Frank Rich Talks Sondheim, Music and the Nature of Media to Dan Savage

Tonight, Monday, October 26, 2009 musical theater's living legend, Stephen Sondheim, will make this first momentous journey to Seattle; and will hold what promises to be an enormously entertaining and informative onstage conversation with his friend and respected New York Times columnist Frank Rich. In advance of this once-in-a-lifetime event Rich spoke to famed writer Dan Savage about Sondheim, the current state of Broadway and the ever evolving business of news coverage in this modern age.

In this excerpt the two discuss the nature of "rock" and how it changed the embracing of Broadway music by the public at large:

Why wasn't Broadway ever able to digest and regurgitate rock and roll like it had done so many other forms before?

It's so interesting-my own theory is that it was an incredibly shortsighted industry. You would think the obvious thing to do would have been for a producer to go to Laura Nyro, Simon and Garfunkel, Lennon and McCartney, whomever, and say, "Write a score, write a musical!" No one did it!

To read the entire interview on TheStranger.com click here.

Northwest Associated Arts, in cooperation with The 5th Avenue Theatre, Seattle Men's Chorus & Seattle Women's Chorus and The Stranger, is pleased to present A Life in the Theater: An Onstage Conversation with Stephen Sondheim and Frank Rich on Monday, October 26, 2009 at 8pm in the S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium at Benaroya Hall. Tickets are on sale now and range from $48 - $78. They are available through the Benaroya Hall Box Office, at 206.215.4747 or online at www.benaroyahall.org.

Stephen Sondheim is this nation's most beloved contemporary composer-lyricist. His musicals include A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, (1962), Company (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), Sweeney Todd (1979), Sunday in the Park with George (1984), Into the Woods (1987), Assassins (1991), and Passion (1994). He also wrote lyrics to West Side Story (1956) and Gypsy (1959). At 79, Sondheim has spent more than 50 years in professional musical theater. He's won 7 Tonys, multiple Grammy Awards, and in 1985 his Sunday in the Park with George won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. (The Pulitzer was shared with James Lapine, who wrote the book for the musical.) He's also worked in film and wrote the score to Warren Beatty's 1981 movie Reds. And having collaborated as a young man with such titans of the American musical theater as songwriter Jule Stein and composer-director Leonard Bernstein, Sondheim is a living link to the mid-20th century artists who made the
musical theater one of America's great art forms.

Frank Rich is The New York Times columnist who writes a 1,500-word essay every Sunday in the opinion section. In his column Rich, whose political bent is unabashedly progressive, skewers captains of industry, the media, cultural watchdogs, religiosity, and politicians of all stripes. But before Rich became an essayist on the "intersection of culture and news," as The New York Times describes his current job, he was for many years the paper's chief drama critic. And that's the connection that makes an evening of Sondheim and Rich so engaging.