Oscar Hammerstein II, the godfather of American musical theater, transformed the Broadway musical with his partner, Richard Rodgers. Sondheim considered Hammerstein a mentor and major influence in his work.
One of my favorite stories in the history of American musical theater is about the mentoring relationship between young Stephen Sondheim and Oscar Hammerstein II. The Hammerstein family lived in Bucks County, outside Philadelphia. This was near the boarding school that Sondheim attended, a Quaker institution known as George School; young Sondheim went there from age 12 to 17, as did James Hammerstein, son of Oscar and his wife Dorothy.
A young Stephen Sondheim, far right, stands with Oscar Hammerstein and his family, at Hammerstein’s Doylestown home during Sondheim’s years at George School.
Sondheim started writing musicals while at George School. His first foray into the genre was a student work from 1946, known as “By George.” The musical was a success at school. Sondheim brought the score to Hammerstein, without revealing who had written it, to get the eminent master’s take on the work. (By this time Hammerstein had become renowned as an innovator, having helped to create “Show Boat,” “Carousel,” and “Oklahoma!”) Hammerstein looked over the supposedly anonymous work and told Sondheim that it was the worst thing he’d ever seen. He continued with words that would shape a career: “But if you want to know why it’s terrible, I’ll tell you.” They spent the rest of the day going over the musical, and Sondheim later said, “In that afternoon I learned more about songwriting and the musical theater than most people learn in a lifetime.”
Stephen Sondheim in 1990. Photo credit: Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Isn’t that wonderful? How many people get a chance like that? Hammerstein gave Sondheim the assignment to write four more musicals, based on very specific criteria. These were finished by the time Sondheim was 22. None of these shows was ever produced, but working on them, with Hammerstein’s feedback, was the mentorship experience that Sondheim used as a springboard to elevate his future writing.
Sondheim’s first three major projects for Broadway all went well. It’s amazing that he was tapped to write the lyrics for “West Side Story” while he was in his mid-twenties, but he had the skills and, at least as importantly, the connections. Hammerstein advised him to take the job of writing just the lyrics for this re-thinking of “Romeo and Juliet” and not to insist on also doing the music, since another guy (named Leonard Bernstein) had already taken that role. Although Sondheim later said he wasn’t thrilled with his work on those lyrics, seeing them as his “baby pictures,” he wouldn’t have rewritten them either.
It was an auspicious start to a career in the musical theatre. By 1964, Sondheim had written the lyrics for “West Side Story,” the lyrics for “Gypsy” (another case where Hammerstein said he should just “take the job”), and both lyrics and music for “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.” His first box-office flop is the source of the one Sondheim tune on our spring 2025 concerts: the show “Anyone Can Whistle.” Despite its failure on Broadway, this show has the distinction of being the show that brought the great Angela Lansbury to the musical-theatre stage. The music has found something of a cult following among Sondheim’s die-hard fans. It’s a show with a truly bizarre plot, in which the mayor of an economically depressed town decides to create a fake miracle in order to attract tourists.
Sondheim rarely went for the conventional or expected angle on things. Critic Luca Prono wrote that Sondheim rejects “the Western world typically presented in Broadway productions … instead depicting it as ‘predatory and alienating’.” In “Anyone Can Whistle,” the tune “Everybody Says Don’t” is a sort of ode to nonconformity, a classic Sondheim move in which the performers (in this case the inmates from the local insane asylum) encourage people to resist the typical pressures to be nice, not to rock the boat, not to reach for your dreams, and so on. It’s a surprisingly wonderful tune from a not-so-great show, and the arrangement by Mark Hayes for choir is superb, which is why Linda and picked it for our concert!
American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, whose works include the musicals “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” “Into the Woods” and “Passion,” August 28, 1962. (Photo by Michael Hardy/Express/Getty Images)
Who Mentored You?
Do you have a story of a mentoring relationship that helped bring your work – in any field, or in your non-employment life – to a new level, or someone else who profoundly influenced the outcome of your life? We’re curious to hear about it. There’s such a collective treasure trove of rich life experience within our Sounds Good Choir community. Put a comment here on the website, or send us an email so we can learn about you!
Thanks, Jonathan for this inside look at these two geniuses. I can’t wait for this session. I grew up listening to musicals and still sing them at home. Not surprisingly, I have also choreographed dances to many of them or copied the original choreography. Musicals are a great source of joy and gratitude.