- Poor
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- Nov 07, 2020
Stephen Sondheim Quotes
Most Famous Stephen Sondheim Quotes of All Time!
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- Last Updated on May 30, 2021
- Chance
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- Nov 07, 2020
I firmly believe lyrics have to breathe and give the audience's ear a chance to understand what's going on. Particularly in the theater, where you have costume, story, acting, orchestra.
- Gotta
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- Nov 07, 2020
Gotta watch out for directors.
- Professional
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- Nov 07, 2020
By the time I was 22, I was a professional. A young and flawed professional, but not an amateur.
- Changes
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- Nov 07, 2020
When the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you've written.
- Hammerstein
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- Nov 07, 2020
In the Rodgers and Hammerstein generation, popular hits came out of shows and movies.
- Go
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- Nov 07, 2020
I don't listen to recordings of my songs. I don't avoid it, I just don't go out of my way to do it.
- Personal
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- Nov 07, 2020
You can't have personal investors anymore because it's too expensive, so you have to have corporate investment or a lot of rich people.
- More
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- Nov 07, 2020
Nowadays, there are sometimes more producers than there are people in the cast, because it takes that much money to put a show on.
- Down
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- Nov 07, 2020
The dumbing down of the country reflects itself on Broadway. The shows get dumber, and the public gets used to them.
- Nov 07, 2020
When I was growing up, there was no such thing as Off-Broadway. You either got your show on or you didn't.
- Musical
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- Nov 07, 2020
Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten.
- May
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- Nov 07, 2020
I chose and my world was shaken. So what? The choice may have been mistaken; the choosing was not. You have to move on.
- I Was Raised
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- Nov 07, 2020
I was raised to be charming, not sincere.
- Good
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- Nov 07, 2020
Nice is different than good.
- Feel
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- Nov 07, 2020
The fact is popular art dates. It grows quaint. How many people feel strongly about Gilbert and Sullivan today compared to those who felt strongly in 1890?
- Idea
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- Nov 07, 2020
My idea of heaven is not writing.
- Communication
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- Nov 07, 2020
I'm interested in the theater because I'm interested in communication with audiences. Otherwise I would be in concert music.
- Love
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- Nov 07, 2020
I love the theater as much as music, and the whole idea of getting across to an audience and making them laugh, making them cry - just making them feel - is paramount to me.
- Long
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- Nov 07, 2020
When the song is part of the action and working as dialogue, even two minutes is way too long.
- Care
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- Nov 07, 2020
My parents weren't around much, but I assumed everybody's family was the same. I didn't know people had mummies and daddies who would give them milk and cookies after school. I just thought everybody lived on Central Park West and they had a nanny to take care of them.
- Love
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- Nov 07, 2020
Every single song I've ever written is sung by a character created by somebody else. Some might have a jaundiced view of love, some don't. But none of these songs is me singing - not a single one.
- Move
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- Nov 07, 2020
I was essentially trained by Oscar Hammerstein to think of songs as one-act plays, to move a song from point A to point B dramatically.
- May
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- Nov 07, 2020
I'm always conscious of what I'm writing, conscious of what the actor may ask me. I have a defense for nearly every line in the song.
- Nov 07, 2020
When I'm writing a song, I try to be the character.
- Great
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- Nov 07, 2020
Every time one can write a self-deluded song, you are way ahead of the game, way ahead. Self-delusion is the basis of nearly all the great scenes in all the great plays, from 'Oedipus' to 'Hamlet.'
- Mathematics
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- Nov 07, 2020
I was a mathematician by nature, and still am - I just knew I didn't want to be a mathematician. So I decided not to take any mathematics courses.
- Life
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- Nov 07, 2020
Two of the hardest words in the language to rhyme are life and love. Of all words!
- Effort
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- Nov 07, 2020
Making lyrics feel natural, sit on music in such a way that you don't feel the effort of the author, so that they shine and bubble and rise and fall, is very, very hard to do. Whereas you can sit at the piano and just play and feel you're making art.
- Music
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- Nov 07, 2020
If you force yourself to write away from the piano, you come up with more inventive things. If you're too good a piano player, as some composers are, the music may become flavorless and glib. And if you're not a very good pianist, you're limited to the same patterns.
- Long
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- Nov 07, 2020
I happen to like movies and plays about dislikeable people as long as I get to know why they are what they are.
- More
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- Nov 07, 2020
I have inherited my father's sense of humour about myself. It's a lot more pleasant to make fun of yourself than when someone else does.
- Live
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- Nov 07, 2020
One difference between poetry and lyrics is that lyrics sort of fade into the background. They fade on the page and live on the stage when set to music.
- Hammerstein
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- Nov 07, 2020
After the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution, songs became part of the story, as opposed to just entertainments in between comedy scenes.
- Camera
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- Nov 07, 2020
There's something inimical about the camera and song.
- Mean
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- Nov 07, 2020
Musicals are, by nature, theatrical, meaning poetic, meaning having to move the audience's imagination and create a suspension of disbelief, by which I mean there's no fourth wall.
- Opinion
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- Nov 07, 2020
The movie adaptations of stage musicals that I've seen, without exception, in my opinion don't work. A lot of people would disagree with me.
- Nov 07, 2020
A close-up on screen can say all a song can.
- People
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- Nov 07, 2020
If people have split views about your work, I think it's flattering. I'd rather have them feel something about it than dismiss it.
- Live
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- Nov 07, 2020
All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theatre live. That's why it persists.
- Best
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- Nov 07, 2020
Generally, the best recording is the original cast, because that's the way the piece grew: integrally, with them.
- Man
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- Nov 07, 2020
I played the organ when I went to military school, when I was 10. They had a huge organ, the second-largest pipe organ in New York State. I loved all the buttons and the gadgets. I've always been a gadget man.
- Music
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- Nov 07, 2020
Math and music are intimately related. Not necessarily on a conscious level, but sure.
- Geologist
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- Nov 07, 2020