#West Side Story Songwriter & Broadway Legend Stephen Sondheim Dies At 91

Stephen Sondheim’s auteur work is so precise, he’s become a subgenre of musical theatre unto himself. His work may not become crossover pop hits on the Top 40 charts, but they’re songs that encompass Hans Christian Andersen’s famous quote, “When words fail, music speaks.” Sondheim’s work pulls out the deeply emotional and human responses to the world around us, in all of their complicated glory. Sondheim wasn’t interested in giving an entertaining distraction filled with spectacle for a few hours, but a way to tip-toe the audience into learning how to transcend the difficulties of everyday existence.

The characters and songs of Stephen Sondheim are as complicated and conflicting as the reality he’s reflecting, embracing the truth that the world exists on a spectrum and not a binary, regardless if that’s the easier reality to accept. His work completely changed the landscape of what was possible in American musicals, and just as his mentor Oscar Hammerstein II encouraged him to write in his own, unique style, Sondheim did the same for fellow game-changers Jonathan Larson, of “Rent” and “Tick…Tick…BOOM!” fame, and the groundbreaking Lin-Manuel Miranda. Sondheim even had a hidden voice cameo at the end of Miranda’s film adaptation of “Tick…Tick…BOOM!” — a moment that now feels like a beautiful passing of the torch connecting the three legacies of musical theatre greats.