Birthday Boy

Today is Stephen Sondheim's 80th birthday.

If you're not familiar with his entire oeuvre, look no further than this far out link to that most Canadian of magazines, MacLeans. Very comprehensive.

No real fan of musical theatre am I, but Sondheim is lots different. He writes great lyrics that tell age old stories with a complexity of arrangement unheard of elsewhere in the genre. He is, in no uncertain terms, the king.

Here's a clip from Sunday In The Park With George. Dig the staging, it's relationship to the tempo of the music and it's progress as Seurat "paints" the famous picture. Trust me, you gotta be smart and stuff to figure these kinds of things out.