Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created "Sunday in the Park with George

In every score I write, there’s a Harold Arlen song. “Children and Art” is the Harold Arlen song. LAPINE: And how do you characterize a Harold Arlen song? SONDHEIM: It’s about seduction and warmth and yearning.

“Loretta, your show could never have won. We can’t tell Middle America that this is what they should be going to see, because they won’t get it.” I thought, Well, that’s depressing. I said, “Are you telling me this isn’t strictly about talent?” “Loretta,” he said, “you are so naïve I can’t believe it.”

Clement Wood’s rhyming dictionary.

as we were walking over to the opening-night party at Sardi’s, my father said sweetly, “You didn’t tell me that you put your grandfather in the show.” I had never met his father, who passed away long before I was born and about whom I really knew nothing. “What are you talking about, Dad?” I said. “My father, Louis. He was a baker.” That stopped me

remember you once said, “Let me state the themes of the show in the songs.” SONDHEIM: Yes, because if you do it in the dialogue, it can be preachy. Oscar Hammerstein made a career out of preaching in music.

And it comes right out of the scene. That’s the Rodgers and Hammerstein principle for carrying forward a dramatic moment. In this case, George is announcing that he has turned down a commission and that he doesn’t know what to do next.

Sunday ran for 604 performances, including previews, just shy of a year and a half. I happened to be at the theater one night after the show and the doorman told me that there was a group outside that would be thrilled to meet me. I walked out and was greeted by the St. Peter’s Girl Scout Troop No. 156 from Mansfield, Ohio. I visited with them and

By then, I’d heard Bernadette speak the role, and the accent suggested to me Harold Arlen. He was a Buffalo boy who kept writing southern-inflected music, and I thought, southern inflection … hey, there’s my favorite composer. And I was off and running.

Arlen kills me. He’s as inventive a composer as there ever was.