Powerhouse Scribes Stephen Sondheim & David Ives at Work on New Musical!

According to the London Evening Standard, theater powerhouses Stephen Sondheim and David Ives have teamed up on a new musical, which is currently in the earliest phases of composition. The Standard reports: "Sondheim speaks of pushing forward and says he has "20 or 30 minutes" written of a new musical that he is collaborating on with American playwright David Ives, a New York regular little known in London."

Of the project Sondheim tells the paper: "Having spent the better part of four years writing two books [both sizeable tomes in which he anatomises his own career as lyricist alongside that of others], I'm really rusty. I sit at the piano and think, 'Where's middle C?' Any muscles, as you know, atrophy when you don't use them, and I haven't been using my musical muscles."

He did not supply any additional specifics on the subject matter of the musical or production timeline aspirations. 

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David Ives is currently represented on Broadway with Venus in Fur, starring Hugh Dancy and Nina Arianda. Ives is additionally the book writer of Irving Berlin's White Christmas and Dance of the Vampires, and has adapted Is He Dead and Wonderful Town for Broadway. He is a regular book adapter for the Encores! Broadway series. He is also the author of All in the Timing, which originated as an evening of one-act comedies that premiered at Primary Stages in 1993 and later moved to the John Houseman Theatre for 606 performances. The production won him the Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Award for Playwriting. 

Living legend Stephen Sondheim is the winner of one Academy Award, eight Tony Awards (more than any other composer), multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award. His most famous scores include A Little Night Music, Company, Follies, Sweeney Todd, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, and Assassins. He additionally wrote the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy. Film contributions include contributing the song "Goodbye For Now" to the 1981 Warren Beatty film Reds, and five songs for the 1990 movie Dick Tracy, including Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man), which won the Academy Award for Best Song.