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Stephen Sondheim!!!!!!!
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Stephen Sondheim!!!!!!!
Stephen Sondheim!!!!!!!
Anybody else like his musicals? I'm currently listening to "It's Hot Up Here" from Sunday In The Park With George, and I have Sweeney Todd on my iPod, along with West Side Story (which he only wrote the (brilliant) lyrics for).
Well, there are worse things than sweating by a river on a sunday
There are worse things than sweating by a river
When you're sweating in a picture that was painted by a genius
And you know that you're immortal
And you'll always be remembered
Even if they never see you
submitted by Enceladus
(November 14, 2010 - 8:10 am)
(November 14, 2010 - 8:10 am)
*explodes with joy* Stephen Sondheiiiiiiiiiiiiim!!!!
I love Sunday in the Park With George! And Into the Woods! And Assassins! And Gypsy (he wrote the lyrics)! And Follies, which I get to see this summer with Bernadette Peters and Elaine Paige! And Sweeney Todd! And A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum! And Company!
He's also the only lyricist who consistently makes me cry, usually about twice per play. SitPWG gets me during Children and Art and Move On, for example. And sometimes during We Do Not Belong Together as well. Such a beautiful play.
*deep breath*
Actually at the moment I'm watching Bernadette Peters sing You Could Drive A Person Crazy (from Company) in a concert in... I think the Royal Festival Hall in London? And it is amazing.
(November 14, 2010 - 7:03 pm)
*pokes thread*
I was bored in SSR today, so I bought Anyone Can Whistle on my iPhone (the concert version as opposed to the OBCR, because of 1. Bernadette Peters and 2. Angela Lansbury). I will probably be singing/humming/whistling (hah!) There Won't Be Trumpets, Everybody Says Don't, and See What it Gets You for the rest of the week at least.
I don't understand why people always say Sondheim is unhummable. Sure there are some scores *pointed glance at Sunday in the Park With George* that have, um, ridiculously difficult-to-hum pieces, but as a whole it's just. so. catchy. that it's impossible not to at least try. You might end up asphyxiating yourself, but nevertheless.
(November 15, 2010 - 8:25 pm)
*pokes thread again*
So I've been reading Finishing the Hat (and have just reached the beginning of Act II of A Little Night Music, I so wish I could see this with BP, but it closes in like ten days and there is no way mom would take me to that on such short notice, even if we did give Follies a miss which is NOT going to happen. This impossibility has not stopped me from going to the official site and staring longingly at the ticket prices. 300$ would put mom and I nine seats away from the stage. rrrrrgh why didn't I find out about this until a week ago?!) and thus far it's made my respect for the man... triple. At least. If only because I have to consult a dictionary an average of six times per chapter, something which has never happened to me before.
(December 30, 2010 - 11:19 pm)
*poke poke poke*
Mother says A Little Night Music is possible if I submit all my college apps (sans Gutenberg because it isn't Common App and the deadline isn't for ages anyway) by Wednesday. D: Possibly I will also have to pay for the tickets myself, which shouldn't be difficult as I just got paid (mmm payday).
SO EXCITING.
(December 31, 2010 - 11:14 am)
Yay! Someone who's heard of SitPWG.
He wrote the lyrics to West Side Story, and that is probably one of my favorite musicals of all time. :D
Did you see his brithday celebration on... some public broadcasting show? *memory fail*
They had the original actors from many of his shows come and sing songs. They had Bernadette Peters and Mandy... [What's his last name?] singing We Do Not Belong Together and Move On
Mandy Patinkin?
Admin
(January 12, 2011 - 7:26 pm)
I loved the painting, and then I found the show and now I love the painting EVEN MORE.
West Side Story is not my favourite, because I don't care for the material it adapted (i.e. Romeo and Juliet).
...at the moment (and since Saturday) A Little Night Music is my favourite musical EVER, but that could change in the future, who knows.
PBS, I think, though that could be very wrong. Yes. We invaded grandma's apartment in the retirement home to watch it, because we don't have TV at our house. And now I have the DVD.
Mandy Patinkin is amazing.
Also, PATTI. Singing A Little Priest with Hearn AND Cerveris! Ahahahahaha! And then singing Ladies Who Lunch, which is an amazing song. :D :D :D
I was also very pleased that Bernadette sang Not A Day Goes By, because it wouldn't be a proper Sondheim concert with BP if she hadn't.
(January 13, 2011 - 9:25 pm)
Guys guys guys guys it might actually happen!! Mom can't go so I'd stay with mom's friends who are clowns and live in NYC and tickets and I've submitted all but like two of my apps and ahhhhhhh it's actually going to happen!!!!!
In addition to Follies, too, mom says! EEEEEEEEEEEE
((...I'm realizing this thread has become one long monologue on my part, so... someone please post?))
How exciting, TNO! We're so happy for you. Staying with clowns in NYC? What fun!
Admin
(January 2, 2011 - 10:11 pm)
*danes* Oh my gosh!!! You are soo lucky!!! *is jealous* OOOOOH, that's soo exciting!!!!!!!!!! I need to figure out how to see more musicals... Does that make it TWO Bernadette Peters musicals in one year for you? *is REALLY jealous*
((And I really thought I wrote a post for this thread... but maybe that was something else. Now that I think about it, I think was another thread like this. But anyway, I'm pretty sure that I did post a rambly post about Sondheim somewhere....))
~Leaf
(January 5, 2011 - 5:47 pm)
Yes, two! (my musical theatre class is ready to kill me, I think :D)
Leaving tomorrow for Jackson/flying out early on Friday, I can't believe I'm actually going on a spur-of-the-moment trip to New York City, that seems like the sort of thing that only happens in fiction :D :D :D
(January 6, 2011 - 12:34 am)
Oops, I just missed you. I was going to wish you a safe flight, but you are already in NYC. But I hope you had a wonderful flight! And be sure to make a thread on A Little Night Music when you get back, okay? I want to hear ALL about it!!
~Leaf
(January 8, 2011 - 2:39 pm)
I like literally just got back (and regained my ability re: coherency) from the show.
It was so amazingly incredibly phenomenally fantastic SO MUCH BETTER than I was expecting. The dialogue and Bernadette. Film doesn't do her justice at all and I'm STILL SHAKING and-- and the music! And the dialogue! And the set!!
And then at approximately 12:20 Bernadette signed my actual poster. Like, I actually saw her and she signed my poster.
You guys she is like my idol and she signed my poster less than two hours ago!!!
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!
Wow, TNO! Enjoy the afterglow!
Admin
(January 9, 2011 - 2:14 am)
OH MY GOSH, that's amazing!!! She actually signed your poster!!! How fantastic!!!!! You amazingly lucky to have been able to see a show with her at such a short time's notice AND get a signed poster from it. :) And THEN be able to see her in the summer. :D Makes me want to see her all the more. I'm so glad it was so wonderful and even better than you expected... since, I mean, Bernadette!!!! She's amaaaazing and, you know, you were expecting amazing-ness (for lack of a better word) from her.
Just know, I am still incredulously jealous of you. ;)
~Leaf
(January 10, 2011 - 2:04 am)
Dear Enceladus,
I LOVE Stephen Soundhiem! He is my most favorite lyricist and composer ever!!!! I have listened to most of his musicals, my favorite being Gypsy, which he didn't write the music to, the music was written by Jule Styne. I only listen to the soundtrack made by Angela Lansbury. I adore the Sweeney Todd music, but I don't like any version other than the soundtrack sung by Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou. I listen to it All the time! It's so great to know that other kids listen to the classic Broadway still. I thought I was the only one (in VA)!!! West Side Story was indeed brilliant, but the music was written by Leonard Burnstien, which I am not a big fan of. My favorite song written or the lyrics is... A Little Priest (Sweeney Todd), or Some People (Gypsy)
my favorite part has to be in the middle where they sing - Is that Friar on the fire? Mercy, no, sir, look closer, you'll notice it's grocer! Looks thicker, more like vicar! No, it has to be grocer, it's green!
If you say it outloud, you'll notice how amazing the lyrics rhyme!
(February 8, 2011 - 3:53 pm)
This thread needs MOAR love, methinks.
Sondheim is a rhyming genius. Seriously. I mean...
He's got crazy internal rhymes, and then like quadruple or more rhymes, and then sometimes he does both at once and 99% of the time they're true rhymes, and if anyone has ever tried to do that without forcing things it's like impossible. Even triple rhymes are stupidly hard to pull off with any regularity.
My favourite of his rhymes is "When a person's personality is personable/He shouldn't oughta sit like a lump/It's harder than a matador coercin' a bull/To try to get you off of your rump" from You Could Drive A Person Crazy. As trick rhymes go, personable/coercin' a bull is hard to beat. And it works, somehow, instead of being incredibly pretentious.
I also love the end of On the Steps of the Palace: "Then from out of the blue/And without any guide/You know what your decision is/Which is not to decide/You'll just leave him a clue/For example, a shoe/And then see what he'll do/Now it's he and not you/Who is stuck with a shoe/In a stew... in the goo.../And you've learned something too/Something you never knew/On the steps of the palace" because counting the internal rhyme of stew/goo, that's ten rhymes, nine of which are consecutive.
I also also recently got obsessed with Merrily We Roll Along and specifically Franklin Sheppard, Inc. (Also Our Time, it sends shivers down my spine every. single. time.). Who knew Sondheim could even make synthesizers sound good?!
Favourite lyrics of his, hm...
Gypsy: Everything's Coming Up Roses. All of it. And all of Rose's Turn.
Anyone Can Whistle: "Here's how to crawl, now run, lady/Here's how to walk, now fly.../Here's how to feel, have fun, lady/And a fond good bye..." because RRGH WHY DO I IDENTIFY WITH FAY SO MUCH. Also, "It was marvelous to know you/And it's never really through/Crazy business is this life we live in/Can't complain about the time we're given/With so little to be sure of in this world..."
Forum: "The bong of the bell of the buoy in the bay/And the boat and the boy and the bride are away". Alliteration FTW.
Company: besides the aforementioned bit of You Could Drive a Person Crazy, all of Ladies Who Lunch and all of Being Alive, and all of Getting Married Today, there's also "It's not talk of God and the decade ahead/That allows you to get through the worst/It's I don't and you did and nobody said/That, and who brought the subject up first".
Sweeney Todd: "To seek revenge may lead to hell/But everyone does it if seldom as well/As Sweeney... As Sweeney Todd.../The demon barber of Fleet Street". The shivers? I have them.
The Frogs: "I hate to travel/I say to leave the world alone/It may unravel/But it's the mess we've always known/I mean, okay it isn't perfect/Still it's perfectly okay/And if it's gonna go to hell/Then let it/Why should I as well?/Forget it!"
Pacific Overtures: "In the tea, my lord/The chrysanthemum tea/An informal variation/On the normal recipe!"
Merrily We Roll Along: All of Our Time, all of the transitions. Most especially, this: "Very sneaky how it happens.../Everyday you're on the brink/First the prizes, then the interviews.../...Oh my god, I think it's happened!/Stop me quick, before I sink!/One more triumph that I can't refuse-- [in case you didn't notice, this is my first time on TV! And my last!]/No, here's the point, whatever happens/Then we'll all go have a drink/That's the guy I love, the fella who's/Inside mutter mutter mutter mutter quick Jerome, get the president, there's a crazy man on my TV screen!/Inside bzz bzz bring/Inside Franklin Sheppard-- Just write him care of any bank USA!/Inc!" NERVOUS BREAKDOWN FTW.
A Little Night Music: All of You Mus Meet My Wife. And, "The sun sits low/Diffusing its usual glow/Five o'clock/Twilight/Vespers sound and it's/Six o'clock/Twilight/All around/And the sun sits low/As low as it's going to go/Eight o'clock/Twilight/How enthralling/It's nine o'clock/Twilight/Slowly crawling/Towards ten o'clock/Twilight!/Crickets calling/The vespers ring/The nightingale's waiting to sing/The rest of us wait on a string/Perpetual sunset is rather an unsett-ling thing..."
Follies: Broadway Baby, all of it, and all of Losing My Mind. And Waiting for the Girls Upstairs.
Assassins: "Czolgosz, angry man/Said I will do what a poor man can/Yes and there's nowhere more fitting than/In the temple of music/By the tower of light/Between the fountain of abundance/And the court of lilies/At the great pan-American Exposition in Buffalo/In Buffalo..." And also, of course, "Hey pal, feeling blue?/Don't know what to do?/Hey pal, I mean you-- yeah!/Come on and shoot a president!" for the pure shock value of the thing.
Sunday: "And when the woman that you wanted goes/You can say to yourself, well I give what I give/But the woman that you wanted knows/That however you live there's a part of you/Always standing by... Mapping out a sky..." And "We've always belonged together/We will always belong... together.../Just keep moving on..." *burst into tears*
Into the Woods: "You're so nice.../You're not good, you're not bad/You're just... nice/I'm the Witch./I'm not nice, I'm not good/I'm just right/I'm the Witch./You're the world.../I'm the Witch/I'm what no one believes/I'm the Witch./You're all liars and thieves like his father/Like his son will be too--/Oh why bother?!/You'll just do what you do/It's the last midnight!" Shivers. Spine. Every time. Also, "Beans!/Beans?/The special beans!/I let him go, I didn't know/He'd stolen my beans!/I was watching him crawl back over the wall/When bang! Crash!/The lightning Flash!/And-- Well, that's another story, never mind/Anyway..."
(March 19, 2011 - 1:59 am)