Sunday Reflection: The Audience

"Musicals are plays, but the last collaborator is your audience, so you've got to wait 'til the last collaborator comes in before you can complete the collaboration." -- legendary composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, who turns 90 today.

Sondheim's career took off in the 1950s after writing the lyrics to "West Side Story," when lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green declined the project.  The musicals that Sondheim created are among the very best of Broadway: "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum," "A Little Night Music," "Gypsy", "Follies," and "Sweeney Todd" among many others. The winner of an Academy Award, eight Tony awards, eight Grammys, a Pulitzer Prize, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Sondheim is perhaps the most honored lyricist and composer of our time.