Op-Ed: Remembering Stephen Sondheim
L-R: Elizabeth Taylor, Carmen Guitterez, Marilyn Cooper, and Carol Lawrence from the original Broadway cast sing “I Feel Pretty” (1957).
August 26, 2022
NESPA Winner: Bylined Column, 2022
The Gator, Brimmer and May School, Chestnut Hill, Mass.
As I checked my social media feed last Friday, I read the news that Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim had passed away that morning.
I immediately had a flashback to Broadwaycon’s 2017 opening skit, which focused around an unimaginable horror—Broadway being forced to shut down. As the main characters gathered around the empty theaters, one quipped, “Do you think this is what will happen when Stephen Sondheim…“ only to be immediately shushed as the audience laughed.
I was then brought back to early quarantine when the Broadway community came together on April 26, 2020, to create a two-and-a-half-hour-long virtual concert celebrating Sondheim’s 90th birthday. Despite technical difficulties at the start, it was an event clearly full of love and hope in a very dark and uncertain time.
To say that Sondheim’s death is a loss to the theater community is an incredible understatement.
