US TARIFFS UPDATE | August 2025 | No impact expected on your Presto orders | Read full details
The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia
- Author: Pender, Rick
As the former executive editor and publisher of the website Everything Sondheim and managing editor of The Sondheim Review, Pender has impeccable credentials for producing this volume. The alphabetically...
The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia
- Author: Pender, Rick
Purchase product
Other available formats
As the former executive editor and publisher of the website Everything Sondheim and managing editor of The Sondheim Review, Pender has impeccable credentials for producing this volume. The alphabetically...
About
The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia is a wonderfully detailed and comprehensive reference devoted to musical theater's most prolific and admired composer and lyricist. Entries cover Sondheim's numerous collaborators, from composers and directors to designers and orchestras; key songs, such as his Academy Award winner "Sooner or Later" (Dick Tracy); and major works, including Assassins, Company, Follies, Sweeney Todd, and West Side Story. The encyclopedia also profiles the actors who originated roles and sang Sondheim's songs for the first time, including Ethel Merman, Angela Lansbury, Mandy Patinkin, and Bernadette Peters. Featuring a detailed biographical entry for Sondheim, a chronology of his career, a listing of his many awards, and discussions of his opinions on movies, opera, and more, this wide-ranging resource will attract musical theater enthusiasts again and again.
Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Entries A–Z
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
- About the Author
Awards and reviews
As the former executive editor and publisher of the website Everything Sondheim and managing editor of The Sondheim Review, Pender has impeccable credentials for producing this volume. The alphabetically arranged entries cover all aspects of Sondheim’s career, including all musicals and other works and significant personnel such as George Abbott and Arthur Laurents. Ten songs are covered in depth to illustrate the breadth and depth of Sondheim’s composition, and additional essays cover such varied topics as favorite films, opera, and musical likes (and dislikes). Essays on individual shows include synopses of production history, musical numbers, scores, critical reviews, recordings, and original cast and characters; all essays are well written and focused on facts rather than Pender’s opinions…[T[his encyclopedia is required reading for those interested in musical theater, and it will be particularly valuable when read in conjunction with Hat Box: The Collected Lyrics of Stephen Sondheim (2011). Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals; general readers
Assembling this comprehensive compendium of Stephen Sondheim (b. 1930)—one of the most widely regarded and important figures in 20th-century musical theater—was no small task. Pender, a theater critic who has written extensively about Sondheim for years, makes an impressive effort to do justice to his subject in a single hefty volume. Alphabetically arranged entries cover Sondheim’s work (Into the Woods; Company; Follies), his collaborators (Larry Gelbart) and influences (Oscar Hammerstein), and people who performed in his shows (Elaine Stritch; Angela Lansbury). Pender supplements each entry with references for readers who want to go even deeper into the scholarship. Pender’s expansive reporting on Sondheim’s productions, cohorts, and collaborators goes beyond biography to give readers a wider historical view of American musical theater. The book is ostensibly a reference work aimed at enthusiasts (of which Sondheim has many), but casual theater and performing arts fans will find much to appreciate as well
