Find Out Why Broadway's Brightest Stars Love Stephen Sondheim!

On March 22, musical theatre legend Stephen Sondheim will celebrate his 85th birthday, and Buzzfeed has reached out to some of Broadway's finest to find out why they love his work. Barbra Streisand said:

"It's so hard to think of Stephen Sondheim as aging, because his words and his music never do. That could be because part of his genius as a composer and as a lyricist is how startling and original all of his work is. He didn't comply with styles. He created them. He was never 'like' anyone else. He and his work were and will always remain Stephen. I thought of this 10 years ago when I led 18,000 people at the Hollywood Bowl in the loudest rendition of 'Happy Birthday' I ever heard. And now you tell me he's 85. I don't believe it."

Laura Benanti added:

"The first song I ever learned to sing and play on the piano was 'I Remember Sky' when I was 10 years old. I remember thinking, This is the most beautiful song I will ever hear. And that remains true for me to this day. His music is the sole reason I wanted to be on Broadway. I wanted to sing music that transports us to the most important place one can travel, our hearts."

Click here to check out what Liza Minnelli, Kristin Chenoweth, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Anna Kendrick, Rob Marshall, Joanna Gleason & more has to say about him!

Among Sondheim's many works are Company (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), Into the Woods (1987), Passion (1994), and Road Show (2008), as well as lyrics for West Side Story (1957) and Gypsy (1959). He has won more than 60 individual and collaborative Tony Awards, an Oscar for Best Song of 1999 for "Sooner Or Later" from the film Dick Tracy, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1984 for Sunday In The Park With George.

In film, he composed the scores of Stavisky (1974) and co-composed Reds (1981). In 1983, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which awarded him the Gold Medal for Music in 2006. In 1990 he was appointed the first Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Oxford University and was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors Lifetime Achievement Award in 1993. Sondheim is on the Council of the Dramatists Guild, the national association of playwrights, composers and lyricists, having served as its President from 1973 to 1981.

In 1981 he founded Young Playwrights Inc. to develop and promote the work of American Playwrights aged 18 years and younger. His collected lyrics with attendant essays have been published in two volumes: "Finishing the Hat" (2010) and "Look, I Made A Hat" (2011). In 2010 the Broadway theater formerly known as Henry Miller's Theatre was renamed in his honor.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos