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Despite being one of Broadway's greatest composers, it might be shocking to learn that no Sondheim show has ever passed 1,000 performances. What is it about Sondheim that's made many of his shows flop, and have producers finally cracked the code on how to make them work? Join Kate Reinking as they try to uncover why Sondheim always flops.
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Sondheim wants to flop
Dude yall are on a ROLL. You are rolling along merrily. Keep it up!!!!!
@@UmmIdontknow7389 Dude - he's dead. He couldn't give a shite what you think!
What's amazing is that despite Sondheim never hitting those 1,000 performances, his shows have had more of an impact on our popular culture and on the theater community than perhaps any other single person's staged work in history. He doesn't need that milestone because he's already accomplished far greater things.
He may not have found monetary success, but he sure did find it culturally
This is really reductive. It would be impossible for any playwright after the 1900s to be called the most influential. Then you take into account that Sondheim wasn't a playwright, and he doesn't have much influence on non-musical theatre.
SS had more impact on pop culture than ALW did? er.... okay.... but i disagree.
@@DDTC73 - ALW was inspired in many ways by by Sondheim. It was part of the reason he had Hal Prince direct “Evita” and “Phantom of the Opera”.
@@orlando5789 I think the idea musical theater doesn't impact stage theater, flim, and animation, culture, and music is insanely more reductive then someone using slight hyperbolic language to express love towards a creative genius. while us theater snobs may hate them, SS was a big part of bridging the world of flim and musical theater together, his stories and musicals also remain huge in culture- his musicals are some of the most popular for schools to put on which brings people into the acting, there has been a HUGE influence of musicals on regular music recently (people like songs with a story, often they can animate or make edits too) and you can see the SS inspiration there. Culture didn't stop in 1900s, Lin has biggest change in theater history and so quickly you can see how just his style of music and writing has changed the Animation genre (which has always had roots in musical theater, it's why we went from the SS and ALW styling of musical disney during its renaissance, to now with Disney focusing on pop music sounds) We shouldn't forget the greats of genres, I think there is so much value in oldest of musicals and plays but... They aren't what should be seen as the majority of influence forever and always. Your idea of most modern influential... is over 100 years ago, most people are not growing up with them as what they are watching and learning from. That's like saying James baxter shouldn't be considered a revolutionary in animation, or that the only real theater came from 6th Century B.C. Everything is inspired from something, meaning those greats- those most influential people YOU considered only fitting, were inspired by something else, and those people were too. We can either say people can and continue to influential and unique, or we say none of them ever were. Not even getting into That specifically you think it has to come one type of artist, which ignore that fact that all Art inspires all Art. Playwriters aren't some magical type of artist that have some original source of thought no other can create.
Basically for Sondheim, the people that get it get it, the people that don’t don’t
And the vast majority… don’t.
@@georgerady9706 Yep. That's me!
People can "get it" without liking it.
And some of us “get it” and still don’t like most of his work.
@@PianoDisneygal10 Exactly. The idea that if you don't like Sondheim you're somehow not intellectual or not smart enough to "get it" is nonsense and ridiculously pretentious. It's Sondheim's dark themes, unfamiliar subject matter or source material, and non-melodic style that have kept audiences from warming up to his work.
Sondheim is great. Great musical. Great music. Great everything. But I get why the musicals aren’t that popular. They are weird AF. His presence is felt throughout the musical world because so many composers were influenced by him. And you can TELL.
Completely agree…. when a musical about serial killers and cannibalism is the most mainstream of Sondheim’s canon, it is obvious his musicals are weird. While I think most are wonderful, there are a few that are straight up garbage. Hey, like every other composer and lyricist.
webber's musicals are stranger imo but to each their own
@@othystright... look at Cats and it was once the longest running musical.
@@jspihlman did i say his shows are bad? i did not once say anything about webber's talent, and i did not say his shows are bad. musically, his shows are fantastic. let's use your example of Cats: it is a great show, has a fantastic score, and was very successful! that does not stop it from having a strange plot. there is no doubt about it that Cats is weird. chill out man, im not bashing on anyone. webber and sondheim are both amazing.
@@othysta lot of the best musicals are a little weird I’d say - or at least have a premise that sounds very unpromising!
Man, hearing the stories of seeing these actors watching the recorded versions of the shows to eventually play the characters in them. If that's not proof that pro shots keep a show alive for years in the future I don't know what else.
That part.
In the 1970s, I got a book about Broadway musicals. 300 performances was considered a hit until the 1960s with 500 performances considered long-running and 1000 performances considered extraordinary. It's not until the 1980s that 1000+ performances was considered a standard length run for a musical.
Over time the average cost to produce a show has gone up, and thus the number of profit-turning performances needed to recoup also increases
*A Chorus Line* raised the bar by running 15 years and outrunning the el floppo movie adaptation by five. That show was not very expensive to produce by comparison because it did not have a lot of elaborate sets. You can’t do *Hello, Dolly!* or *Annie* in a blackbox theatre and still make them work. Those shows are the kind that need all the lavish bells and whistles even when good people are attached to them because they are about the finer things in life and how to get them.
Stephen Sondheim is the only Broadway composer to be made into an NPC character in a Dimension 20 actual play D&D campaign. If that doesn't illustrate how influential he is on the whole, I don't know what does. 😊
Now this is the crossover I live for
Which campaign did he appear in? I don't remember anymore!
@@nietzopaniquen The Unsleeping City! An urban fantasy campaign set in good old NYC. 😊
Somehow I didn't expect the d20 fans to be here? But of course we are
@@kl-1447 The crossover between TTRPG nerds and theatre nerds is more likely than you'd think
In his book Hal Prince wrote that Sweeney did finally turn a profit for the original investors. That makes it a hit. Also: Into the Woods also paid off due to income from the tour, making it a hit. So his hits were: West Side Story,, Gypsy, Funny Thing, Company, Night Music, Sweeney & Woods. Not a bad track record. Rogers & Hammerstein, Lerner & Lowe, Jerry Herman, and Weber all had their share of flops.
Not to mention, the only issue the original production of “Sweeney Todd” had was that it did not appeal to older audiences. They were disgusted that it was a dark comedy.
Wait... Follies wasn't a hit?
As I understand it, West Side Story didn't recoup. It's the movie that made it a hit.
@@chunellemariavictoriaespan8752not at all. The original production lost 600k dollars of its initial 800k investment 😅😅
@@chunellemariavictoriaespan8752 Not until the revivals. But it managed to somehow run 800+ performances. The original reviews were very mixed, its now considered a classic.
I’ve never heard more applause for an overture than I did at Merrily this month. 10:39 Phantom is the longest running Broadway musical but The Fantastiks ran 42 years off Broadway. Incidentally I’d love to see a wait in the wings on that. It seems kinda forgotten.
Yes! That would be wonderful.
That's comparing VERY LARGE APPLES to mini-oranges. The Fantasticks played in a what? under-99-seat theater. POTO-Broadway (of which I am not a fan of) played at the Majestic Theatre (still running as of today, 11-29-23) which seats 1,593 people. For, 13,000+ performances, that's if my math is right, granting not every perf is full -- at least 85 million admissions. AM too lazy to look up FANTASTICK stats, but roughly, I'd say it barely drew 500,000 viewers in its impressive 42-year run. Everything in perspective.
Point of clarification, phantom is not currently still playing at the Majestic or anywhere else on Broadway. They played 19 performances shy of 14,000. I couldn't believe they stopped so close to it. They did wait until after the 35th anniversary at least.
Appreciation for Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt is long overdue methinks
@@browneyes142a Well, Bing misinformed me. THE POINT is how does nearly 85 million people compare to what even 1 million? Look at the BIGGER picture!!
i met sondheim twice. once when i was 6, and the other when i was 14. though we only spoke briefly, he gave me so much joy in life and inspired me to always pursue what I love, and that was theatre. now i go to an ivy league for drama. i couldn't have done it without him, and i really wish he knew that. so glad his legacy is living on with two shows on broadway right now, it means the world as a fan of his.
Sondheim liked to point out that West Side Story was never a big hit till the movie, but I would challenge that. It turned a profit on Broadway (relatively quickly,) it had a successful tour and return engagement (which pushed the original productions' Broadway run to just under 1000 performances) and the cast album charted very well on Billboard, although of course not to record numbers like the film soundtrack would. Furthermore, the original London version (opening in 1958, so still well before the movie came out) was an even bigger hit running 1048 performances, but Sondheim never mentioned that ;)
While I haven't seen many, Into the Woods is my favorite Sondheim musical. I think the humor matched with the depth in all the relationships of each character were brilliant (of course, I mean the stage version)
Humor that the disney movie version removed unfortunately
Sondheim writes plays that are a joy to produce. From a performer's and designer's standpoint, they're super challenging, complex, and fun. But from an audience standpoint, they don't bear the same weight: they're weird, sometimes hard to follow, and often impossible to sing along with. And they're not too spectacle-oriented either. I think this is a major factor as to why they don't "sell out." The true audience for these shows isn't the average theatre-goer, its the average theatre-practitioner. For that reason, they're never going to stop getting produced-- but they're not going to roll in money the same way a show by Rodgers and Hammerstein or Andrew Lloyd Webber might.
The funny part about the musical RENT for me is that a lot of things that were shown as being counter culture in the musical are now mainstream. While Sondheim is not as all known as Lin Manuel or Lloyd Webber, we are probably in as close to a Sondheim renaissance as we’ll ever get. I just wish he could have lived to see it
You raise an excellent point. The undeniable truth is that if you set aside the sevenish classic shows with his name on it, the critical acclaim, the legions of dedicated, slavish fans, the pile of Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize, the frequent high profile revivals, the hundreds-per-year regional productions, the eight film adaptations, the perennial soundtrack recordings and his universal regard as one of the all-time geniuses of his chosen medium, Sondheim's career is quite the cautionary tale. I mean, according to a single aribtrary metric in a single market. You know, scoring the BIG money as opposed to medium-sized money and ever-flowing ancillary cash for the next century or so.
My opinion: Lloyd-Webber became popular cause he wrote showtunes - stuff with simple melody that an average person can sing in the shower. He writes songs that stick in your head, and deliberately allowed some of the songs to be released as singles on the pop charts. Sondheim writes _music_ - complex, multi-layered songs that, for an average person, do not become earworms and are not easy to sing in the shower. This is not to say that he wasn't capable of that, as Send In the Clowns proved, its just that he tended to write songs to fit the story and the musical, rather than songs that could be generic pop hits.
I know ALW would also frequently make concept albums for his shows (believe Joseph, Evita, Sunset Boulevard, and even Bad Cinderella got their starts that way). So I get why that would lead to popularity - broader reach
@@TheMonicaAlison Jesus Christ Superstar, too. Probably the most famous example of a concept-album-turned-stage-production of his
@@emalaw1329 how could I have forgotten it’s one of my favorite musicals 😅
@maisiesummers42 - in fairness he also writes things that are nearly impossible for most people to sing in the shower or anywhere else. Try Eva’s melody from Waltz for Eva and Che 😅
ALW writes musicals that sound and look pretty, but rarely have any emotional depth other than superficial. I always said the majority of songs on Phantom could be swapped to other characters with very little difference. And for many of his musicals he had one memorable song whose motif he repeats ad naseoum throughout the show. ALW is to musicals what Michael Bay is to movies.
His music didn't click for me until I was a stagehand for a local production of Sunday in the Park with George without knowing the show. "Finishing the Hat" rewired my brain, watered my crops, and converted me fully. It moved me so suddenly I had to avoid dripping tears into the champagne flutes for Act 2!
I think, as you alluded to in another video you did, Broadway and regional/community theatre are two different animals. Some shows really come into their own in regional theatre and just don't really work on Broadway. I think perhaps one of the reasons Sondheim may be finding more "success" now (even so the runs are still not super long) is because his legendary status, which probably was not as marked when the original shows came out. People are also likely more familiar with his work due to the movies and the regional theatre circuit, which would also not have been the case originally. I highly suspect the revival of Merrily-We-Roll-Along has $900 ticket prices because the hype surrounding it and the fact they had stars in the show. One thing I will say about Sondheim is regardless of whether you think his musicals are pretentious, he was a surprisingly unpretentious person. I watched an interview with him and he was very down to earth and basically wrote his music and shows because he enjoyed it...which says a lot, because a lot of creatives nowadays seem to take more pleasure in being arrogant than joy in the work they do.
Your observation of what classifies as pretentious theater is spot-on. It seems audiences have caught on to that snobbery by composers and producers, and are outright rejecting the trend. Given how poor most new shows have been performing at the box-office. It is very obvious, when a musical is a labor of love. The ticket prices for the “Merrily We Roll Along” revival are solely due to the cast. The Hudson Theatre is using dynamic pricing, because the show stars Harry Potter and Kristoff from “Frozen”. I live in NY, and the only thing anyone talks about is the actors. No one seems to care about the show, or its music, or even if it was directed well or not. Unlike with the “Sweeney Todd” revival, that has an overall broader appeal. Even when Josh Groban calls in sick. The combination of the film adaptation and the closure of “Phantom of the Opera”, have worked in its favor. There will always be a need for a big, gothic musical on Broadway. It also helps that “Sweeney Todd”, despite being 45 years old, is still edgier and more groundbreaking than anything written in the last twenty years.
"Merrily" is basically the London version imported here (With big name stars) where it was a commercial and critical success without the big names
We never stopped wanting musicals. We wanted good ones. We didn’t want watered-down versions of the worst of the Billboard top 40 any more than we wanted these half-baked experiments in abstraction.
the impact seeing the recorded version of into the woods as a middle schooler had on me was so strong, I was entranced. I also got to see Sweeney Todd on Broadway recently and I was hit with that feeling again
Okay this is nutty Few weeks ago I see "Top ten hardest broadway songs to sing" and 'Your Fault' is in it. That begins my love for "Into the Woods" A friend of mine shares an animated video of characters from MLP singing "Your Fault" I see Grey's Anatomy with my mom and they reference Sondheim and Into the Woods THAT SAME NIGHT she turns it to Gilmore Girls and a side character is a broadway performer who was just back from "Into the Woods" and a character sings songs from it to tease them Then the next day (today) I see a video about Sondheim.
My parents were huge fans of Sondheim. I remember when CDs were becoming a thing, we always got the Original Broadway Cast recordings and Sondheim was a priority. I grew up listening to Sondheim so to me I never found his music "odd" or "difficult". I'm not saying I'm a genius (far from it) but it's what I was exposed to first so Sondheim was the benchmark to which I compared all others to. And I was _not_ an objective judge! 😅 I'm just happy that Sondheim was recognized as the genius he was while he was still alive. So many great artists, we only appreciated them too late for them to know.
Today, Spotify wrapped, I was in the top 0.01% of Sondheim listeners! 😹
Not crossing 1000 performances (which is a weird if not too specific number) doesn't always equate to a flop.
I'll tell you exactly what happened: In the past, when he were no more than a babe, Stephen Sondheim's father brought his young wife and he to a cottage... The Sondheim's were a handsome couple... but not handsome neighbors.... You see, his mother was with child, and she had developed an unuuuuuuuusual appetite. She took one look at my- I mean their neighbor's- BEAUTIFUL garden... And told his father that what she wanted..... More than anything..... In the world, was.......................................
Omg that's so weird cause i was just thinking, you know what I'm in the mood for? Greens, greens, and nothing but greens! I'm talking parsley, peppers, cabbages and celery.
Stephem Sondheim is truly legendary in musical theatre.
Sondheim was the first composer whose music really helped me relate to life. It was the first time i discovered music that talked about the things inside me i couldn't get people to understand. Things i wished folks would dialogue about, and be honest with themselves about. I quote his lyrics often.❤
That’s why it is all the more ironic that so many people who revere him only know about musical theater and nothing else.
Into the Woods is in my Top 3 most life-influencing musicals (along with R&H’s Cinderella which I suppose is fitting given their connection, which I didn’t know about until this video) and the fact that it’s considered a flop in any way still blows my mind.
His work will stand the test of time, which is something not all popular work can do
Time has been getting lax in its testing standards, frankly.
Just found this channel! Great video as always. Do you think you'll ever make a video on The Last 5 Years? It's one of my favorite musicals and I really like the movie too. I think it's so interesting how Jason Robert Brown paints his relationship, you could easily argue he made himself the bad guy. Keep up the great work! :)
I personally don't think reaching 1,000 performances signifies a success or a flop. Beetlejuice had two lives at two different theaters and speaking as someone who worked at the Marquis, the fans came out in droves to support. The Music Man closed after just a year and it broke several box office records for the Winter Garden and while I doubt these current new revivals of Sweeney Todd & Merrily are gonna pass 1,000 performances, people are going out to see these shows. Sure Sondheim deserves a show to reach that milestone since he's one of the all time musical theater greats, but that's just a number, the real success at the end of the day is the impact the shows leave behind and the man's overall legacy, and the goes without saying.
At least he wasn’t at the mercy of the people running Disney after Walt died like the Sherman brothers were.
Amazing video as always and also really loving your recent trend of collabing with other creators.
My favourite thing about this video (very interesting I must say)... No one seems to have noticed that the footage for "Company" documentary throughout is actually Documentary Now! S3E3 "Original Cast Album: Co-Op". Silly, silly episode. Not actually Sondheim.
Last I checked, Harold Prince has 21 Tonys. That's a few more than Sondheim.
Loved this video! And the fact that those VHS helped all of us outside the states to get to know these gems. And with time, and smart producers and directors we got our own Spanish productions of SWEENEY, FORUM and most recently COMPANY directed and produced by Antonio Banderas :)
They are not flops. They are largely resounding successes. Big difference. However, they play in the commercial market like plays, not musicals. That is the business. That is cash. A play at 700 performances would be a smash, but musicals cost a fortune to mount and sustain. Content and language matters; serious themes and language matters. Musicals are largely escapist, Sondheim's work is not. Language has little to do with Cats, Phantom, Mamma Mia.....
False dichotomy is false. *The Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder* takes away the excuse for why so much post-1960s show music is so terrible. The best songs in *Annie* (i.e. the ones John Huston and Rob Marshall agreed on) already took away the excuses for why they tolerated so much noodly forgettable crap.
I saw Josh Groban as Mr Todd! and that whole production was the most stellar and breathtaking thing I have ever seen. I have obsessively loved Sweeney Todd since i was in middle school, its my favorite of all time, and seeing it live on Broadway was literally a dream come true
I saw it in the West End of London, having waited ever since someone sent me audio tapes of the Broadway productio, and it was sensational! And the London critics en masse destroyed it. I nearly went mad - were they deaf and blind? Sondheim attributed what happened to this being an English story - not true. The critics were wrong - that simple. They didn't get it. I could have wept for the brilliant cast.
Josh Groban is so good as Sweeney! I listen to the revival cast recording a lot. My best friend went to see the revival over the summer and she said that in addition to him being amazing, he was also really nice. I’m seeing Aaron Tveit as Sweeney in March. I love him so much and I hope he’s just as good as Josh was
I have been in 3 different products of SWEENEY TODD Australia 🇦🇺 over the year's it is the most amazing Musical I am an alto and learning the alto line is so difficult but so rewarding when you get it lucky I can read music having played piano for 8 year's I bet Gosh Groban was AMAZING I hope one day in the future I might get to see it if its put out baci x
Hello! This was a very informative video I enjoyed watching. I never realized just how short running Sondheim productions tend to be. I was wondering why there was no mention of Here We Are, as the fact that a new Sondheim show is currently running with an all star cast feels relevant to the end section of your video.
i don't know it sounds like considering something a flop purely on commercial grounds (not to mention a fairly arbitrary 1000 performance line) when they have pushed the medium more than anyone else is not a great assessment of the value of art
The only reason why PASSION won the Tony is because the Broadway community did not want Disney's Beauty and the Beast to win. Disney was considered an outsider and Broadway did not like the idea of Companies Producing Shows and owning Broadway Theaters . Beauty and the Beast would last a good 13 years on Broadway whereas Sondheim's PASSION would last one season ( 7 months approximately ) when PASSION was filmed for DVD, it was filmed without an audience making a long show even longer. DISNEY'S BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was the more popular show and should have won the Tony that year .
Yup…. the Broadway community still regrets awarding Best Musical to “Passion” over “Beauty and the Beast”. Since, “Passion” is generally regarded as one of Sondheim’s worst musicals. It is not on the caliber of “Sweeney Todd” or “A Little Night Music”.
@@ChienaAvtzon I don't know if it's his worst but PASSION was TOO REAL in its matters of Love , it showed the faces of Love warts and all and its hard to sit through that. B&B was the more Romantic telling of Love . Also , years ago I saw the movie Passion is based on Passione de Amor (?) And it seemed to be an exact re-telling of the story , no changes just musicalized.
The movie *Beauty and the Beast* being nominated for a Best Picture Oscar was and is a landmark. The Best Animated Feature category is nothing but segregation just like n3gr0 day from *Hairspray.*
@@leealvarez6857I’d rather see a movie adaptation of *Assassins* than another remake of a musical that already has a movie of it.
I had no idea his shows had such relatively short runs. I have always been blown away by his music and depth of meaning. I would've never imagined that Broadway commercial success does not hinge on that. But why would it be any different than with any other thing done for the public in the USA?
Broadway shows are a business with investors, and success depends on turning a profit, which Sondheim's shows never did. He was loved by critics, but the broader public never connected to his work because nearly all his shows are based on unfamiliar sources with dark themes and abstract music lacking memorable melodies.
@@L1623VP unfamiliar sources, maybe. Dark themes, many times definitely. Abstract music, what does that even mean? Lacking memorable melodies? Have you even listened to his music? Not a Day Goes By, Sunday in the Park with George, Not While I'm Around, Send in the Clowns... Geez. Lacking memorable melodies? Are you serious?
@@josesolismusic Yes, I'm very familiar with his work having done much theater earlier in my life. Regular people attending the theater won't be humming Not a Day Goes By or especially Sunday in the Park with George on the way home in the car like they would Angel of Music or Music of the Night, songs with much stronger hooks. Not a Day's "melody" is very subtle, and Sunday in the Park is so staccato and quick-changing in tone and tempo that it's closer to recitative than an actual song with a melody. Ask anyone to hum Sunday in the Park with George after seeing the show, and they almost certainly wouldn't be able to do it. That's just the way melody is. The great ones stick instantly while the others don't or have to grow on you in time, time which most people won't give for a second, third, or fourth listen.
@@L1623VP I guess I'm not regular people, because I would preffer Sunday to Phantom any day.
@@josesolismusic It's no comment on you personally, just a realistic observation of music, musicals, the majority of the theater-going audience, and what constitutes a financial success versus a financial failure.
I was involved in 4 different productions of Pacific Overtures between 1988-2004. As you can see from my name I'm a Japanese ex pat since 1975 started performing in 1984 as a Cabaret singer since there was no roles in musical theatres for Asian actors in those days. but I also acted in classical Japanese comedy form called KYOGEN with company in SF. This is why I was a good choice for PO productions. I marveled at his genius more I played in his creation when you think how was he able to figure out and dig into history of 1850s Japan and found human universality. I've always loves Sondheim songs to do in my Cabaret show as some of his songs had the depth, Breadth and authenticities that many show tunes lacking even though they are fun to perform. The difference was that he was a poet and a great one at the webbing/weaving words that reveals a lot of human emotions and psyches. And that reason alone should have kept his shows for Musical theatre lovers. And why regional /school theatre dept. wanted to keep mounting these challenging materials for the faculties/performers.
Two small corrections to an otherwise very thorough and well done video--Into the Woods turned a profit on Broadway, it did not close with a financial loss (and then did VERY well on tour.) Sweeney also recouped on tour but, yes, indeed closed in the red on Broadway (apparently "just barely".) By the time of Sweeney, Hal Prince claimed that due to Broadway logistics being what they were, they always saw the tours as the place to start making a profit, so I guess you could argue that takes it out of flop status (but I know that's a much argued point.) Also, and Sondheim told me this himself when I asked him in a letter, it was NOT Hal Prince's idea to film Pacific Overtures for television. NHK in Japan (at the time sort of the Japanese equivalent to PBS) approached Prince, and almost entirely funded it themselves (one reason for a long time it was seen as too complicated to get domestic broadcast or home media rights--that's changed now, and it almost got a DVD released over 15 years back before the company who was going to release it, Image, who have handled most of the Sondheim live-shot DVDs, decided restoration work would be too pricey for a disc with limited appeal.)
Loved this. The more I learn about the business the more I love it. But just curious, why does the narrator look to the side after every sentence 😄?
Probably Sondheim’s ghost helping out
Sondheim is a brilliant composer and lyricist BUT he isn't easy.. I think we need to divide this a bit. For someone who is working with music or musicals, his writing is something to bite into. It's colorful, has deeper meanings and for an artist to get in to his lyrics it's an welcome adventure. His music isn't easy, it's demanding and again it's a challenge for the artist to really get in deep. But for a listener it presents problems. Coming in as an audience that ISN'T that familiar with musicals, which most aren't when they go to a show, the deeper meanings of lyrics get lost and the challenging music might be overpowering because you lack time to get it. To be a commercial success and run for a long time you need it to be accessible for the larger audience directly, even those who aren't artists or musicians. I would actually compare this with opera. Used opera-goers knows that they need to read up on the story before, listen to the music and read the translations of the lyrics in order to actually be able to follow along. This for a couple of reasons- They are usually still played in there original language. The opera technique doesn't leave much room for consonants so hearing the actual lyrics, even though you know the language, will be hard. So, for us who are used to musicals, we are used to listen to them, go to them and many of us also sing them, professionally or at home- Sondheim presents us with a challenge and brilliancy that gives us something to work with. But, for the longrunning success you are relying on audience who aren't used this.... For me personally, i love his work with his lyrics but I do struggle a bit with his music, it is difficult, it demands you to listen actively all the time and you can't always relax in it. Of course this isn't true with all his songs but in general terms.. He is like and Indie-movie... those who are used to getting in deep loves it but they are generally not big box office hits and runs for a long time in the theatres. So is Sondheim an Indie-musicalist? ;) Well, these are my thought,s, not the truth so don't bite my head off :)
Art isn't easy :)
Good observations. I've always felt Sondheim was a better lyricist than composer. Audiences never warmed to his work because it's based on unfamiliar sources with often dark themes and non-melodic music. That's like the triple whammy. Somehow Sondheim forgot that in musical theater it's the music that's key. People will zone out and not pay attention to the lyrics if those words aren't riding on top of a beautiful or compelling melody. Most people aren't going to listen to a song five or more times in order for it to "grow" on them.
@@L1623VP I have always felt the same way. Jule Styne and Leonard Bernstein wrote better melodies for his lyrics than he could. The *Gypsy* overture gives me a thrill that none of Sondheim’s melodies ever gave me. The *Bedknobs and Broomsticks* opening credits is the only movie overture that did that.
This man's legacy is so great that he is a character in The Unsleeping City.
god i love that show
@@variationeighteenme too! And I loved it when he showed up! 😊
Once this year, i was in line at TKTS with a middle age couple and we started talking about shows we'd seen. The woman absolutely HATED Hadestown because "it was too downbeat" and she absolutely LOVED Some Like it Hot. I thought to myself "I think I met the average theatergoer. The kind of people who can make or break a show".
Maybe though Hadestown is a financial hit
@@kirstynquinn6602 Yes, it's just to illustrate how a very smart and profound show can just fly by the average theatergoer without them giving it a second thought. I think Hadestown's subject is also more "marketable" than most of Sondheim's musicals. I know the staging and the spectacle aspects certainly are more marketable. But i also believe that if Sondheim would have made musicals today it would have worked better on Broadway. He was ahead of his time.
Sondheim needs supertitles/captions above the stage, as the lyrics are dense. Works for opera and Shakespeare!
‘Assassins’ is one of my favorite musicals, it’s such a shame not more people give it a chance, or even know about it.
The Out-Of-Town audiences were never drawn to Sondheim's works, when there was so much more accessible and familiar entertainment available on their visits to New York. Without a strong tourist interest a show can't make a long run. The NYC locals can only keep a show alive so long, ask me after my 5th time seeing Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters in Sunday in the Park...
A good look into the history of Sondheim's works here. Interesting to see how some didn't quite catch on at first, but managed to stick around for the long haul.
I can still clearly remember seeing the 90’s revival of “Forum” on Broadway with the original cast. It was FANTASTIC. And not only because of Nathan Lane - I was also thrilled to recognize many others in the cast such as Ernie Sabella and Mark Linn Baker (Timon AND Pumbaa? In real life? AND Cousin Larry from “Perfect Strangers?” My 16-yr-old self was gobsmacked.) Still have great memories of that show.
Ernie Sabella was also on *Perfect Strangers* as Mr. Twinkacetti after that Jason Bateman show they took him off of *Silver Spoons* for was a flop, so this is a mini-reunion. It is actually astonishing how many of the same people worked for both Walt Disney (or at least the company named for him) and Norman Lear.
Thank you for mentioning The Frogs, which so many people don’t know about. The 2004 production was absolutely worth seeing!
I'm such a big fan of Kate Reinking!!! This was a great video and so happy to see her here!
Great video. The clips of COOP the musical are great.
Was searching for someone in the comments to mention that
I went to see my sib perform in "Sweeney Todd" for their high school musical, knowing very little about it, and completely fell in love. Bought the Hearn/Lansbury DVD, dressed as Mrs. Lovett for Halloween, saw a live performance at the Muny, have many...opinions about the Burton film. "Sweeney Todd" is my show.
Except for West Side Story and Gypsy, for which Sondheim only wrote the lyrics, his shows never turned a profit because they have no mass appeal. They're usually very small shows based on little-known subjects or sources (A Little Night Music, Passion, Pacific Overtures, etc.) or very dark subjects (Assassins, Sweeney Todd, etc.). Even Into the Woods has a very dark second act that turns a lot of people off and seems like a completely different show from Act 1. When you couple this with his musical style, which is very non-melodic, it's easy to see why his shows always lost money. What's most astonishing is that after the first flop or two losing tens of millions of dollars, Broadway producers would NEVER have taken another chance on any other composer/lyricist, but they kept investing in (and losing on) Sondheim's shows. Sondheim said that he wished he had half the commercial success of Andrew Lloyd Webber who, doing big shows with sweeping and memorable melodies, is the opposite style of composer. Outside of a small niche within the theater community, almost no one knows Sondheim's shows or music. The movie of Sweeney Todd gained that show somewhat of a cult following, but most of Sondheim's shows are rarely if ever performed, even at the regional and local levels, and will likely be forgotten in a few more generations. He was the critics' darling, but the public never warmed to his abstract musical style and dark themes.
I never appreciated Sondheim until recently. His music is complex and never the same. He took risks based on his interest rather than for money. So of course not everyone gets or likes it but he is a true artist. One who creates from pure creativity not just to get a "hit."
He was an amateur as a composer compared to the great classical composers. He was certainly no Tchaikovsky.
So many people pitting one against the other. Why can we not just appreciate the work the Sondheim AND ALW have written?
I so agree with this. It gets pretty tedious tbh. I’m one of those (apparently) bizarre people who manages to enjoy both. Neither of them tried to be like the other; neither of them felt the need to be disrespectful of the other. For me, MT without the work of either would be the poorer for it.
@@Midlander83 that’s nice, but I still prefer their predecessors and cringe at their successors.
I obsessively watched the recording of Sweeney Todd growing up, it’s still my absolute favorite version of the musical. Although the 3 separate local productions I have seen were also wonderful! Although my personal favorite musical of his is Assassins which is criminally underrated.
The record for most Tony awards won by an individual is actually held by Hal Prince.
Sondheim flops because his scores are more academic than popular, more clever than catchy. He is to musical theater what his teacher Milton Babbitt was to classical music: he had a cult following of indoctrinated aficionados but couldn’t connect with those who were outside the bubble. That’s why producers keep reviving his shows despite their track record… because they know his cult is devoted enough to subsidize the shows for a few months.
Well said. Sondheim forgot music is a visceral experience, not an intellectual analysis. His shows never made any money because of the dark subject matter of most of them, based on unfamiliar sources, and paired with abstract music lacking memorable melodies. While the critics and intellectuals adored him, the larger public never connected with his work. That's why his shows are almost never produced anymore, especially at the regional and local levels. As you said, even his niche of ardent fans are only numerous enough to keep a production going for a few months and even then it still loses money.
When you finish a line reading, why do you then look off to the side of the screen before the shot cuts away? Once i noticed it, i couldnt not see it and it became very frustrating!! Apart from that... great video :)
amazing work!
A Kate / Brendon collab? Amazing! 🥰🥳
Saw "Follies" on Broadway in 1971 and it devastated me. It remains one of my favorite musicals.
I wasn’t born yet, and I do not approve of Uncletomheim’s use of the q-word in “I’m Still Here.” I will not do that song as long as that word is in it. It is too tainted not only by its association with hate speech, but for the even more offensive attempt to normalize that hate speech. I also am glad the 1956 movie of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s *Carousel* removed the song with that word in it.
Sondheim shouldn’t have plot armour. If his latest show is bad, it’s bad. No need to do mental gymnastics to keep a ‘master’ blemish free. It’s creating modern myths.
This was very insightful!
This is a false premise. A show not running over 1000 performances on Broadway doesn't make it a flop. sondheim was groundbreaking, made a profound impact on American Musical Theater and his shows will always be part of the Zeitgeist. To call his shows flops is a falsehood given the impact he and his shows continue to have.
Another thing to note is that before the 80s, a show running for 1000 performances was a pretty rare achievement. A show that ran for a single season or more in that period was considered a hit.
So Hal Prince has 21 Tonys - and yes while the majority of them are for producing (which isn’t an individual contribution but a collaborative one) he won for Best Directing 8 times and then won a lifetime achievement - so that would be 9 individual Tonys
Do I Hear a Waltz - lovingly referred to by Sondheim as, "like a dead baby."😊
@17:10 that production of Merrily was pretty much the same as the 2017 Huntington (Boston) production with different casts. I think it's the fact it's starring Daniel Radcliffe (and also Jonathan Groff) that helped make Merrily finally become a hit.
It's actually based on the 2013 Chocolate Factory production from England (which was a huge commercial and critical hit) - same director, set, costumes and book.
Even so, they need star casting to get people in the door. Without it, the show probably would have closed already. Lots of shows do star casting, but Sondheim's shows are almost entirely dependent on them. Wicked is still going years later with no star casting, but that won't happen with a Sondheim show.
@@L1623VP Actually the London production ran quite a while without any bug name stars
@@richardperhai8292 I don't know how long "quite a while is", but 1,000 performances at eight shows per week comes out to roughly 2.5 years. I'm guessing the current NYC production of Merrily won't come close to that, especially without keeping the cast star-packed.
@@L1623VP Just shows how superior British theater is :)
I don't find it surprising that Forum in both its Broadway incarnations was that succesful. I have never laughed as hard in the theatre as I did with a stripped-back version of that show at MLab in the Netherlands.
Stephen Sondheim shows: Saturday Night (1954) A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (1962) - Love it! Anyone Can Whistle (1964) Company (1970) - Not my favorite - I actually dislike some of the songs and find Bubby irritating! Follies (1971) - Love it! A Little Night Music (1973) - Love it! The Frogs (1974) - Never saw or listened to. Pacific Overtures (1976) - Never saw or listened to. Sweeney Todd (1979) - one of my all-time favorites! Merrily We Roll Along (1981) - Never saw or listened to. Sunday In The Park With George (1984) - Liked it as a teenager but not now. Into The Woods (1987) -it's just ok I find it a bit meh! Assassins (1991) - Did not like - saw original. Passion (1994) - Did not like - saw originaò- Bounce (2003) which later became Road Show (2008) - Never saw or listened to. Here We Are (2023) - Never saw or listened to. He has also written lyrics for: West Side Story (1957) - Broadway gold. Gypsy (1959) Broadway gold Do I Hear A Waltz? (1965) Never saw or listened to. Candide (1973, additional lyrics) Love the music - lyrics less
The Into the Woods VHS got me into theater.
Wonder what would have happened if Saturday Night ever got produced back then. Would people have been more accepting, with more time to be familiar with his work, Or would they have been even more baffled with the variety that he would go on to create?
No Here We Are? No Road Show? :(
Sondheim definitely has had some of the most culturally impactful shows ask any given person to name a musical and it’s gonna be either Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Rodgers & Hammerstien. The depth of his musicals is entrancing I wouldn’t be surprised if Sweeny Todd revival make it to 1,000 shows. I have been so tempted to fly to NYC just to see it. It might end up closing after Tveit and Foster leave but I guess we’ll see.
Merrily has had an amazing revival. Can we get Assassins next?
I work at Joe! And Act! Love this collision of my world! Hahaha
Interestingly, neither the Sweeney Todd nor the Into the Woods films flop. They both turned healthy profits.
12:50 is definitely a clip from Documentary Now's "Co-Op: Original Cast Recording," which I'm hoping is some kind of meta-joke?
Cocaine Tonight is Sondheim’s best song
Not a single mention of ROAD SHOW/WISE GUYS/BOUNCE /GOLD! his last fully finished musical. Or his first - Saturday Night.
Wait in the Wings x Kate Reinking = the stuff of dreams 🌟
Caramel (3 syllables) is a food. Carmel (2 syllables) is a location.
I know places in Carmel where you can get caramel.
12:56 Aku and General Iroh
YAY IM FIRST FINALLY!! LOVE THE VIDEOS!!
Great video.
Sondheim's magnificent oeuvre lends some testimony in support of the aphorism, "quality over quantity." Though never having had that blockbuster smash show or Billboard-topping hit, the gods of art will surely look upon Sondheim in esteemed favor for ages to come. His name stands alongside Berlin, Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Rodgers and Hart, Kearn, Gershwin, Gilbert and Sullivan, and the other few uncontested greats of the musical theatre.!
I feel like people always forget that Broadway audiences aren't nearly as sophisticated as everyone likes to give them credit for. Most audiences aren't chockablock with erudite local theater connoisseurs. Since at least the eighties they've been largely made up of tourists from some square state in Flyover who have "see a Broadway show" on their bucket list. His shows work better as revivals because that audience really likes things they've seen before. They'd rather see something that they saw the movie version of, or for the more culturally literate, a taping of an older production on PBS. His more experimental shows work well now specifically because they have limited runs, and people who want theater with substance gravitate towards them. That audience is used to digging deep for quality, so they can charge an arm and a leg for tickets. In general though, Soundheim doesn't need to be on Broadway or have Broadway budgets to work, and that's part of why the average tourist from some Dakota backwater isn't super interested. That customer wants something bombastic that a regional company can't do because it's too expensive and technical, or something they've seen the movie of already. It's really not more complicated than that.
"His shows work better as revivals because that audience really likes things they've seen before. " Even his Broadway revivals don't turn a profit because his audience is so limited based on the dark subject matter of most of his shows and his very abstract music style that lacks melody.
“Dakota backwater” is regionalist hate speech. The Sherman brothers did not punch down toward that part of the country with *The One and Only Genuine Original Family Band.* Madame Rose was right when she said “New York is the center of New York.” This is why. This regionalist bigotry.
@@L1623VPThere has to be a better alternative than glorified theme park shows. If they ever make a Barbie musical, I will advocate turning every Broadway theatre into a homeless shelter.
@@Attmay Calling somewhere a "backwater" is hardly hate speech. Anywhere with no major art collection, no world class universities, no renowned restaurants, no significant cultural institutions, and no premier sporting destinations (think Aspen, Stowe, etc.) is by definition a backwater. And frankly, that's by choice. There are plenty of countries in Europe with small rural populations that have things like world renowned opera festivals. Being culturally important is a choice.
I saw that minimalist Sweeney Todd. It was good but took away a bit from the feel of a big musical.
Warning: Negative commentary ahead. Don't get crazy, and don't take it personally. Sorry, but let me get this straight: Less than a thousand performances makes a show a flop now? Forum flopped because it only made it to 964? Would you also consider a movie that makes less than a billion dollars worldwide a bomb at the box office? Who came up with this rare and arbitrary number, Bialystock and Bloom? Anyone Can Whistle only ran for 9 performances, and the original production of Merrily We Roll Along closed after two weeks, but the rest had reasonably decent runs. You can't call a show that lasts six months a flop; maybe not the huge hit you had hoped for, but certainly not a flop. Closing in the black is not a sign of success, either. Most Broadway shows take an average of at about two years to recoup their initial investments. Some shows that ran longer than 1000 performances have closed in the red. The infamous Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark made it to 1,066 - after 182 previews - had a budget of somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 million dollars, and lost an a huge chunk of that; the producers said it might have made a profit if it ran another two years... maybe. And, "always flop" is an inaccurate premise and nothing more than click bait. Also, you can't "hit the ground running" on your third attempt at anything; you can only do that the first time. End of rant. I hope I didn't take up too much of your time.
I never knew that reaching 1000 performances is, or was, the basis for you define as a "flop"...! I have seen each of the musicals in this video, beginning with "Pacific Overtures", which I didn't understand as I was a little kid, but it fascinated me. I have since seen all the others, except for the newly minted "Merrily"....as the wait is too long and the $$ too high, for now. I think Sondheim allowed his shows to be filmed and televised, on PBS, Masterpiece usually, because he knew that getting cultures into the folds of our culture-less country might change, indeed, the culture, plus he knew that people, in general, could not afford ticket prices. Even when I was 14 and saw "Sweeney Todd", my 14 yo self paid $45.00 a ticket. Now, $200.++ for an orchestra seat.....and for some shows, into the thousands for a really good seat. I am also aware the Sondheim wanted his work to be seen, if not for profit but for the beauty of it....which he, himself, often doubted. Yet, watch any performance of "Sunday" the last song in "Sunday in the Park"...especially the one they did 2 days after his death, while we were still grappling with Covid, put together by Lin Manuel of his friends and associates in NY...sung in Herald Square. It is so emotional as it was Sondheim's favorite and it is, as explained, one long phrase with forte after forte and crescendo after crescendo....as if the characters in the painting were coming to the realization that Seurat was immortalizing them and they, too, were becoming more emotional. I wonder if LLoyd Webber, whom I like byt has become too commercial or Jerry Herman, when writing "Hello, Dolly", a great show, even conceived oof the depth that Sondheim was putting into his shows. I mean, they are so emotional that they touch those singing them on stage....ie...Bernadette Peters singing "Not a day Goes By", at S's 80th birthday celebration at Lincoln Center. She began crying...singing but crying and it is my feeling that she, after singing that song for so many years, could finally understand it as she's been recently widowed. In each of his shows, there are the songs we can, despite Jerry Herman's shade on S when he won for "La Cage" and "Sunday" didn't win...and there are those which would be impossible. "In a Tree" from "Pacific Overture" comes to mind. Anyway, what defines a flop to you does not mean the same thing to me. I don't feel that 1000 shows is the magic number (look at "Cats" if you think 1000 makes a show a success)....and there is a vast difference between a financial flop and a artistic one and I cannot help but think that the fact that his shows have been translated and performed, everywhere and always will be, is a sing that "flop" does not apply, here.
Maybe Sondheim is proof that Broadway isn't really a measurement of success for every musical 🤔
True - and also Sondheim always did better commercially in the West End.
Why should musical theatre be limited to a tiny strip of land stolen from Indians?
Yoooo! Additional host, welcome!
Ok, I'm going to say it. I don't love Sondheim. I understand that he was a genius. I understand why his shows are brilliant. I understand his influence and importance. Seeing the original cast of Sweeney Todd in 1979 was one of the most memorable evenings of my life. I just don't care for his melodies. I'm glad I got this off my chest.😬
Same
So true. It was the dark themes of his shows and lack of melody that kept the wider public from being attracted to his work. I think more people, particularly in the theater community, feel pressured to say they like his work more than they actually do for fear of backlash from the "intellectual" crowd and appearing as though they don't understand "real" art. Ugh.
@@L1623VPIt’s the theatrical equivalent of most of the movies The Criterion Collection puts out on videodisc. Nobody wants to be the one to tell the emperor he has no clothes on for fear of being beheaded. If this Emperor isn’t fully naked, at best he’s got on nothing but a union suit.
That's a wrong conclusion: in the long run Sondheim always wins, because the shows continue to be produced, after they close on Broadway.
6:30 that's John Mulaney lol
Theater is a living art form and ages like fine wine. Sondheim’s constant tweaking when new productions emerge is evidence of that, even to the point that it famously annoyed Hal Prince.
964 perfs of Forum. So, 36 perfs short. At 8 shows a week, this musical fell short by about a month. Kinda makes the arbitrary goal of 1000 rather pointless. Besides, the Tony Awards aren't especially meaningful. Like the Oscars, they're just a commercial enterprise that the theater can bring to. the public to increase sales.
and yet.