Sondheim

 My Black Friday at the store was... boring, no customers came to the flooring department and I was never needed in appliances.

And then, just after dinner, as I was sitting at my desk working on the next book, the headline flashed that Stephen Sondheim had died.  Ah, yes, this was Black Friday.

I was lucky enough to see three of his shows on Broadway and each, in its own way, was riveting.  The first I saw when I was in college.  I, and two of my friends, jaunted up to New York to see a little show titled Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, with Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett, no less.  Amazing.  The show turned Broadway on its ears.  How audacious!  To write a show with great music, great lyrics, and then mix in a little blood and revenge.  I was hooked on Sondheim.

Then, when I was working for Marriott, I went to see Sunday in the Park with George.  The friend I went with was expecting some bold and splashy.  That was not the case.  Instead, we got to see Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters doing what they do best, sing great lyrics to great music.  Sitting in the 14th row of the orchestra, this show was simply amazing.

A few years later I saw my third and last Sondheim show on Broadway, a little thing called Into the Woods.  This is, I believe, the most accessible of Sondheim's musicals.  Into the Woods is that bold and splashy musical (at least as far as Sondheim could go) people had been waiting for.

The movie versions are... well, some of them are passable.  However, if you get a chance to see a Sondheim show on the stage, do so.  They can be almost life changing.