Sondheim, Stephen

Into the Woods

The Tony Award-winning musical,

now adapted into a lavishly illustrated book

Into the Woods is the imaginative account of what happens when the lives of new and old fairy-tale characters dramatically and humorously come together. Cinderella, Jack (of bean-stalk fame), Little Red Ridinghood, and the Baker and his Wife set out for the forest on a quest to find "happily ever after." Along the way they meet Rapunzel, a Wicked Witch, a lascivious Wolf, vengeful Giants, a couple of charming Princes, and their own destiny. With wit and wisdom, the authors have given us a parable about the loss of innocence, the joys and sorrows of adulthood, and the price paid for getting the things you really want.

Company

Here at last is Furth's libretto to the convention-shattering 1970 musical (revived on Broadway in 1995) that launched composer Sondheim's most fertile period--and his cult. Originally a series of one-act plays about marriage, the musical adds a linking character, Robert, who is the only one without a spouse. In visiting each of a half dozen couples who are his friends, Robert seeks to learn "what do you get" from being married. The answer is far from Hallmark, but visceral. The text includes Furth's witty, cutting dialogue and Sondheim's brilliant lyrics--especially to "Another Hundred People," "Have I Got a Girl for You" and "Being Alive." A portrait of urban angst that is nonetheless hilarious.

Gypsy

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Applause Musical Library)

Book by Hugh Wheeler Introduction by Christopher Bond "Mr. Sondheim fearlessly explores psychic caverns where civilized people are not dying to go ... A naked Sweeney Todd stands revealed as a musical of naked rage, chewing up everyone in its path as it spits out blood and tears." - Frank Rich, The New York Times * "A work of such scope and such daring that it dwarfs every other Broadway musical that even attempts to invite comparison." - Rex Reed, New York Daily News

Assassins

Sunday in the Park with George (Applause Musical Library)

This 1995 Pulitzer Prize-winning musical was inspired by the painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat. A complex work revolving around a fictionalized Seurat immersed in single-minded concentration while painting the masterpiece, the production has evolved into a meditation on art, emotional connection, and community. This publication contains the entire score of the musical. "Sunday is itself a modernist creation, perhaps the first truly modernist work of musical theatre that Broadway has produced ... a watershed event that demands nothing less than a retrospective, even revisionist, look at the development of the serious Broadway musical."- Frank Rich, The New York Times Magazine

Four by Sondheim (A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum)

The complete book and lyrics with set and costume designs, production photos, essays, cast lists and credits, awards for major productions, selected discographies, and much more! Includes the shows A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. A richly illustrated Sondheim treasury!

Follies (Playwrights Canada Press)

On the eve of its destruction, the once-glorious Weissman Theatre is filled with the ghosts of its past as showgirls from 40 years ago reunite to glamorize the old days and relive bygone memories of promise and splendor. For two jaded middle-aged couples, coming face-to-face with what might have been proves to be a shattering experience. The genius script by Sondheim and Goldman makes a cinematic, nightmarish hallucination of past and present blended together, employing lush era musical theatre pastiche and a deft eye for storytelling to tell not only the story of Ben, Phyllis, Sally and Buddy, but also the story of how the promise of America between the World Wars disintegrated into memory. Considered by many to be one of the best American musicals of all time, and still at the peak of form and craft. Those that saw the original Broadway production in 1971 and the all-star Lincoln Center concert in 1985 remember it as one of the most dazzling and poignant shows ever.
"A stunning musicala pastiche so brilliant as to be breathtaking."-New York Daily News

"Follies is utterly magnificent."-Women's Wear Daily

Stephen Sondheim is the preeminent composer and lyricist of the American musical theatre. His best known works include West Side Story, Gypsy, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, Company, among others. Mr. Sondheim celebrates his 70th birthday this year.

The late James Goldman is best known for his play and screenplay A Lion in Winter and also was the author of Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole and A Family Affair.

Passion

1994 Tony Award Winner-- Best Musical and Score! The titles are: Happiness * I Read * Love Like Ours * They Hear Drums * I Wish I Could Forget You * Loving You * No One Has Ever Loved Me. Includes four pages of color photos.

Getting Away with Murder

From the creators of the musicals Company and Merrily We Roll Along comes this non-musical murder mystery that played briefly in San Diego and New York in 1995-96. In addition to his many Tony- (and even Pulitzer-) winning musicals, Stephen Sondheim is known as a devotee of intricate puzzles. George Furth is known for bitingly witty dialog. The play tells what happens when members of a group therapy circle arrive to find their therapist murdered and evidence that one of them did it. They must work through their neuroses and discover the killer before, one by one, all of them are bumped off. Even the secondary efforts of the greats are worth analyzing, and now readers will have a chance to do what few theatergoers got to.