Stephen Sondheim and Me
A chronology of my lifelong relationship with the music and the man
Fans of Stephen Sondheim are not fans — at a minimum, we are fanatics. And we are fond of exchanging stories on when and how our lives came to be blessed with the discovery of his magic.
I have yet to meet anyone for whom that moment came earlier in life than me. Thanks to my parents being very “early adopters” of Sondheim fandom, family lore has it that, while sitting in the backseat of their car, and the just-released cast recording of Company playing on the 8-track, I uttered my first discernable words: “Bobby, Bobby, Bobby baby…”.
For me, for my whole life, Stephen Sondheim has always been there. First his work. And then, in one of my life’s greatest blessings, the man himself.
In 1976 my parents became modest backers of his collaboration with John Weidman, Pacific Overtures, and it became the first of his shows that I saw live. When the cast album was released, I’d wager that I was the world’s only seven-year-old belting out lyrics describing Commodore Perry’s 1852 expedition to open Japan to the West. Three years later, I vividly recall using an exciting new device to transfer the vinyl LP of Sweeney Todd onto cassette — my tape maxed out at 90 minutes and the cast album ran slightly longer, so it lacked the dramatic conclusion.
And then one spring afternoon in 1984, I went with a friend to see Sunday in the Park with George, which Sondheim wrote with James Lapine, at Broadway’s Booth Theater. I couldn’t explain all the ways in which this masterpiece (one of the only musicals to ever win the Pulitzer Prize), moved me, but I instantly knew that this work of art would be something that I would treasure for the rest of my life. Two weeks later, when I happened to see my high school newspaper, pre-publication, was about to carry a negative review, I insisted on writing my own. The deadline was the next morning, and I had not taken notes from the production. But adrenaline carried me through that evening and here is what I wrote:
Mustering up the courage to send a copy of it to Sondheim, I was stunned to receive the response below — on the stationary that he used to respond to fans the world over for more than 60 years:
It was soon arranged that I would visit with him at his townhouse on East 49th Street in Manhattan. On the day we were set to meet, in the mail arrived the Apple Computer Annual Report, associated with some shares I bought on the release of the Macintosh a few months prior. In the back of the report was a section featuring celebrities who use the Macintosh. Kurt Vonnegut was one. And there was Stephen Sondheim, alongside some additional lyrics for a revival of Pacific Overtures playing in New York at the time.
So, when I sat and spoke with him in his living room I was quick to ask, “How long have you been using a Macintosh?”
“Huh?” he responded. “Oh, yea, I’ve never touched a computer in my life, but they gave me one for taking the picture. It’s in the box over there.”
I set it up for him. Soon I sent him a floppy disk with music for “Send in the Clowns” in a primitive program called Musicworks. His response below inaugurated about a decade in which I served as his informal computer consultant.
Once I hosted friends for dinner on a Friday night. A voice came in over the answering machine. “Hey Mike, it’s Steve Sondheim, how do you get back to the Finder from….” My guests thought I had someone do it as a joke.
The wonderful occasions over the years are far too numerous to recount. Show openings. Tributes. Parties. In 1993 he was presented with a Kennedy Center Honor by President Bill Clinton.
In 2015 he was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.
In 2002, my parents helped produce a staggering repertory festival of his work at the Kennedy Center that had us happily back-and-forth to Washington all summer. From that point forward his relationship with my parents grew closer — and they would remain in very regular touch throughout the rest of his life. He attended most of their parties and celebrations — and for my mom’s 70th, he spent weeks concocting a scavenger hunt situated in a New York theater that sent some incredible minds into cackles of frustration.
In the early days of Twitter, I had a chance to go to a show, On the Town, with Steve and my dad. After the performance, as we walked a few blocks to dinner, I told him, “I’m going to put your name into this Twitter, and you’re going to see a dozen people express their astonishment that they were just in the theater with you.” I was only wrong on the number. There were about two dozen.
As the religious person that I am, I should be offended by the nickname that many gave him: God. The New York Times even once ran a story on the phenomenon, asking if Sondheim and God had ever been seen in the same place. I could never muster any outrage over it. And how did he respond to such over-the-top accolades?
Perhaps the only greater wonder than Stephen Sondheim’s work — is his character. For decades I have been mesmerized by how a person of such unmatched talents, of his soaring accomplishments, of impossible stature — could be so down-to-earth. He was accessible to anybody who reached out. As a Facebook fan group blossomed, I watched with a smile every time someone breathlessly recounted receiving a personal response to a fan letter (on the inevitable small white stationary). And he unfailingly deflected the constant protestations of his greatness with wit, sarcasm, and self-deprecating retorts.
How many aspiring artists did he inspire? (One was Lin-Manuel Miranda.) How many masterclasses did he do? How patient was he when coaching nervous young performers?
He also had a great sense of humor. For 45 years, my parents have put on a July 4 party at their New Jersey home for friends, and had spectacular musical entertainment, usually featuring Steve’s work prominently. And for many of the last number of years, as they grew closer to him, Steve himself joined as a guest.
One year I invited my friend and fellow Sondheim fanatic, Carl Quantinilla (of CNBC) to the party. A last-minute conflict prevented Carl from coming. I asked Steve to take this picture with the sign “#wherethehelliscarl — and he quickly obliged with a laugh.
At another edition of that same party, my son Ilan, age 7, sang for him the first lyrics of the first show of which he wrote music and lyrics, Comedy Tonight from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Watch how much Steve enjoys it and encourages his young fan.
As his 90th birthday approached, Steve had made clear to all that he did not want the parade of tributes and productions that accompanied most of his previous milestone birthdays. My father had an idea. He brought it to Steve, who quickly acquiesced. And so, the evening of November 3, 2019, became one of the most memorable of my life.
About 50 of Steve’s closest friends gathered in Chicago. At the Art Institute. Beneath the painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte — which inspired the musical he wrote with James Lapine in 1984. And there, a concert of songs from the show was performed with the painting as a backdrop. There was not a dry eye in the house from beginning to end. Here are a few images from that spectacular evening.
In March of 2020, all of our lives came to a screeching halt about two weeks before Steve’s 90th birthday. On a run (surreptitiously done in the wee hours of the morning to avoid enforcement of Israel’s then 500–meters from home lockdown), I listened to several of his songs and was determined to do an online tribute.
On the day, March 22, I ran this live (production quality was not the best as we were not yet accustomed to doing everything remotely).
I didn’t know as I broadcast, but one of the viewers out there was Steve. At the end, he chimed in, “Hello, it’s the birthday boy,” and thanked me for putting it together (to quote another song title).
On January 1, 2021, he responded to a note of mine as follows — pay special attention to the last sentence and the salutation:
On October 13, 2021, I was preparing to fly back home to Israel following a short business trip to New York. As it happened, my parents were having dinner with Steve and his husband Jeff that evening. For eternity I will be grateful that I was able to join for an hour before heading to the airport. Although I had been with Steve on countless occasions, as I got up to leave, impulsively I handed my phone to the waiter and asked him to take a picture. So here I have a visual record of my last in-person interaction with Steve. (Picture at the top)
On November 16, 2021, just 10 days before his passing, I sent Steve a YouTube of a presentation I had recently given as a remote speaker, adding the instructions for Steve “just watch this for one minute to see my background” — having just recently moved into our new house, I finally had all of the posters from his shows (each with his autograph) neatly hanging behind me.
Minutes after I sent it to him, came his reply, evidencing his quick wit was with him right up until the end….
This past Thursday evening (November 25, 2021), 91 members of my extended family gathered at a resort in Utah at a reunion organized by my parents. As they often do, they brought in the best in musical entertainment, featuring, among others, actor Alexander Gemignani and pianist Tedd Firth. Although the selections were eclectic, Alex explained that an evening of music could not pass without a Sondheim number, and he chose to play my father’s favorite. Tedd began with a magnificent piano arrangement of the entire song before Alex joined in with the vocal. The song? Anyone Can Whistle. As we all sat spellbound by the performance, we were unaware that Steve himself was returning from a Thanksgiving dinner, and reported to his husband that he was feeling dizzy, before lying down for the last time.
Our family was informed of his passing on Friday about two hours before it was released to the press. In spite of his age, the shock we felt was enormous, given how recently we had been with him, seeing him looking well. But we were also grateful to be together when we received the news.
The New York Times obituary in Saturday’s paper was extensive — and above the fold. And it featured only one full set of Steve’s lyrics. The very lyrics from Anyone Can Whistle that Alex had sung to us on the evening that Steve passed. (Alex and Tedd performed it for us again on Saturday night to a crowd of weeping souls.)
What do I love more, the man or the music? To me they are indistinguishable. He is the music. He is in every note of it. As I have listened to it all my life to date, I will continue to listen to it for the rest of my life. Although in the last decades he became more popularly known than he had been, I have long contended that just as Mozart is a household name centuries after he lived, so it will be with Sondheim.
May his memory forever be for a blessing and may his art forever live on. Here is my final message to him:
Steve,
Not a day goes by
Not a single day
But you’re somewhere a part of my life
And it looks like you’ll stay.
All my love,
Mike
