In the Rodgers and Hammerstein generation, popular hits came out of shows and movies. – Stephen Sondheim
Musicals are, by nature, theatrical, meaning poetic, meaning having to move the audiences imagination and create a suspension of disbelief, by which I mean theres no fourth wall. – Stephen Sondheim
Im interested in the theater because Im interested in communication with audiences. Otherwise I would be in concert music. – Stephen Sondheim
All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. Thats what makes theatre live. Thats why it persists. – Stephen Sondheim
In America everybody is of opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards. – Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays, 1950