyrics for a dozen Broadway shows, five of which won Tony Awards for best musical, and six that won for best original score. Sunday in the Park with George, won no Tonys but took the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for drama. The Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement was presented to him in 2008, and in in 2010, Henry Miller’s Theater on West 43rd Street was renamed for him. In 1993, Sondheim received the Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime achievement, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama 2015.

Stephen Joshua Sondheim was born on March 22, 1930, in Manhattan, the only child of Herbert Sondheim, the owner of a dressmaking company, and the former Etta Janet Fox, who worked for her husband as a designer until the couple separated when Stephen was 10. Until the age of 16, Sondheim attended boarding schools, living otherwise with his mother, who was capable of heart-wrenching cruelty, and with whom he had a troubled relationship throughout his life. But his mother was also a friend of Dorothy Hammerstein, wife of lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II and is through this relationship that young Stephen became the elder man’s protegé. Sondheim graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts, studying under Robert Barrow. He later studied with avant-garde composer Milton Babbitt.

Through Hammerstein, Sondheim first worked professionally as a writer for the 1950s television comedy, “Topper.” In his early 20s he wrote words and music for Saturday Night, an adaptation of “Front Porch in Flatbush,” a play by Philip G. and Julius J. Epstein, after composer Frank Loesser turned it down. However, the producer, Lemuel Ayers, died before the show was capitalized, and the production came to a halt. The show did find a production in 1997 by a small company in London, subsequently finding a run in Chicago and then in 2000, Off Broadway at the Second Stage Theater.

On the advice of Hammerstein, who told him that he would benefit from working with the creative team putting together West Side Story (including Leonard Bernstein, Aurther Lurents and Jerome Robbins), Sondheim wrote lyrics for the the show, and then went on as lyricist for Gypsy and Do I Hear a Waltz?.”