No. Although I have to qualify that. Though he was, by jazz standards, a very square composer, he was, by musical theater standards, a not square composer, and he taught me to be less square. I tend to be square.
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Stephen Sondheim
Composer and lyricist for the musical theatre
United States · 1930–2021
Arts and letters
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American composer and lyricist whose musicals include Company, Follies, Sweeney Todd and Sunday in the Park with George, and who wrote the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy.
2 answers
But that’s part of the process, isn’t it? Something might not fit in the show. Musicals are — particularly musicals — plays also, but musicals particularly are… the last collaborator is your audience, and so you’ve got to wait ’til the last collaborator comes in before you can complete the collaboration. And when the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you’ve written. Things that seem to work well — work in a sense of carry the story forward and be integral to the piece — suddenly become a little less relevant or a little less functional or a little overlong or a little overweight or a little whatever. And so you start reshaping from an audience.
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