DECEMBER 16 • 2021 | 53

S

tephen Sondheim, 
the Jewish lyricist 
and composer who 
redefined the American 
musical through a 
monumental canon of 
influential and innovative 
theatrical works, died Nov. 
26, 2021, at 91.
Sondheim’s stunning debut 
came writing the lyrics to 
Leonard Bernstein’s score for 
West Side Story in 1957, at age 
27. Sondheim was born to 
Jewish parents in New York 
City but raised without any 
formal Jewish background, to 
the extent that he once said 
Bernstein had to explain to 
him how to pronounce the 
words “Yom Kippur.”
Sondheim’s other well-
known musicals include Into 
the Woods, Sweeney Todd: The 
Demon Barber of Fleet Street, 
Follies, A Little Night Music 
and Sunday in the Park with 
George. Many of them were 

not smash hits immediately, 
as he avoided traditional 
Broadway formulas that 
would immediately draw 
audiences. Instead, he 
crafted musicals that dealt 
with subjects that had 
not received treatments 
on mainstream stages: 
loneliness, despair and the 
artistic temperament.
There was the young man 
who is terrified of emotional 
commitment in Company 
(1970); the family torn apart 
by emotional dishonesty in 
A Little Night Music (1973); 
the vicious serial killer in 
Sweeney Todd (1979); and 
the artist in the midst of 
conceiving a masterpiece 
in Sunday in the Park with 
George (1984). Into the Woods, 
a mashup of characters from 
multiple fairy tales, won 
several Tony Awards in 1987.
Revivals staged years after 
often did better than original 

runs, but he is often cited 
as one of the 20th century’s 
most influential theater 
writers.
Sondheim — who did 
not entertain a romantic 
partnership until he was 
60 — also often wrote about 
loneliness and whether 
the capacity to create a 
long-term relationship 
was possible. “Send In the 
Clowns,” a signature song 
from A Little Night Music that 
Frank Sinatra recorded a 
popular version of, remains 
a famous lamentation about 
bad timing when it comes to 
love.
“Isn’t it rich?” sings the 
character Desiree. “Are we a 
pair? Me here at last on the 
ground, You in mid-air?”
Sondheim hated when 
his fans and biographers 
attempted to examine his 
life to understand his music, 
but it was an irresistible 
enterprise. Born into a 
wealthy family in New York 
that ran a dressmaking 
company, his father left 
him and his mother when 
Sondheim was 10 years old, 
and his mother heaped on 
him hateful scorn, once 
telling him that her greatest 
regret was that he was born 
at all. 
He found mentorship 
and a father figure in his 
teen years in a family 
friend, Oscar Hammerstein 
II, the lyricist of Jewish 
descent who had heralded 
an earlier revolution in the 

American musical, leading 
its transition in the 1920s 
from lighthearted reviews 
to novelistic treatments of 
major issues. 
Hammerstein plotted 
out a four-step training for 
Sondheim while he was still 
in high school: Adapt a good 
play into a musical, adapt a 
flawed play into a musical, 
adapt a musical from another 
literary form, write your own 
musical.
Sondheim stuck 
assiduously to the course 
and at 22 began auditioning 
songs around New York. 
A producer, Lemuel Ayers, 
commissioned Sondheim 
to write songs for a musical 
he was producing, but 
Ayers died before it could 
be staged. Sondheim’s skills 
nonetheless became known 
in Broadway circles and at 
age 25, he was asked to come 
on board and write the lyrics 
for a musical Bernstein was 
planning based on Romeo and 
Juliet. That became West Side 
Story.
Sondheim earned 
multiple honors besides 
his many Tony’s, including 
the Presidential Medal of 
Freedom in 2015.
He settled into a 
comfortable elder statesman 
status late in life, traveling 
into New York this year to 
see revivals of his musicals, 
and living with his husband, 
Jeffrey Romley, whom he 
married in 2017 and who 
survives him. 

Stephen Sondheim, songwriter/lyricist, listening 
to music in the recording control room during the 
original cast recording of the Broadway musical 
Into the Woods, New York, 1987. 

Theater Legend 
Steven Sondheim 
Dies

RON KAMPEAS JTA

PHOTO BY OLIVER MORRIS/GETTY IMAGES

