Stephen Sondheim passed away on Friday at the age of 91. A friend called me up and asked if I was surprised to hear it. I said it's terribly hard to be surprised if someone has died at the age of 91, but also the last time I'd seen him was on Steven Colbert's show a month or two ago -- he was seated already when they came back from commercial, rather than walk out onstage at this introduction, so I figured he wasn't doing well. But surprise aside, it's still a shame because he continued to offer much to the world of art. Even if he wasn't getting new work produced, he was still writing it -- and most importantly he was still talking about it and teaching it. Rather than write an essay on Sondheim, this is an extremely good 15-minute piece on him that 60 Minutes did in 1988. A couple of tangential comments. The British actor who comes in around the 9-minute mark that Sondheim is rehearsing with for the British production of Follies is Daniel Massey. He starred in the original Broadway production of She Loves Me, and I saw him in London at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Measure for Measure. But also is that he's the song of movie great Raymond Massey. Also, when they talk about and show Glynnis Johns singing "Send in the Clowns" from the original production of A Little Night Music, I suspect that many people will recognize her, but if she seems familiar and you just can't quite place where, she was the mother in Mary Poppins. But this is about Sondheim. So --
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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