Sondheim: The Theatre Poet

Sweeney Todd

Stephen Sondheim, Hugh Wheeler · 1979

A wronged barber returns to Victorian London as a vengeful killer, turning his razor into an instrument of revenge while an enterprising widow transforms his victims into meat pies.

Into the Woods

Stephen Sondheim, James Lapine · 1986

Stephen Sondheim's ingenious musical weaves together the plots of classic Brothers Grimm fairy tales—Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, and Rapunzel—into a darkly sophisticated meditation on wishes, consequences, and the murky terrain beyond 'happily ever after.' A childless Baker and his Wife embark on a quest to break a curse, their journey intersecting with iconic fairy tale characters as they discover that getting what you wish for is far more complicated than the stories suggest.

Sunday in the Park with George

Stephen Sondheim · 1984

Two Georges separated by a century—a 19th-century painter and his modern descendant—navigate art, love, and legacy in Sondheim's ingenious musical meditation on creation.

Company

Stephen Sondheim · 1970

A sophisticated concept musical that eschews linear narrative in favor of interconnected vignettes exploring the nature of marriage, friendship, and commitment. Robert, a charming 35-year-old bachelor, navigates his relationships with five married couples who variously celebrate, question, and struggle with their unions while gently pressuring him toward matrimony. Through a series of witty, poignant musical numbers and candid conversations, Sondheim and Furth dissect the paradoxes of human connection—the comfort and confinement of companionship, the simultaneous yearning for and fear of intimacy. The musical culminates in Robert's profound reckoning with solitude and the bittersweet realities of being alive.

Follies

Stephen Sondheim, James Goldman · 1971

Merrily We Roll Along

Stephen Sondheim, George Furth · 1981

A groundbreaking musical told in reverse chronological order, Merrily We Roll Along traces the dissolution of a decades-long friendship between composer Franklin Shepard, playwright Charley Kringas, and novelist Mary Flynn as they journey backward through time from 1981 to their idealistic youth in 1957. What begins as a glittering Broadway party unravels into a poignant examination of ambition, compromise, and the price of success, revealing how three talented artists gradually abandoned their artistic dreams and each other in pursuit of wealth and status. Sondheim's sophisticated score and innovative structure create a haunting meditation on friendship, love, and the roads not taken.