Games, Books, and Collectables Belonging to Stephen Sondheim Will Be Auctioned in June

As BroadwayWorld previously reported, Doyle will be auctioning the Collection of Stephen Sondheim on Tuesday, June 18, 2024 at 10am. This auction will offer over 450 lots of memorabilia, furnishings, antique puzzles and more from Mr. Sondheim’s Manhattan townhouse and his country home in Roxbury, Connecticut.

Memorabilia includes his gold record for West Side Story, custom-embroidered asylum coat from Sweeney Todd and more, including antiques of the Victorian and Edwardian as well as early puzzles, games, rebuses, coin-operated machines and more.

The public is invited to the exhibition on view from June 14 through 17 at Doyle, located at 175 East 87th Street in New York.

Just a few of the many highlights include:

-A collection of books on Georges Seurat

-Six first and early book editions of Stephen Sondheim musicals

-An artist's three-dimensional caricature of Sweeney Todd characters

-"The Game of Stardom or Camp" - Sondheim-invented board game

-Four thesauruses used by Stephen Sondheim

-A manuscript musical quotation from Into the Woods

-The first royalty check received by Stephen Sondheim

-Tiffany & Co. Harmonica and Two Tempo Watches

View the entire collection at Doyle.

About Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Sondheim is widely acknowledged as the most innovative, most influential, and most important composer and lyricist in modern Broadway history. He is the winner of an Academy Award, numerous Tony Award, multiple Grammy Awards and a Pulitzer Prize. Some of his other accolades include a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Kennedy Center Honors (1993), the National Medal of Arts (1996), the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Gold Medal for Music (2006) and a special Tony Awards for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre (2008).

Stephen Sondheim wrote the music and lyrics for Road Show (2008), Passion (1994), Assassins (1991), Into the Woods (1987), Sunday in the Park with George (1984), Merrily We Roll Along (1981), Sweeney Todd (1979), Pacific Overtures (1976), The Frogs (1974), A Little Night Music (1973), Follies (1971; revised in London, 1987), Company (1970), Anyone Can Whistle (1964) and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), as well as the lyrics for West Side Story (1957), Gypsy (1959), Do I Hear a Waltz? (1965) and additional lyrics for Candide (1973). Side by Side by Sondheim (1976), Marry Me a Little (1981), You're Gonna Love Tomorrow (1983) and Putting It Together (1993/99) are anthologies of his work, as is the new musical Sondheim on Sondheim. He composed the film scores of Stavisky (1974) and Reds (1981) and songs for Dick Tracy (Academy Award, 1990). He also wrote songs for the television production "Evening Primrose" (1966), co-authored, with Anthony Perkins, the film The Last of Sheila (1973) and, with George Furth, the play Getting Away with Murder (1996), and provided incidental music for the plays The Girls of Summer (1956), Invitation to a March (1961) and Twigs (1971). He won Tony Awards for Best Score for a Musical for Passion, Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, Follies and Company. All of these shows won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, as did Pacific Overtures and Sunday in the Park with George, the latter also receiving the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Saturday Night (1954), his first professional musical, finally had its New York premiere in 1999 at Second Stage Theatre.