Stephen Sondheim (March 22, 1930 – November 26, 2021) is widely acknowledged as the most innovative, most influential and most important composer and lyricist in modern Broadway history. Sondheim was praised for having “reinvented the American musical” with shows that tackled “unexpected themes that range far beyond the [genre’s] traditional subjects” with “music and lyrics of unprecedented complexity and sophistication”. His shows addressed “darker, more harrowing elements of the human experience” with songs often tinged with “ambivalence” about various aspects of life.

For more than 50 years, Stephen Sondheim set an unsurpassed standard of brilliance and artistic integrity in the musical theatre. His accolades included an Academy Award, eight Tony Awards (more than any other composer) including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, multiple Drama Desk awards and a Pulitzer Prize. In total, his works have accumulated more than sixty individual and collaborative Tony Awards.

He wrote the music and lyrics for:

• Saturday Night (1954)
• A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (1962)
• Anyone Can Whistle (1964)
• Company (1970)
• Follies (1971)
• A Little Night Music (1973)
• The Frogs (1974)
• Pacific Overtures (1976)
• Sweeney Todd (1979)
• Merrily We Roll Along (1981)
• Sunday In The Park With George (1984)
• Into The Woods (1987)
• Assassins (1991)
• Passion (1944)
• Bounce (2003) which later became Road Show (2008)

He also wrote lyrics for:

• West Side Story (1957)
• Gypsy (1959)
• Do I Hear A Waltz? (1965)
• Candide (1973, additional lyrics)