The Library of Congress has acquired the manuscripts, music and lyric drafts, recordings, notebooks and scrapbooks of legend.
ary composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, widely considered one of the most influential and innovative musical theater songwriters of his generation. Winner of eight Tony Awards, including a special Tony for lifetime achievement, Sondheim was a prolific creator, as evidenced by the works found in this extensive collection.
Collage of items from the Library of Congress’ Stephen Sondheim Collection. Photo credit: Shawn Miller/Library of Congress
The collection includes approximately 5,000 items documenting Sondheim’s creative acumen. The materials range from hundreds of music and lyric sketches of his well-known works to drafts of songs that were cut from shows or never made it to a production’s first rehearsal. There are notes about characters who would ultimately sing his compositions as well as multiple iterations of nearly each finished work, providing an evolutionary road map of inspiration.
The collection also contains manuscripts for some of Sondheim’s most celebrated shows, including “Company,” “Follies,” “Sweeney Todd” and “Into the Woods,” as well as lesser-known works such as his plays and screenplays. Of a more personal nature, there are dozens of scrapbooks that hold programs, clippings, opening night telegrams and more.
A few highlights of the collection include:
A one-page inner monologue that Sondheim wrote as subtext for the character Desirée for when she sings “Send in the Clowns” from “A Little Night Music.”
Lyrics for a reprise of “Side by Side by Side” that never made it into “Company,” the musical for which Sondheim won his first Tony Awards as a composer and lyricist.
40 pages of lyric sketches for “A Little Priest” from “Sweeney Todd,” with lists of more than 150 possible professions and types of people who could have been baked into pies written in the margins.
Drafts of variations on the lyrics to “I’m Still Here” from “Follies” and “Putting It Together” from Pulitzer Prize-winning “Sunday in the Park with George” that Sondheim wrote for Barbra Streisand at her request.
A spiral music book titled “Notes and Ideas,” documenting some of his musical efforts while a student at Williams College.
Three boxes of specialty songs, such as the birthday songs he wrote for friends Leonard Bernstein, Harold Prince and others.
Manuscripts for “Here We Are” (working title: “Buñeul,” based on director Luis Buñeul’s films), the show Sondheim was crafting when he died.
“Stephen Sondheim has been credited with reinventing American musical theater, and his papers support that claim,” said Music Division Chief Susan Vita. “The wit, intelligence and theatrical daring of his work has succeeded in the way most great art does – it illuminates our shared human condition. This incredible collection now enjoys a permanent home at the nation’s library, which celebrates creativity in all its forms. As a treasured addition to our performing arts collection, it serves to honor and preserve Sondheim’s legacy.”
Sondheim began writing music as a teenager and graduated from Williams College, receiving its Hutchinson Prize for Music Composition. He went on to study music theory and composition privately with avant-garde composer Milton Babbitt. Sondheim began his professional career in 1954, ultimately writing the score for 16 stage musicals and the lyrics for three more: “West Side Story,” “Do I Hear a Waltz?” and “Gypsy.” (Sondheim donated his manuscripts for these shows to the Wisconsin Historical Society in the 1960s; copies are held by the Library.) There have been several anthologies of his work, including “Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends,” currently playing on Broadway.
In addition to his stage work, Sondheim composed songs and scores for film and television, was a screenwriter for a television series, and even created crossword puzzles for New York Magazine.
Sondheim’s music and lyrics earned him numerous accolades over the years. In addition to eight Tony Awards, he garnered multiple Grammy and New York Drama Critics Circle Awards, an Academy Award, a Pulitzer Prize and the Kennedy Center Honors. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015. Broadway’s Henry Miller’s Theatre was renamed the Stephen Sondheim Theatre in 2010, and in London, he became the first living artist to have a West End theater named in his honor when the Queen’s Theatre became the Sondheim Theatre to commemorate his 90th birthday. Sondheim died Nov. 26, 2021, in Connecticut. Broadway marquee lights in New York City were dimmed in his honor.
The manuscripts of Sondheim join those of other Broadway composers in the Library of Congress, as well as those of his mentor Oscar Hammerstein II and collaborators such as Leonard Bernstein, Richard Rodgers, Mary Rodgers (Richard’s daughter), and Arthur Laurents. The papers of Harold Prince, director of six of Sondheim’s shows, are also housed at the Library, as well as manuscripts by Babbitt, his former instructor. The Library’s George and Ira Gershwin collection moved Sondheim to tears when he viewed the manuscript of “Porgy and Bess” during a visit here with Senior Music Specialist Mark Horowitz in 1993. It was at that time that Sondheim decided to leave his manuscripts to the Library.
Sondheim made his first donation to the Library in 1995: his vast record collection of approximately 13,000 albums. The collection of classical and contemporary music was accompanied by a hand-typed card catalog. He also sat for a series of interviews with Horowitz in 1997, which can be viewed here.
The Library celebrated Sondheim’s 70th birthday in 2000 with a concert that included Broadway stars Nathan Lane, Audra McDonald, Marin Mazzie, Debra Monk and Brian Stokes Mitchell.
The music and lyrics in the Sondheim collection will be available in the Performing Arts Reading Room by July 1, with the remainder of the papers – as well as a complete finding aid – available later in summer 2025.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
