Stephen Sondheim

Latest Articles

Isn’t it rich?

Sondheim and Follies , the BSO’s French evening, and Boston Baroque’s Xerxes
The biggest musical celebrity in town last week was Broadway great Stephen Sondheim, who filled Northeastern University’s Blackman Hall “in conversation” with his long-time associate, producer/composer Sean Patrick Flahaven.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | November 03, 2008

Honoring the spirit

Estrella on condensing Schiller
Tony Estrella is not a masochist.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | September 10, 2008

Old wives’ tales

Follies at the Lyric; We Won’t Pay! by the Nora
A pretty girl is less like a melody than like yesterday’s news in Follies , the New York Drama Critics Circle Award–winning 1971 musical that lost money but became the stuff of legend.
By CAROLYN CLAY | September 09, 2008

Killing grounds

The Seagull flies at the Publick; Company One knocks off Assassins
Chekhov wrote to a friend while composing The Seagull , first of his Big Four, that he was writing a “comedy with three female parts, six male parts, four acts, a landscape (a view of the lake), much talk about literature, and five tons of love.”
By CAROLYN CLAY | July 15, 2008

Night music

The Pops aces Sondheim
Classic musicals make substantial enterprises —this is now the best thing the Pops does.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | July 01, 2008

Cold remedies

Stephin Merritt warms up on Distortion
One suspects all colds are terrible in the world of Stephin Merritt.
By MATT ASHARE | January 07, 2008

Close shave

Tim Burton’s latest is bloody good
If it weren’t for his beloved turn as Jack Sparrow in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, Johnny Depp would best be known as the cinematic alter ego of Tim Burton.
By BRETT MICHEL | December 18, 2007

Auteur land?

‘Film Culture’ in 2007
Granted, Sweeney Todd is a grim, violent, misanthropic musical.
By GERALD PEARY | December 17, 2007

Broadway's Best at Pops

WGBH Boston Video
This DVD represents some of the best of public broadcasting and a bit of the worst.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | December 10, 2007

Lorca without Lorca

Opera Boston’s Ainadamar, plus Ida Haendel, the BSO, and West Side Story
Is it possible for a work of art to seem both completely sincere in its intentions and at the same time counterfeit and manipulative?
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 30, 2007

After the fall

Sweeney Todd ; Macbeth ; A House with No Walls
The evil is boiled down in the revival of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and that makes for a stew far tastier than Mrs. Lovett’s human-hamburger pies.
By CAROLYN CLAY | October 30, 2007

Razor’s edge

Judy Kaye on reuniting with Sweeney Todd’s Demon Barber
According to the Tony-winning actor, there’s always more to discover about the Demon Barber’s culinary accomplice.
By SALLY CRAGIN | October 17, 2007

Thirtysomething

tick, tick ... BOOM! at New Rep; A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum by BTW; American Buffalo at WHAT
When Jonathan Larson, the Pulitzer-winning composer of Rent , wrote tick, tick . . . BOOM! , he could not have known what the “boom” would be.
By CAROLYN CLAY | October 03, 2007