(Applause Libretto Library). This 1995 Pulitzer Prize-winning musical was inspired by the painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat. A complex work revolving around a fictionalized Seurat immersed in single-minded concentration while painting the masterpiece, the production has evolved into a meditation on art, emotional connection, and community. This publication contains the entire script of the musical. " Sunday is itself a modernist creation, perhaps the first truly modernist work of musical theatre that Broadway has produced ... a watershed event that demands nothing less than a retrospective, even revisionist, look at the development of the serious Broadway musical." Frank Rich, The New York Times Magazine
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A behind-the-scenes look at the making of the iconic musical Sunday in the Park with George Putting It Together chronicles the two-year odyssey of creating the iconic Broadway musical Sunday in the Park with George. In 1982, James Lapine, at the beginning of his career as a playwright and director, met Stephen Sondheim, nineteen years his senior and already a legendary Broadway composer and lyricist. Shortly thereafter, the two decided to write a musical inspired by Georges Seurat’s nineteenth-century painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Through conversations between Lapine and Sondheim, as well as most of the production team, and with a treasure trove of personal photographs, sketches, script notes, and sheet music, the two Broadway icons lift the curtain on their beloved musical. Putting It Together is a deeply personal remembrance of their collaboration and friend - ship and the highs and lows of that journey, one that resulted in the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning classic.
In this collection of interviews conducted by Mark Horowitz of the Library of Congress, musical theatre legend Stephen Sondheim discusses the art of musical composition, lyric writing, the collaborative process of musical theater, and how he thinks about his own work. A postlude features a more recent conversation with Sondheim.
"Marvelous . . . A vital book about how to make political art that offers lasting solace in times of great trouble, and wisdom to audiences in the years that follow."- Washington Post NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR A STONEWALL BOOK AWARDS HONOR BOOK The oral history of Angels in America, as told by the artists who created it and the audiences forever changed by it--a moving account of the AIDS era, essential queer history, and an exuberant backstage tale. When Tony Kushner's Angels in America hit Broadway in 1993, it won the Pulitzer Prize, swept the Tonys, launched a score of major careers, and changed the way gay lives were represented in popular culture. Mike Nichols's 2003 HBO adaptation starring Meryl Streep, Al Pacino, and Mary-Louise Parker was itself a tour de force, winning Golden Globes and eleven Emmys, and introducing the play to an even wider public. This generation-defining classic continues to shock, move, and inspire viewers worldwide. Now, on the 25th anniversary of that Broadway premiere, Isaac Butler and Dan Kois offer the definitive account of Angels in America in the most fitting way possible: through oral history, the vibrant conversation and debate of actors (including Streep, Parker, Nathan Lane, and Jeffrey Wright), directors, producers, crew, and Kushner himself. Their intimate storytelling reveals the on- and offstage turmoil of the play's birth--a hard-won miracle beset by artistic roadblocks, technical disasters, and disputes both legal and creative. And historians and critics help to situate the play in the arc of American culture, from the staunch activism of the AIDS crisis through civil rights triumphs to our current era, whose politics are a dark echo of the Reagan '80s. Expanded from a popular Slate cover story and built from nearly 250 interviews, The World Only Spins Forward is both a rollicking theater saga and an uplifting testament to one of the great works of American art of the past century, from its gritty San Francisco premiere to its starry, much-anticipated Broadway revival in 2018.
The second volume of Sondheim's collected lyrics is both a remarkable glimpse into the brilliant mind of a legend, and a continuation of the acclaimed and best-selling Finishing the Hat. Picking up where he left off in Finishing the Hat, Sondheim gives us all the lyrics, along with excluded songs and early drafts, of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, Assassins and Passion. Here, too, is an in-depth look at the evolution of Wise Guys, which subsequently was transformed into Bounce and eventually became Road Show. Sondheim takes us through his contributions to both television and film, some of which may surprise you, and covers plenty of never-before-seen material from unproduced projects as well. There are abundant anecdotes about his many collaborations, and readers are treated to rare personal material in this volume, as Sondheim includes songs culled from commissions, parodies and personal special occasions—such as a hilarious song for Leonard Bernstein’s seventieth birthday. As he did in the previous volume, Sondheim richly annotates his lyrics with invaluable advice on songwriting, discussions of theater history and the state of the industry today, and exacting dissections of his work, both the successes and the failures. Filled with even more behind-the-scenes photographs and illustrations from Sondheim’s original manuscripts, Look, I Made a Hat is fascinating, devourable and essential reading for any fan of the theater or this great man’s work.
THE STORY: The esteemed and retired Dr. Conrad Bering has selected, out of countless applicants, several individuals for private as well as Group therapy. It seems this Pulitzer Prize- winning doctor might be writing another book and it further see
An exploration of love, loss, and fate, this play was inspired by an actual case history recorded by Carl Jung. In the play, Emma presents a booklet of her dreams to her psychiatrist father, Charles Hatrick, for Christmas. Still mourning his wife's death, Emma's father is confounded by her dreams and shares the booklet with his mentor, the Professor, who is visiting from abroad. The structure of the play sets Emma's daily life against a re-creation of her dreams, in which key roles are played by Emma's governess, her best friend, a rich neurotic her father is treating, her ballet teacher, and a young protege of her father. The disturbing dreams are described by the Professor as those of an older person facing death. Eventually, we learn that Emma is in fact fatally ill.
The newest Broadway musical by Pulitzer Prize-winning collaborators Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, winner of the Tony Award for Best Musical, 1994.
THE STORY: Growing up in an impoverished family in the Bronx, Moss Hart dreamed of being part of the glamorous world of the theatre. Forced to drop out of school at age thirteen, Hart’s famous memoir Act One is a classic Hortatio Alger story that plots Hart’s unlikely collaboration with the legendary playwright George S. Kaufman. Tony Award-winning writer and director James Lapine has adapted Act One for the stage, creating a funny, heartbreaking, and suspenseful play that celebrates the making of a playwright and his play Once in a Lifetime. ACT ONE offers great fun to a director to utilize over fifty roles, which can be played by a cast as few as twelve, and in a production that can be done as simply or elaborately as desired.
A beautiful Pocket Poets hardcover selection of the most memorable and beloved lyrics of Stephen Sondheim Legendary composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim made his Broadway debut with West Side Story in 1957 at the age of twenty-seven. His remarkable and wide-ranging career has spanned more than six decades since then, and he has accumulated accolades that include eight Tony Awards, an Academy Award, eight Grammy Awards, six Laurence Olivier Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, the Kennedy Center Honors, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Sondheim redefined musical theater with his groundbreaking work, combining words and music in ways that are by turns challenging, moving, witty, profound, and never less than exhilarating. This volume includes a selection of lyrics from across his career, drawn from shows including West Side Story, Gypsy, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, and more. The result is a delightful pocket-sized treasury of the very best of Sondheim.
