Class 12: "He Wrote the Music Too"

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12. He Wrote the Music Too. By 1959, with West Side Story and Gypsy to his credit, Stephen Sondheim was well on the way to becoming a lyricist of the quality of Hart or Hammerstein. But what he really wanted to do was write music. For the final class, we look at his first ventures as a composer: the upbeat farce A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962); the less successful Anyone Can Whistle (1964), which nudged the Broadway musical towards a new genre; and the remarkable pair of Company (1970) and Follies (1971), two shows that proclaimed the triumph of the Concept Musical.

An intertwined theme of the class, related to the overall theme of the course, From European Fantasy to American Realism, is how in all these shows Sondheim juggles theatrical artifice with real life. Nothing shows this more clearly than the Ziegfeld-extravaganza world of Follies, which is our featured work. rb.

The script, videos, and images will be posted immediately after class.

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Q AND A

Where were my favorite numbers from Company and Follies?
As I explained, I was able to play only a few numbers that develop the main theme of each show. However, as you will see from the VIDEO LINKS below, you can see both productions complete. The list also includes multiple performances of two of the best known numbers, "Ladies who lunch" from Company and "I'm still here" from Follies; check them out.

Can you tell us more about your fall course?
The text that will appear in the catalogue reads: "George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin brought you to the theater to laugh; the word musicals is short for musical comedies. Though laughter is no longer a requirement on Broadway today, the tradition goes back at least to the comic operas of Mozart and Rossini, or the satires of Gilbert and Sullivan. And you don't even need a theater; the songbook is packed with numbers that are funny in their own right, whether performed in a club or heard on a 78 record. Comedy can take the form of outrageous farces that make you laugh out loud, but it can also be quite subtle, evoking the smile of wry recognition rather than the belly laugh. We will try to break this down, looking at comedy of all kinds over a wide range of media; the only requirement is that it should involve singers delivering well-crafted words, preferably in a staged context." The course will probably be divided about equally between comic opera, operetta, Broadway shows, and singing comedians such as Tom Lehrer and Flanders and Swann.

When may we know more?
Keep checking my site: www.brunyate.com. Probably by the end of next week, I will have posted at least an illustrated screen for the new course. I will then add a video preview link, more pictures, and an outline syllabus over the following weeks.

VIDEO LINKS

Most things are available on YouTube, though only the NYPO Company has titles. I added a couple of documentary clips about Anyone Can Whistle. For Company, I added the two full documentaries we merely glimpsed in class: the fascinating behind-the-scenes film by DA Pennebaker about the making of the original cast album, which shows a young Stephen Sondheim in action, and the documentary about Marianne Elliot's 2022 gender-bending production. There are also two other complete productions: the 1996 production by Sam Mendes at the Donma Warehouse in London, with a Black Bobby (Adrian Lester), and John Doyle's 2006 Broadway revival, in which the cast members all play musical instruments!

The theme of this class prevented me from playing a couple of iconic songs from the later shows, traditionally sung by older actresses peripheral to the main plot. For "The ladies who lunch" in Company, I have the remarkable sequence from the Pennebaker film in which the overtired Elaine Stritch breaks down while trying to sing it but comes through in the end, plus a lockdown compilation of Meryl Street, Christine Baranski, and Audra McDonald, and a more recent rendering by Patti LuPone. For "I'm still here" from Follies, I have Tracie Bennett from the National Theatre production, plus the original performer Yvonne de Carlo, Elaine Stritch again, and a recent performance by the great Ann Miller—especially poignant if you see this aging survivor and recall the sparkling dancer in all those MGM musicals of yesteryear. Items not heard in class are *asterisked.

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM
	Film, 1966	* Comedy tonight (Zero Mostel) * Bring me my bride (Leon Greene)
	Broadway, 1996	* Comedy tonight (Nathan Lane)

ANYONE CAN WHISTLE
	Title song	* Patti LuPone at home
	Documentaries	* Origins of Anyone Can Whistle (Sondheim with Sam Mendes) * Why did Whistle flop?

COMPANY
	NY Philharmonic, 2012	* Complete show (w/Neil Patrick Harris as Robert) * Sarah and Harry (Martha Plimpton, Stephen Colbert) * You could drive a person crazy * Have I got a girl for you * Getting married today (Katie Finneran, Aaron Lazar)
	Other full productions	* London, 1996 (Sam Mendes, w/Adrian Lester) * Broadway, 2006 (John Doyle)
	Documentaries	* Original Cast Album (film by DA Pennebaker) * Keeping Company with Sondheim (Marianne Elliot, gender bending) * — Matt Doyle on Amy/Jamie (from the above)
	Ladies who Lunch	* Elaine Stritch (from the Pennebaker film) * Patti LuPone (from 2021 revival) * Meryl Streep et al. (Christine Baranski, Audra McDonald)

FOLLIES
	National Theatre, 2017	* Complete show * These beautiful girls (Bruce Graham as Roscoe) * Waiting for the girls upstairs * In Buddy's eyes (Imelda Staunton) * Too many mornings / The right girl (Philip Quast, Peter Forbes) * Could I leave you? (Janie Dee) * Loveland * Losing my mind * Live, laugh, love, and ending
	I'm Still Here	* Tracie Bennett (National Theatre) * Yvonne de Carlo (the original, here in concer) * Elaine Stritch (in concert) * Ann Miller (Paper Mill Playhouse, 1998)


IMAGES
The thumbnails below cover the slides shown in class, though there may be a few small discrepancies. Click the thumbnail to see a larger image. Click on the right or left of the larger picture to go forward or back, or outside it to close.

Here are brief bios of the artists, composers, and writers considered in the class, listed in order of birth.

	Burt Shevelove, 1915–82. American playwright. Shevelove was co-writer of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962). He also won a Tony for his direction of the 1971 revival of No, No, Nannette,
	Arthur Laurents, 1917–2011. American writer and director. Laurents, who was born Arthur Levene in NYC, began a varied career in radio, film, and theater after graduating from Cornell. For example, he was the screenwriter for Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948), book-writer for West Side Story (1957) and Gypsy (1959), and director of La Cage aux Folles (1983). He won two Tony Awards, a Golden Globe, and several Oscar nominations.
	James Goldman, 1927–98. American playwright. Before writing the book for Stephen Sondheim's Follies (1971), Goldman has great success with his play The Lion in Winter (1966), winning an Oscar for its 1968 film adaptation.
	Larry Gelbart, 1928–2009. American playwright. Gelbart is most famous as a creator and producer of the television series MASH* and as co-writer of the Broadway musicals A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Sondheim, 1962) and City of Angels (Cy Coleman, 1989).
	Hal Prince, 1928—2019. American director and producer. After service in the US Army, he worked with George Abbott, eventually co-producing The Pajama Game. As producer or director, he has been associated with many of the shows in this course, including West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, and Cabaret. He also directed many of the earlier works by Sondheim, including …Forum, Company, Follies, and A Little Night Music,and several of the blockbusters of Andrew Lloyd Webber, such as Evita and Phantom of the Opera. 11, 12.
	Stephen Sondheim, 1930–2021. American composer and lyricist. A protégé of Oscar Hammerstein's, Sondheim made his Boadway debut in 1957 as lyricist for West Side Story and Gypsy, but he soon began his own string of musicals, writing the music as well as the words, including A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), A Little Night Music (1973), and Sweeney Todd (1979). Often dealing with non-traditional subjects, these and others largely redefined the Broadway in the later 20th century.
	Richard Lester, 1932– . American film director. Although born and educated in the US, Lester spent most of his career in the UK, directing such madcap movies as the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night (1964) and Help! (1965). He returned stateside for the 1966 film of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
	George Furth, 1932–2008. American actor and playwright. Furth (born George Schweinfurth) collaborated with Sondheim on Company (1970) and the less-successful Merrily We Roll Anong (1981). As an film and television actor, he appeared in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Blazing Saddles, and many others.