As a performer, once you've understood the genre of musical theatre, you can tire very quickly of the two-dimensional stuff. With Sondheim, it's always a challenge. It's difficult and exhilarating and he's so good on the complexities of relationships and on things going wrong.

Michael Ball

Tom Kitt aside - he's in his own category with me, of course - Stephen Sondheim is one of my all-time favorite composers.

Alice Ripley

Time Wit Tom

I think I enjoy Sondheim so much because of the lyrics. The lyrics, the cornucopia of options.

Alice Ripley

Use Us Think

There is genuine healing in a beautifully crafted musical theatre song, like Stephen Sondheim's 'Losing My Mind,' or a pop music gem like Joni Mitchell's 'Help Me.'

Alice Ripley

Music Us Theatre

The music for 'The Last Five Years' is like running a 26-mile marathon, and singing Sondheim is like ballroom-dancing up Everest.

Anna Kendrick

Music Years Year

Sondheim has been a part of my musical collective since I was eight. I was a dramatic little kid.

Annaleigh Ashford

Music Art Us

That's one of the beauties of James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim and their work together. They have such a depth to the emotional exploration of the story that they're telling, but there's always a release, and the release is a laugh.

Annaleigh Ashford

Work Ways Way

Because I am the biggest musical theater nerd, I worship Sondheim.

Beanie Feldstein

Music Worship Use

No One Is Alone by Stephen Sondheim is all about thinking for yourself and being your own person.

Bernadette Peters

Alone Yourself Yours

Stephen Sondheim told me that Oscar Hammerstein believed everything that he wrote. So there's great truth in the songs, and that's what was so wonderful to find.

Bernadette Peters

Truth Great Car

Sondheim writes the music and lyrics, and because he's so smart and goes so deep with his feelings, there's a lot to explore, get involved with and learn about.

Bernadette Peters

Music Art Writes

I think Stephen Sondheim is a - and I hardly ever use this word - but this is as close as it gets to a genius.

Christoph Waltz

Word Use Us

Stephen Sondheim I am in awe of.

Christoph Waltz

T Step Sondheim

My parents were what I like to call proper musical fans. Lots of Sondheim was played in the car.

Daniel Radcliffe

Music Car Were

It's great when it all comes together in a great musical like 'Sweeney Todd,' when Stephen Sondheim writes songs from heaven, the book is good and the staging is good. But it's very rare when that happens.

Dennis DeYoung

Music Great Good

I compare Stephen Sondheim with humor, because humor is unanalyzable. You can't analyze humor. You just have to get through it.

Elaine Stritch

Humor You Wit

In the Stephen Sondheim song, when something bad happens in the circus, they send in the clowns. In America's political circus, they send in the lawyers.

Gavin Esler

Us Thing Thin

Sondheim informs us, more than any other composer, about the joys, passion and pain of being a woman living in various social conditions through the ages with frightening accuracy. Playing a variety of his characters has always made me feel like I'm having a free therapy session through his words and music!

Hannah Waddingham

Music Age Yin

I don't think it's that I don't like Sondheim. It's that I find it really... I don't know how to describe it. Doing it is the most extraordinary thing. Because it's like Shakespeare times 100 with singing. It's that satisfying - and that demanding.

Imelda Staunton

Time Yin Wit

I am thrilled to receive the Sondheim Award from the wonderful Signature Theatre. I have already received the invaluable gift of over twenty-five years of collaboration and friendship with Steve. Now I get to have his award, too!

James Lapine

War Nature Friendship

Leonard Bernstein was probably the most significant formative influence on me - he was such an encompassing musician. I spent my teenage years absorbing him, and my other interests stemmed off of that. Bernstein led me to Sondheim and to Gershwin, and Sondheim led me to listening to Joni Mitchell.

Jason Robert Brown

Teen Music Age

We got to see Sondheim shows, 'Phantom of the Opera,' 'Cats' and all sorts of stuff. When you're 10 or 11 years old, it's just magnificent. The story-telling, the music - it lifts you out of your seat.

Josh Groban

I first started listening to Sondheim's work when I was a kid.

Josh Groban

Musically, I'm a huge fan of Stephen Sondheim, and I love, love 'Sweeney Todd.'

Keala Settle

I'm a devotee of Stephen Sondheim. I think he's a genius.

Kenneth Branagh

My favorite show tune has got to be Stephen Sondheim's 'I Remember Sky.' It's probably the saddest song of all time; I sing it to myself in the mirror. No, I am kidding. That's the joke.

Laura Benanti

The thing about Sondheim is that it does get very cerebral. You do need a faculty with words and a love for the lyrics to not just pull it off, but to have an appreciation for it.

Lea Salonga

'Sweeney Todd' is my favorite Sondheim musical.

Lesley Nicol

When I was old enough to take myself into the city, in the 1970s, I really grew up on all the great Sondheim-Hal Prince shows.

Lonny Price

I had no idea how difficult Sondheim's music would be. All through the rehearsals, I kept flubbing. There were so many tempo changes. I could never get through the opening number without any mistakes. One day, I went up to Hal Prince and offered to leave the show. He laughed it off. He said, 'Don't be silly. That's why we have tryouts.'

Mako

Sondheim is the Shakespeare of the musical theater world.

Mandy Patinkin

In my prayers every day, which are a combination of Hebrew prayers and Shakespeare and Sondheim lyrics and things people have said to me that I've written down and shoved in my pocket, I also say the name of every person I've ever known who's passed on.

Mandy Patinkin

Stephen Sondheim is calculus for actors. The words are witty and brilliant and profound but complicated.

Marc Platt

Say you have a young black kid, and you come to see a Sondheim show. You love the material, but you look on stage, and you don't see anyone who looks like you. That puts a barrier between the audience and what they're trying to absorb.

Michael Arden

The first time I encountered Stephen Sondheim was like everyone else: through snatches of old songs people performed in drama school, through 'Send in the Clowns,' which everyone knew. I wasn't aware at the time that he was the writing force behind 'West Side Story' and 'Gypsy.'

Michael Ball

That's the only show where, if anyone says to me, 'Is there a role you want to play?', I say, yeah, I want to play Sweeney Todd. Stephen Sondheim's so clever; it's a profoundly brilliant piece of work.

Michael Ball

As a performer, once you've understood the genre of musical theatre, you can tire very quickly of the two-dimensional stuff. With Sondheim, it's always a challenge. It's difficult and exhilarating and he's so good on the complexities of relationships and on things going wrong.

Michael Ball

As a person, Stephen Sondheim is a very funny, very dry and very shy man. I've never witnessed any diva-ish moments, he just always seems so thrilled people are doing his work.

Michael Ball

To my mind, 'Dear Brutus' stands halfway between Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' and Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's 'Into the Woods'. Like them, it is a play about enchantment and disillusion, dreams and reality.

Michael Dirda

When Sondheim was visiting the Library of Congress, where the manuscript of 'Porgy and Bess' is housed, he was so overcome with emotion while holding the score in his hands that he shed a tear. He shed several tears, but one of the tears actually fell onto the original manuscript. And he was horrified.

Michael Feinstein

If I could play any role in any musical, it would be Desiree in 'A Little Night Music' - Oh my, it is perfection. The character gets to be funny, beautiful, sexy and smart all at the same time and have two men fighting over her. The show is Stephen Sondheim at his absolute best... need I say more?

Nancy Allen

The three theater peeps I would love to dine with are Mel Brooks, because he is so funny; Stephen Sondheim, because he is a god-like genius; and Ethel Merman, to compare notes on fabulous belting.

Nancy Allen

Sondheim's work especially, and musical theater like that, just spoke to me so much and taught me so many lessons.

Randy Rainbow

I heard from Stephen Sondheim, who has become a great supporter of mine. There was no one bigger when I was growing up.

Randy Rainbow

Hollywood has always seen Sondheim as a caviar brand unsuitable for a popcorn industry.

Richard Corliss

Sondheim is my god; I love the man. I learned a great deal about writing from his work, his lyrics, and his structure.

Richard LaGravenese

I think one of my favorite productions ever was Sondheim's 'Assassins' at the Roundabout in 2004. Beyond brilliant.

Robert Lopez

Sondheim is New York.

Tituss Burgess

Technically, 'Kukla, Fran and Ollie' was a kids' show, but adults watched almost religiously - and we're talking adult adults, celebrated adults - including James Thurber, Orson Welles, John Steinbeck, Adlai E. Stevenson and lyricist Stephen Sondheim.

Tom Shales