Stephen Sondheim Will Receive Chicago Public Library Foundation's Carl Sandburg Award

Acording to the Chicago Tribune, theatre legend Stephen Sondheim will receive Chicago Public Library Foundation's 16th Carl Sandburg Award. As a part of the ceremony on October 21, 2015, Sondheim will be interviewed onstage by Scott Simon of NPR.

The Carl Sandburg Literary Award is presented annually to an acclaimed author in recognition of outstanding contributions to the literary world and honors a significant work or body of work that has enhanced the public's awareness of the written word. The Carl Sandburg Award in the Arts is presented to an individual who embodies a spirit of creativity and social consciousness.

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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.