title: Joker (character)

text: Ryan Litsey described the Joker as an example of a "Nietzschean Superman," arguing that a fundamental aspect of Friedrich Nietzsche's Superman, the "will to power," is exemplified in all of the Joker's actions, providing a master morality to Batman's slave morality. The character's indomitable "will to power" means he is never discouraged by being caught or defeated and he is not restrained by guilt or remorse. Joker represents the master, who creates rules and defines them, who judges others without needing approval, and for whom something is good because it benefits him. He creates his own morality and is bound only by his own rules without aspiring to something higher than himself, unlike Batman, the slave, who makes a distinction between good and evil, and is bound to rules outside of himself (such as his avoidance of killing) in his quest for justice. The Joker has no defined origin story that requires him to question how he came to be, as like the Superman he does not regret or assess the past and only moves forward.


title: Joker (character)

text: The Joker's controlling and abusive relationship with Harley Quinn has been analyzed as a means of the Joker reinforcing his own belief in his power in a world where he may be killed or neutralized by another villain or Batman. Joker mirrors his identity through Harley in her appearance, and even though he may ignore or act indifferent towards her, he continues to try to subject her to his control. When Harley successfully defeats Batman in "" (1994), the Joker, emasculated by his own failure, severely injures her out of fear of what the other villains will think of him; however, while Harley recovers, the Joker sends her flowers, which she accepts, reasserting his control over her.


title: Joker (character)

text: Harley's co-creator, Paul Dini, describes their relationship as Harley being someone who makes the Joker feel better about himself, and who can do the work that he does not want to do himself. In the 1999 one-shot comic "Batman: Harley Quinn", the Joker decides to kill Harley, after admitting that he does care for her, that their relationship is romantic, and that these feelings prevent him from fulfilling his purpose. Removing the traditional male-female relationship, such as in the "Batman: Thrillkiller" storyline where the Joker (Bianca Steeplechase) is a female and involved in a lesbian relationship with Harley, their relationship lacks any aspects of violence or subjugation.


title: Joker (character)

text: The Joker is considered one of the most recognizable and iconic fictional characters in popular culture, one of the best comic villains, and one of the greatest villains of all time. The character was well-liked following his debut, appearing in nine out of the first 12 "Batman" issues, and remained one of Batman's most popular foes throughout his publication. The character is considered one of the four top comic book characters, alongside Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man. Indeed, when DC Comics released the original series of "Greatest Stories Ever Told" (1987–1988) featuring collections of stories about heroes like Batman and Superman, the Joker was the only villain included alongside them. The character has been the focus of ethical discussion on the desirability of Batman (who adheres to an unbreakable code forbidding killing) saving lives by murdering the Joker (a relentless dealer of death). These debates weigh the positive (stopping the Joker permanently) against its effect on Batman's character and the possibility that he might begin killing all criminals.


title: Joker (character)

text: In 2006, the Joker was number one on "Wizard" magazine's "100 Greatest Villains of All Time." In 2008 "Wizard"s list of "200 Greatest Comic Book Characters of All Time" placed the Joker fifth, and the character was eighth on "Empire"s list of "50 Greatest Comic Book Characters" (the highest-ranked villain on both lists). In 2009, the Joker was second on "IGN"s list of "Top 100 Comic Book Villains," and in 2011, "Wired" named him "Comics' Greatest Supervillain." "Complex", "CollegeHumor", and "WhatCulture" named the Joker the greatest comic book villain of all time while "IGN" listed him the top DC Comics villain in 2013, and "Newsarama" as the greatest Batman villain.


title: Joker (character)

text: The Joker's popularity (and his role as Batman's enemy) has involved the character in most "Batman"-related media, from television to video games. These adaptations of the character have been received positively on film, television, and in video games. As in the comics, the character's personality and appearance shift; he is campy, ferocious or unstable, depending on the author and the intended audience.


title: Joker (character)

text: The character inspired theme-park roller coasters (The Joker's Jinx, The Joker in Mexico and California, and The Joker Chaos Coaster), and featured in story-based rides such as Justice League: Battle for Metropolis. The Joker is one of the few comic book supervillains to be represented on children's merchandise and toys, appearing on items including action figures, trading cards, board games, money boxes, pajamas, socks, and shoes. The Jokermobile was a popular toy; a Corgi die-cast metal replica was successful during the 1950s, and in the 1970s a Joker-styled, flower power-era Volkswagen microbus was manufactured by Mego. In 2015, "The Joker: A Serious Study of the Clown Prince of Crime" became the first academic book to be published about a supervillain.


title: Joker (character)

text: Since 2012–2013, the Joker has inspired a large number of internet memes, often focused on the character's portrayal in films (see below). According to Steven T. Wright of "The Outline", the character "came to symbolize the archetype of the 'edgelord,' a vapid, self-styled provocateur who prides himself in his ability to 'trigger' those who hold progressive viewpoints." The phrase "We live in a society" is commonly associated with the Joker in memes; it garnered particular notoriety after a trailer for the film "Zack Snyder's Justice League" (2021) featured Joker saying the line.


title: Joker (character)

text: The Joker has appeared in a variety of media, including television series, animated and live-action films. WorldCat (a catalog of libraries in 170 countries) records over 250 productions featuring the Joker as a subject, including films, books, and video games, and Batman films which feature the character are typically the most successful. The character's earliest on-screen adaptation was in the 1966 television series "Batman" and its film adaptation "Batman", in which he was played as a cackling prankster by Cesar Romero (reflecting his contemporary comic counterpart). The Joker then appeared in the animated television series "The Adventures of Batman" (1968, voiced by Larry Storch), "The New Adventures of Batman" (1977, voiced by Lennie Weinrib) and "" (1985, voiced by Frank Welker).


title: Joker (character)

text: A darker version of the Joker named Jack Napier (played by Jack Nicholson) made his film debut in 1989's "Batman", which earned over $400 million at the worldwide box office. The role was a defining performance in Nicholson's career and was considered to overshadow Batman's, with film critic Roger Ebert saying that the audience must sometimes remind themselves not to root for the Joker. "Batman"s success led to the 1992 television series, "". Voiced by Mark Hamill, the Joker retained the darker tone of the comics in stories acceptable for young children. Hamill's Joker is considered a defining portrayal, and he voiced the character in spin-off films (1993's "" and 2000's ""), video games (2001's ""), related series (1996's "", 2000's "Static Shock" and 2001's "Justice League"), action figures, toys and amusement-park voiceovers. A redesigned Joker, voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson, appeared in 2004's "The Batman"; Richardson was the first African-American to play the character.


title: Joker (character)

text: After Christopher Nolan's successful 2005 "Batman" film reboot, "Batman Begins", which ended with a teaser for the Joker's involvement in a sequel, the character appeared in 2008's "The Dark Knight", played by Heath Ledger as an avatar of anarchy and chaos. While "Batman Begins" earned a worldwide total of $370 million; "The Dark Knight" earned over $1 billion and was the highest-grossing film of the year, setting several contemporary box-office records (including highest-grossing midnight opening, opening day and opening weekend). Ledger won a posthumous Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance, the first acting Oscar ever won for a superhero film. The Joker has featured in a number of animated projects, such as 2009's "" (voiced by Jeff Bennett) and 2011's "Young Justice" (voiced by Brent Spiner). In comic book adaptations, the character has been voiced by John DiMaggio in 2010's "" and 2020's "", and by Michael Emerson in 2012's two-parter "".


title: Joker (character)

text: The television series "Gotham" (2014–2019) explores the mythology of the Joker through twin brothers Jerome and Jeremiah Valeska, played by Cameron Monaghan. Jared Leto portrays the Joker in the DC Extended Universe, beginning with "Suicide Squad" (2016); Leto reprised the role in "Zack Snyder's Justice League" (2021). Zach Galifianakis voiced the character in "The Lego Batman Movie" (2017). The 2019 film "Joker" focuses on the origins of the Joker (named Arthur Fleck) as portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix. Although the film was controversial for its violence and portrayal of mental illness, Phoenix's performance received widespread acclaim. Like "The Dark Knight" before it, "Joker" grossed over $1billion at the box office, breaking contemporary financial records, and earned numerous awards including an Academy Award for Best Actor for Phoenix. Barry Keoghan makes a cameo appearance as the Joker in Matt Reeves' film "The Batman" (2022), where he is credited as "Unseen Arkham Prisoner".


title: Joker (character)

text: The Joker has also been featured in video games. Hamill returned to voice the character in 2009's critically acclaimed "", its equally praised 2011 sequel "" and the multiplayer "DC Universe Online". Hamill was replaced by Troy Baker for the 2013 prequel, "", and the "Arkham" series' animated "", while Hamill returned for the 2015 series finale, "". Richard Epcar has voiced the Joker in a series of fighting games including, "Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe" (2008), "" (2013), its sequel "Injustice 2" (2017), and "Mortal Kombat 11" (2019). The character also appeared in "" (2008), "" (2012) and its , and "" (2014) (the latter three voiced by Christopher Corey Smith), as well as "Lego DC Super-Villains" (2018), with the role reprised by Hamill. Anthony Ingruber voices the Joker in "" (2016) and its sequel "" (2017).


title: Keith Urban

text: Keith Lionel Urban (born 26 October 1967) is an Australian-American musician, singer, guitarist and songwriter known for his work in country music. Recognized with four Grammy Awards, Urban also received fifteen Academy of Country Music Awards, including the Jim Reeves International Award, thirteen CMA Awards and six ARIA Music Awards. Urban wrote and performed the song "For You" from the film "Act of Valor", which earned him nominations at both the 70th Golden Globe Awards and at the 18th Critics' Choice Awards in the respective Best Original Song categories.


title: Keith Urban

text: Urban has released 11 studio albums (one of which was released only in Australia), as well as one album with the Ranch. He has charted 37 singles on the US Hot Country Songs chart, 18 of which went to number one, counting a duet with Brad Paisley ("Start a Band") and the 2008 single "You Look Good in My Shirt". Urban also worked with numerous artists from different music genres, such as Pink, Nelly Furtado, Jason Derulo, Julia Michaels, and country artists as Dolly Parton, Dixie Chicks, Carrie Underwood, Martina McBride and Reba McEntire.


title: Keith Urban

text: In 1991, he released a self-titled debut album, charting four singles in Australia before moving to the United States the following year. He started a band known as The Ranch, which recorded one studio album on Capitol Nashville and charted two singles on the US "Billboard" Hot Country Songs chart.


title: Keith Urban

text: Still signed to Capitol, Urban made his solo American debut in 1999 with a second eponymous album. Certified platinum in the US by the RIAA, it produced his first number one on the Hot Country Songs chart with "But for the Grace of God". "Somebody Like You", the first single from his second Capitol album "Golden Road" (2002), was named by "Billboard" as the biggest country hit of the 2000s decade. The album's fourth single, "You'll Think of Me" featuring his nephew and fellow country artist Rory Gilliatte, earned him his first Grammy Award. 2004's "Be Here", his third American album became his highest-selling album, being certified 4× Platinum. "Love, Pain & the Whole Crazy Thing" was released in 2006, containing "Once in a Lifetime" as well as his second Grammy Award-winning song, "Stupid Boy". A greatest hits package titled "" followed in late 2007. "Defying Gravity" and "Get Closer" were released on 31 March 2009 and 16 November 2010, respectively. In September 2013, he released the album "Fuse", which produced four more number ones on the Country Airplay chart. "" was released in June 2015 as the lead single of his eighth American studio album, "Ripcord". The album later produced the Country Airplay chart number-one hits "Break on Me", "Wasted Time", and "Blue Ain't Your Color", with the latter also becoming Urban's longest-reigning number one on the Hot Country Songs chart, spending 12 weeks atop the chart. His tenth album, "Graffiti U", was released in 2018 and includes the Top 10 hit "Coming Home". His eleventh album "The Speed of Now Part 1" was released in 2020 and includes the global hit "One Too Many" with Pink, in addition to Country Airplay top ten hits "We Were" and "God Whispered Your Name".


title: Keith Urban

text: Urban was a coach on the Australian version of the singing competition "The Voice" and a judge on "American Idol". In October 2013, Urban introduced his own signature line of guitars and accessories.


title: Keith Urban

text: Urban was born on 26 October 1967 in Whangarei, New Zealand. He is the youngest son of Marienne and Robert "Bob" Urbahn (Urbański). At two years of age, Urban moved with his parents to Caboolture, Queensland, Australia. Expressing an early interest in music, he was at four given a ukulele, and at six he took up the guitar. From an early age Urban’s influences reflected the tastes of his parents, who enjoyed country music. His father, who owned a convenience store, put an ad for a guitar teacher in his shop window. Urban took lessons from his teacher, Sue McCarthy, and began entering local competitions, in addition to acting in a local theatre company. Urban has stated that his guitar playing was influenced by two rock players, Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits) and Lindsey Buckingham (Fleetwood Mac).


title: Keith Urban

text: In 1983, Urban was a contestant on the Australian TV talent show "New Faces". A few years later, he began making inroads into the Australian country music scene, with regular appearances on the Reg Lindsay Country Homestead TV Program, Mike McClellan's Music Program, and various other TV programmes performing duets with local Brisbane girl Jenny Wilson. They won a Golden Guitar award at the Tamworth Country Music Festival. Urban also performed regularly on stage at the Northern Suburbs Country Music Club in Bald Hills, where he was a member. He was in a band called 'Kids Country', which performed during school holidays at various venues and made appearances on the Reg Lindsey show and Conway Country.


title: Keith Urban

text: In 1990, Urban signed with EMI in Australia and released his self-titled debut album. He appeared on the 1990 compilation album "Breaking Ground - New Directions in Country Music", which was nominated for the 1991 ARIA Award for Best Country Album. He toured as a backup act to Slim Dusty between 1993 and 1994. In the mid-1990s, both people recorded a re-worked duet of Dusty's classic "Lights on the Hill". Urban appeared for the first time at the Grand Ole Opry backing Dusty. He also sang backing vocals on INXS's 1991 single "Shining Star".


title: Keith Urban

text: Urban moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1992. The next year, he appeared in the music video for Alan Jackson's rendition of "Mercury Blues". He and Vernon Rust co-wrote "Jesus Gets Jealous of Santa Claus" on Toby Keith's 1995 album "Christmas to Christmas", 4 Runner's 1996 single "That Was Him (This Is Now)", he played guitar on Garth Brooks' album Double Live (Garth Brooks album) and "Tangled Up in Love" on the Raybon Brothers' 1997 self-titled album. In 1997, he formed a band known as The Ranch, which included drummer Peter Clarke and bassist Jerry Flowers. The Ranch released one self-titled album for Capitol Records Nashville and charted two singles on the Hot Country Songs charts that year: "Walkin' the Country" and "Just Some Love". Throughout the late 1990s, Urban also played guitar on several other artists' albums, such as Paul Jefferson, Tim Wilson, and Charlie Daniels.


title: Keith Urban

text: Urban released his self-titled American debut album in 1999 under the production of session pianist Matt Rollings. It was led by the number 18 single "It's a Love Thing", followed by the number four single "Your Everything", which made him the first male New Zealand performer to reach the Top 10 on the US country charts. Its follow-up, "But for the Grace of God", written by Charlotte Caffey and Jane Wiedlin of The Go-Gos, became his first number 1 hit on the charts. The last single, "Where the Blacktop Ends", written by Steve Wariner and Allen Shamblin, went to number three. He won the Top New Male Vocalist Award at the 2001 Academy of Country Music Awards and the 2001 Country Music Association's Horizon Award. Allmusic's Thom Jurek described the first and third singles favorably, and praised the instrumental track "Rollercoaster", saying that Urban was "flat picking his Stratocaster like it was another extremity he was born with." He thought that those songs "balance the slick and sometimes too-soft production on the record".


title: Keith Urban

text: Urban released his second American album, "Golden Road", in 2002. Of the 13 songs included on this album, Urban produced seven himself and co-produced the other six with Dann Huff. The album's lead-off single, "Somebody Like You", was released in July 2002 and spent six weeks at number one. The second single was the number three hit "Raining on Sunday" which Radney Foster had previously released as a single from his 1998 album "See What You Want to See". The third and fourth singles from the album, "Who Wouldn't Wanna Be Me" and "You'll Think of Me", went to number one, with the latter winning him the Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance in 2005.


title: Keith Urban

text: On 22 September 2005, Urban's third studio album, "Golden Road", was certified triple platinum, for sales of three million copies.


title: Keith Urban

text: In 2002, Urban posed nude for "Playgirl". On "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", he said that he regretted posing nude despite not showing any full frontal nudity.


title: Keith Urban

text: In 2004, Urban performed "Lights on the Hill" at the Tamworth tribute concert following the death of Australian country singer Slim Dusty, an artist whom he had both written for and covered.


title: Keith Urban

text: In 2005, Urban performed in front of European audiences for the first time. In May, he supported Bryan Adams on his UK and Ireland tour, which included dates at Earls Court, London, Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre, Glasgow, and The Point, Dublin. On 6 June a UK-only album, "Days Go By", was released. The album contained songs from both "Be Here" and "Golden Road".


title: Keith Urban

text: "You Look Good in My Shirt" was originally intended to be the fifth single from this album. Instead, Capitol chose to release "Days Go By", the lead-off to his third American album "Be Here". By late 2004, this song became Urban's fifth number one hit on the country chart. Although it was not officially released, "You Look Good in My Shirt" spent one week at number 60 on the country charts in July 2004 and remained a fan favourite. The next single from this album was the #2 "You're My Better Half", followed by the five-week number 1 "Making Memories of Us", which was written by Rodney Crowell and previously recorded by both Tracy Byrd and Crowell's side project The Notorious Cherry Bombs. The next singles from this album were "Better Life" and "Tonight I Wanna Cry". The former, which Urban wrote with Richard Marx, spent six weeks at number 1 and the latter spent three weeks at number 2. After this song, "Live to Love Another Day" spent 14 weeks on the country chart, reaching a peak of number 48, although it was never officially released as a single.


title: Keith Urban

text: On 21 August 2006, Urban's "Once in a Lifetime" debuted at No. 17, setting what was then a new record for the highest-debuting country single in the 62-year history of the Hot Country Songs chart. Despite the high debut, the song peaked at number 6. Following it was "Stupid Boy", which was co-written by Sarah Buxton, went to number 3, and won him his second Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance in 2007. The album's next two singles, "I Told You So" and "Everybody", respectively peaked at numbers two and five. Urban released his first greatest hits collection "" on 20 November 2007. This compilation contains all of his Top 10 hits, along with two new songs, "Got It Right This Time (The Celebration) and a cover of Steve Forbert's "Romeo's Tune"."


title: Keith Urban

text: In January 2008, Urban embarked on the "Love, Pain and the Whole Crazy Carnival Ride World Tour" with fellow country singer Carrie Underwood. In early May 2008, Urban debuted a new song at the Grand Ole Opry titled "A New Sunshine". That same month, Urban recorded a new version of "You Look Good in My Shirt" and released it as a single in June of that year. "Over the years it ("You Look Good In My Shirt") has always played like a hit song," Urban said. "That, combined with numerous requests from both fans and radio about why it was never a single, inspired us to get back into the studio and re-record the song." The single was a precursor to the "Love, Pain & the Whole Crazy World Tour" concert DVD release in the fall of 2008. Later that year, Urban served as a duet artist for Brad Paisley's single "Start a Band," on which both he and Paisley sang and played guitar. This song was included on Paisley's album "Play" and it went to No. 1 in January 2009.


title: Keith Urban

text: Urban announced that the lead single for his fifth studio album would be titled "Sweet Thing". This song became his tenth number one hit. Capitol Records released the album, "Defying Gravity", on 31 March 2009. The second single, "Kiss a Girl", was released in March 2009. Urban performed this song on American Idol, during the season 8 finale, as a duet with eventual winner Kris Allen. "Only You Can Love Me This Way", the third single, went to number one. The fourth single, "'Til Summer Comes Around", went to number three. The fifth and final single "I'm In" is a cover of a song by Radney Foster, taken from the same album as "Raining on Sunday" was. This song was also recorded by The Kinleys, whose version had been a Top 40 single in 2000. Urban's rendition went to number two. Between the two, Urban also made a guest appearance on then-labelmate Emily West's single "Blue Sky," which charted at number 38.


title: Keith Urban

text: Urban's 2009 Escape Together tour, supporting the "Defying Gravity" album, featured many big-name opening acts, such as Taylor Swift, Sugarland, and Jason Aldean. On 27 June 2009, Urban filmed a video for the song, "Only You Can Love Me This Way", at the Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, Iowa.


title: Keith Urban

text: In 2009, Urban was also a judge for the eighth annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers.


title: Keith Urban

text: In May 2010, Urban entered the studio to begin work on a new album. The recording process was documented in a blog on his official website. At the beginning of September, it was announced that the album would be titled "Get Closer" and would be released on 16 November. "Put You in a Song" was released as its first single on 13 September. It went to number 2, followed by "Without You", "Long Hot Summer", and "You Gonna Fly", all of which went to number one. Urban wrote, "Put You in a Song" with Sarah Buxton and Jedd Hughes, and "Long Hot Summer" with Richard Marx. Preston Brust and Chris Lucas, who constitute the LoCash Cowboys, co-wrote "You Gonna Fly" with Jaren Johnston, then-member of the group American Bang. After "You Gonna Fly" fell from the charts, Urban released "For You", which was featured as the theme song of the 2012 action film "Act of Valor" and appeared on the film's . The song peaked at number six on the country charts.


title: Keith Urban

text: On 10 April 2012, Urban was invited to be a member of the Grand Ole Opry by Vince Gill at the third annual We're All for the Hall benefit concert which Urban organized. He was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on 21 April 2012.


title: Keith Urban

text: Urban plays guitar on Tim McGraw's early-2013 single "Highway Don't Care", which also features a guest vocal from Taylor Swift. This song is the third single from McGraw's album "Two Lanes of Freedom".


title: Keith Urban

text: On 13 May 2013, Urban released the single "Little Bit of Everything", produced by Nathan Chapman. It was the first single from his eighth studio album, "Fuse", which was released on 10 September 2013. The official music video for "Little Bit Of Everything" debuted on VEVO on 25 July 2013. Unlike his previous albums, Urban co-produced with 10 other producers on this album. The album's second single, "We Were Us", is a duet with Miranda Lambert. It reached number one on the Country Airplay chart in December 2013. The third single, "Cop Car", was released in January 2014. A fourth single, "Somewhere in My Car" was released in June 2014. A fifth single, a duet with Eric Church, "Raise 'Em Up," was released to country radio on 26 January 2015. It reached number 1 on Country Airplay in May 2015.


title: Keith Urban

text: In June 2015, Urban released "", as the lead single to his eighth American studio album, "Ripcord". In October 2015, Urban teased a new song called "Break on Me"; it was released to the public on 23 October. It reached number one on the Country Airplay chart.


title: Keith Urban

text: On 22 September 2015, Urban celebrated the tenth anniversary of his third studio album "Golden Road" being certified triple platinum, for sales of three million copies of his record. "Wasted Time" was released as the album's third single and it went on to reach the number one spot on the Country Airplay chart. "Blue Ain't Your Color" was released as the album's fourth single and became a huge hit for Urban. It topped the Hot Country Songs chart as well as the Country Airplay Chart, spending 12 weeks at number one on the former chart. "The Fighter", a duet with Carrie Underwood, was released as the fifth single from the album.


title: Keith Urban

text: In 2016, Urban was selected as one of 30 artists to perform on "Forever Country," a medley of "Take Me Home, Country Roads", "On the Road Again", and "I Will Always Love You" which celebrates 50 years of the CMA Awards.


title: Keith Urban

text: On 8 November 2017, Urban released a new song titled "Female", which has been described as "an empowerment anthem partially inspired by the Harvey Weinstein scandal." Urban said that the song, "[a]s a husband and a father of two young girls...It affects me in a lot of ways. And as a son -- my mother is alive," he added. "It just speaks to all of the females in my life, particularly. For a guy who grew up with no sisters in a house of boys, it's incredible how now I'm surrounded by girls. But not only in my house; I employ a huge amount of women in my team. The song just hit me for so many reasons." Kidman provided background vocals on the song. The song would serve as the lead single for Urban's tenth studio album.


title: Keith Urban

text: It was announced that Urban's tenth studio album would be titled "Graffiti U" and that a world tour in support of it would begin in summer 2018.


title: Keith Urban

text: On 19 January, the Ed Sheeran co-written song "Parallel Line" was released as a single in Australia and the United Kingdom. On 21 March, Urban released the album's second single "Coming Home", a heavily pop-influenced, upbeat song featuring a duet with pop singer Julia Michaels. This song also features a revamped version of the opening riff of Merle Haggard's hit "Mama Tried" throughout it and with his family's blessing, Haggard even received a posthumous credit for writing the song. Coming Home reached number one on the Mediabase Country Chart on 5 August 2018. As well as Julia Michaels, the album also features duets with Lindsay Ell, Shy Carter, and Kassi Ashton. Never Comin’ Down was released to radio as the fourth single in August 2018.


title: Keith Urban

text: On 16 May 2019, Keith Urban released a brand new single, "We Were", a reflective mid-tempo ode to mischievous youth. "I like the idea that life just happens. At some point, whether in the moment or not, you just gotta go with it", he said. The track was co-written by Eric Church. On 24 November 2019, Urban played the halftime show at the Canadian Football League's Grey Cup championship in Calgary. On 27 February 2020, Urban released the single, "God Whispered Your Name" to country radio. The track was co-written by Contemporary Christian artist Chris August. On 24 April, Urban released the single, "Polaroid" to radio in Australia and the United Kingdom.


title: Keith Urban

text: In May 2020, Keith Urban hosted a drive-in concert for medical workers. His latest gig was mostly just him and two other musicians playing on a flatbed truck in front of about 125 cars. Urban played at the Stardust Drive-In movie theatre, about 60 km east of Nashville, Tennessee, for a crowd of more than 200 medical workers from Vanderbilt Health. Later in May 2020, Urban announced his eleventh studio album, "The Speed of Now Part 1", would be released on 18 September 2020. In July 2020, Urban released another promotional single, "Superman", which was released to radio in Australia. He followed that up with "Change Your Mind" in August 2020.


title: Keith Urban

text: In the week prior to the album's release, Urban hosted the rescheduled 55th Academy of Country Music Awards and premiered the third North American single off the album, "One Too Many" with Pink, which would become Urban's first Top 10 all-genre song in his homeland of Australia. In December 2020, Urban was listed at number 29 in "Rolling Stone Australia's "50 Greatest Australian Artists of All Time"" issue. He is a featured artist on Taylor Swift's track "That's When" from "Fearless (Taylor's Version)", Swift's first re-recorded studio album, which was released on 9 April 2021. "That's When" is one of six "from the Vault" tracks that did not make the 2008 album. That year he also collaborated with Amy Shark on "Love Songs Ain't For Us", which also came out 2021.


title: Keith Urban

text: In August 2021, Urban released the single "Wild Hearts", which he followed up with the single "Nightfalls" in March 2022. In July 2022, Urban released the single "Brown Eyes Baby," which was co-written by Morgan Wallen. He is slated to embark on his headlining "The Speed of Now World Tour" in June 2022, with Ingrid Andress as his opening act. In October 2022, he released the single "Street Called Main."


title: Keith Urban

text: On 23 November 2011, Urban was confirmed as one of the four vocal coaches in the Australian version of the reality singing competition "The Voice", alongside Seal, Joel Madden and Delta Goodrem. On 14 September 2012, Urban released a statement that he would not be signing back on for season two and was replaced by Ricky Martin. On 15 December 2020, it was announced that Urban would return to The Voice Australia season 10 for his second season replacing Kelly Rowland, alongside Jessica Mauboy, Guy Sebastian and Rita Ora. All judges returned for the eleventh season in 2022. However, in October 2022, it was announced that Urban would not be returning to the big red chair for the twelfth season in 2023 due to his upcoming tour.


title: Keith Urban

text: The Fox Broadcasting Company officially announced on 16 September 2012 that Urban would replace Steven Tyler as a judge in season 12 of "American Idol" alongside Randy Jackson, Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj. On 1 August 2013, it was officially confirmed that Urban would return as a judge for season 13. He was joined by former judge Jennifer Lopez and newest judge Harry Connick Jr. On 23 June 2014, Fox announced that Urban would return to the judging panel for season 14. Urban returned to judge the 15th season of "American Idol" in 2016.


title: Keith Urban

text: Urban features in the 2020 Australian documentary film "Slim and I", directed by Kriv Stenders, talking about the influence on his life of acclaimed Australian country music husband-and-wife duo Slim Dusty and Joy McKean. The film features interviews and covers of McKean songs by acclaimed contemporary artists including Urban (Lights on the Hill), Missy Higgins, Paul Kelly, and Troy Cassar-Daley.


title: Keith Urban

text: In October 2013, during a concert in Tampa, Florida, Urban announced he would sell 'signature' guitars and accessories through Home Shopping Network (HSN). HSN offered the guitar packages twice in six months, resulting in 42,000 sales.


title: Keith Urban

text: Urban met Australian actress Nicole Kidman at "G'Day LA", a Hollywood event promoting Australia, in January 2005, and they began dating six months later. They married on 25 June 2006 at the Cardinal Cerretti Memorial Chapel in the grounds of St Patrick's Estate, Manly, in Sydney.


title: Keith Urban

text: On 2 February 2007, Urban filed a lawsuit against a New Jersey painter by the same name, who has a website called KeithUrban.com. The singer wanted to acquire the rights to the URL. The painter counter-sued. The lawsuit was settled in the painter's favour.


title: Keith Urban

text: On 7 January 2008, Kidman said she and Urban were expecting their first child together. Kidman's publicist said, "the couple are thrilled and cannot wait". Kidman gave birth to a daughter in 2008 in Nashville, Tennessee. On his website, Urban said:


title: Keith Urban

text: "Earlier this morning Nic gave birth to our beautiful baby girl, Sunday Rose Kidman Urban. We want to thank everybody that has kept us in their thoughts and prayers. We feel very, very blessed and grateful that we can share this joy with all of my loving fans today."


title: Keith Urban

text: In 2010, Urban and Kidman had a second daughter, Faith Margaret Kidman Urban, by surrogate at Nashville's Centennial Women's Hospital.


title: Keith Urban

text: Urban is a citizen of New Zealand, his place of birth, as well as a citizen of both Australia and the United States.


title: Keith Urban

text: Urban has struggled with alcoholism and cocaine addiction in his past. In 1998, he checked into Cumberland Heights, a treatment center in Nashville.


title: Keith Urban

text: On 19 October 2006, Urban checked into the Betty Ford Center in California. On 20 October, he issued a statement saying: "I deeply regret the hurt this has caused Nicole and the ones who love and support me. One can never let one's guard down on recovery, and I'm afraid that I have." On 18 January 2007, Urban announced his completion of rehab and his plans to go on tour to promote his album, "Love, Pain & the Whole Crazy Thing".


title: Keith Urban

text: Urban was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia at the 2020 Australia Day Honours for "distinguished service to the performing arts as a singer and songwriter, and to charitable organisations".


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Stephen Joshua Sondheim (; March 22, 1930November 26, 2021) was an American composer and lyricist. One of the most important figures in twentieth-century musical theater, Sondheim is credited for having "reinvented the American musical" with shows that tackle "unexpected themes that range far beyond the [genre's] traditional subjects" with "music and lyrics of unprecedented complexity and sophistication." His shows address "darker, more harrowing elements of the human experience," with songs often tinged with "ambivalence" about various aspects of life. He was known for his frequent collaborations with Hal Prince and James Lapine on the Broadway stage.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Sondheim's interest in musical theater began at a young age, and he was mentored by Oscar Hammerstein II. He began his career by writing the lyrics for "West Side Story" (1957) and "Gypsy" (1959). He transitioned to writing both music and lyrics for the theater, with his best-known works including "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" (1962), "Company" (1970), "Follies" (1971), "A Little Night Music" (1973), "" (1979), "Merrily We Roll Along" (1981), "Sunday in the Park with George" (1984), and "Into the Woods" (1987).


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Sondheim's numerous awards and nominations include eight Tony Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Tony in 2008), an Academy Award, eight Grammy Awards, a Olivier Award, a Pulitzer Prize, a Kennedy Center Honor, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom. A theater is named after him both on Broadway and in the West End of London. Film adaptations of his works include "West Side Story" (1961), "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" (1966), "" (2007), "Into the Woods" (2014), and "West Side Story" (2021).


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Sondheim was born on March 22, 1930, into a Jewish family in New York City, the son of Etta Janet ("Foxy"; née Fox; 1897–1992) and Herbert Sondheim (1895–1966). His paternal grandparents, Isaac and Rosa, were German Jews and his maternal grandparents, Joseph and Bessie, were Lithuanian Jews from Vilnius. His father manufactured dresses designed by his mother. The composer grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and, after his parents divorced, on a farm near Doylestown, Pennsylvania. As the only child of affluent parents living in the San Remo at 145 Central Park West, he was described in Meryle Secrest's biography ("Stephen Sondheim: A Life") as an isolated, emotionally neglected child. When he lived in New York City, Sondheim attended the Ethical Culture Fieldston School. He spent several summers at Camp Androscoggin. His mother sent him to New York Military Academy in 1940. From 1942 to 1947, he attended George School, a private Quaker preparatory school in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where he wrote his first musical, "By George" in 1946. From 1946 to 1950, Sondheim attended Williams College. He graduated magna cum laude and received the Hubbard Hutchinson Prize, a two-year fellowship to study music.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Sondheim traced his interest in theater to "Very Warm for May", a Broadway musical he saw when he was nine. "The curtain went up and revealed a piano", Sondheim recalled. "A butler took a duster and brushed it up, tinkling the keys. I thought that was thrilling."


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Sondheim detested his mother, who was said to be psychologically abusive and to have projected her anger from her failed marriage onto her son: "When my father left her, she substituted me for him. And she used me the way she used him, to come on to and to berate, beat up on, you see. What she did for five years was treat me like dirt, but come on to me at the same time." She once wrote him a letter saying that the only regret she ever had was giving birth to him. When she died in the spring of 1992, Sondheim did not attend her funeral. He had already been estranged from her for nearly 20 years.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: When Sondheim was about ten years old (around the time of his parents' divorce), he formed a close friendship with James Hammerstein, son of lyricist and playwright Oscar Hammerstein II, who were neighbors in Bucks County. The elder Hammerstein became Sondheim's surrogate father, influencing him profoundly and developing his love of musical theater. Sondheim met Hal Prince, who would later direct many of his shows, at the opening of "South Pacific," Hammerstein's musical with Richard Rodgers. The comic musical he wrote at George School, "By George", was a success among his peers and buoyed the young songwriter's self-esteem. When Sondheim asked Hammerstein to evaluate it as though he had no knowledge of its author, he said it was the worst thing he had ever seen: "But if you want to know why it's terrible, I'll tell you." They spent the rest of the day going over the musical, and Sondheim later said, "In that afternoon I learned more about songwriting and the musical theater than most people learn in a lifetime."


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Hammerstein designed a course of sorts for Sondheim on constructing a musical. He had the young composer write four musicals, each with one of the following conditions:


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: None of the "assignment" musicals were produced professionally. "High Tor" and "Mary Poppins" have never been produced: The rights holder for the original "High Tor" refused permission (though a musical version by Arthur Schwartz was produced for television in 1956), and "Mary Poppins" was unfinished.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: In 1960, Sondheim lost his mentor and father figure when Hammerstein died of stomach cancer on August 23, aged 65. Sondheim later recalled that Hammerstein had given him a portrait of himself. Sondheim asked him to inscribe it, and said later about the request that it was "weird...it's like asking your father to inscribe something." Reading the inscription ("For Stevie, My Friend and Teacher") choked up the composer, who said, "That describes Oscar better than anything I could say."


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Sondheim began attending Williams College, a liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts, whose theater program attracted him. His first teacher there was Robert Barrow:


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: ... everybody hated him because he was very dry, and I thought he was wonderful because he was very dry. And Barrow made me realize that all my romantic views of art were nonsense. I had always thought an angel came down and sat on your shoulder and whispered in your ear 'dah-dah-dah-DUM.' It never occurred to me that art was something worked out. And suddenly it was skies opening up. As soon as you find out what a leading tone is, you think, Oh my God. What a diatonic scale is – Oh my God! The logic of it. And, of course, what that meant to me was: Well, I can do that. Because you just don't know. You think it's a talent, you think you're born with this thing. What I've found out and what I believed is that everybody is talented. It's just that some people get it developed and some don't.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: The composer told Meryle Secrest: "I just wanted to study composition, theory, and harmony without the attendant musicology that comes in graduate school. But I knew I wanted to write for the theatre, so I wanted someone who did not disdain theatre music." Barrow suggested that Sondheim study with Milton Babbitt, whom Sondheim described as "a frustrated show composer" with whom he formed "a perfect combination". When they met, Babbitt was working on a musical for Mary Martin based on the myth of Helen of Troy. The two would meet once a week in New York City for four hours. (At the time, Babbitt was teaching at Princeton University.) According to Sondheim, they spent the first hour dissecting Rodgers and Hart or George Gershwin or studying Babbitt's favorites (Buddy DeSylva, Lew Brown, and Ray Henderson). They then proceeded to other forms of music (such as Mozart's Jupiter Symphony), critiquing them the same way. Babbitt and Sondheim, fascinated by mathematics, studied songs by a variety of composers (especially Jerome Kern). Sondheim told Secrest that Kern had the ability "to develop a single motif through tiny variations into a long and never boring line and his maximum development of the minimum of material". He said about Babbitt, "I am his maverick, his one student who went into the popular arts with all his serious artillery". At Williams, Sondheim wrote a musical adaption of "Beggar on Horseback" (a 1924 play by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly, with permission from Kaufman) which had three performances. A member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity, he graduated "magna cum laude" in 1950.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: "A few painful years of struggle" followed, when Sondheim auditioned songs, lived in his father's dining room to save money, and spent time in Hollywood writing for the television series "Topper". He devoured 1940s and 1950s films, and called cinema his "basic language"; his film knowledge got him through "The $64,000 Question" contestant tryouts. Sondheim disliked movie musicals, favoring classic dramas such as "Citizen Kane", "The Grapes of Wrath", and "A Matter of Life and Death": "Studio directors like Michael Curtiz and Raoul Walsh ... were heroes of mine. They went from movie to movie to movie, and every third movie was good and every fifth movie was great. There wasn't any cultural pressure to make art".


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: At age 22, Sondheim had finished the four shows requested by Hammerstein. Screenwriters Julius and Philip Epstein's "Front Porch in Flatbush", unproduced at the time, was being shopped around by designer and producer Lemuel Ayers. Ayers approached Frank Loesser and another composer who both turned him down. Ayers and Sondheim met as ushers at a wedding, and Ayers commissioned Sondheim for three songs for the show; Julius Epstein flew in from California and hired Sondheim, who worked with him in California for four or five months. After eight auditions for backers, half the money needed was raised. The show, retitled "Saturday Night", was intended to open during the 1954–55 Broadway season; however, Ayers died of leukemia in his early forties. The production rights transferred to his widow, Shirley, and due to her inexperience the show did not continue as planned; it opened off-Broadway in 2000. Sondheim later said, "I don't have any emotional reaction to "Saturday Night" at all – except fondness. It's not bad stuff for a 23-year-old. There are some things that embarrass me so much in the lyrics – the missed accents, the obvious jokes. But I decided, leave it. It's my baby pictures. You don't touch up a baby picture – you're a baby!"


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Burt Shevelove invited Sondheim to a party where Sondheim arrived before him but knew no one else well. He saw a familiar face, Arthur Laurents, who had seen one of the auditions of "Saturday Night", and they began talking. Laurents told him he was working on a musical version of "Romeo and Juliet" with Leonard Bernstein, but they needed a lyricist; Betty Comden and Adolph Green, who were supposed to write the lyrics, were under contract in Hollywood. He said that although he was not a big fan of Sondheim's music, he enjoyed the lyrics from "Saturday Night" and he could audition for Bernstein. The following day, Sondheim met and played for Bernstein, who said he would let him know. Sondheim wanted to write music and lyrics; he consulted with Hammerstein, who said, as Sondheim related in a 2008 "New York Times" video interview, "Look, you have a chance to work with very gifted professionals on a show that sounds interesting, and you could always write your own music eventually. My advice would be to take the job." "West Side Story", directed by Jerome Robbins, opened in 1957 and ran for 732 performances. Sondheim expressed dissatisfaction with his lyrics, saying that they did not always fit the characters and were sometimes too consciously poetic. Initially Bernstein was also credited as a co-writer of the lyrics; later, however, Bernstein offered Sondheim solo credit, as Sondheim had essentially done all of them. "The New York Times" review of the show never even mentioned the lyrics. Sondheim described the division of the royalties, saying that Bernstein received three percent and he received one percent. Bernstein suggested evening the percentage at two percent each, but Sondheim refused because he was satisfied just getting the credit. Sondheim later said he wished "someone stuffed a handkerchief in my mouth because it would have been nice to get that extra percentage".


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: After "West Side Story" opened, Shevelove lamented the lack of "low-brow comedy" on Broadway and mentioned a possible musical based on Plautus' Roman comedies. When Sondheim was interested in the idea he called a friend, Larry Gelbart, to co-write the script. The show went through a number of drafts, and was interrupted briefly by Sondheim's next project.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: In 1959, Sondheim was approached by Laurents and Robbins for a musical version of Gypsy Rose Lee's memoir after Irving Berlin and Cole Porter turned it down. Sondheim agreed, but Ethel Merman – cast as Mama Rose – had just finished "Happy Hunting" with an unknown composer (Harold Karr) and lyricist (Matt Dubey). Although Sondheim wanted to write the music and lyrics, Merman refused to let another first-time composer write for her and demanded that Jule Styne write the music. Sondheim, concerned that writing lyrics again would pigeonhole him as a lyricist, called his mentor for advice. Hammerstein told him he should take the job, because writing a vehicle for a star would be a good learning experience. Sondheim agreed; "Gypsy" opened on May 21, 1959, and ran for 702 performances.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: The first Broadway production for which Sondheim wrote the music and lyrics was "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", which opened in 1962 and ran for 964 performances. The book, based on farces by Plautus, was written by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart. The show won six Tony Awards (including Best Musical) and had the longest Broadway run of any show for which Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Sondheim had participated in three straight hits, but his next show – 1964's "Anyone Can Whistle" – was a nine-performance bomb (although it introduced Angela Lansbury to musical theater).


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: "Do I Hear a Waltz?", based on Arthur Laurents' 1952 play "The Time of the Cuckoo", was intended as another Rodgers and Hammerstein musical with Mary Martin in the lead. A new lyricist was needed, and Laurents and Rodgers' daughter, Mary, asked Sondheim to fill in. Although Richard Rodgers and Sondheim agreed that the original play did not lend itself to musicalization, they began writing the musical version. The project had many difficulties, including Rodgers' alcoholism. Sondheim later called it the one project he ever truly regretted writing, given that the reasons he wrote it -- as a favor to Mary, as a favor to Hammerstein, as an opportunity to work again with Laurents, and as an opportunity to make money -- were all not reasons to write a musical. He then decided to work only when he could write both music and lyrics.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: He asked author and playwright James Goldman to join him as bookwriter for a new musical. Inspired by a "New York Times" article about a gathering of former Ziegfeld Follies showgirls, it was entitled "The Girls Upstairs" (and would later become "Follies").


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: In 1966, Sondheim semi-anonymously provided lyrics for "The Boy From...", a parody of "The Girl from Ipanema" in the off-Broadway revue "The Mad Show". The song was credited to "Esteban Río Nido", Spanish for "Stephen River Nest", and in the show's playbill the lyrics were credited to "Nom De Plume". That year Goldman and Sondheim hit a creative wall on "The Girls Upstairs", and Goldman asked Sondheim about writing a TV musical. The result was "Evening Primrose", with Anthony Perkins and Charmian Carr. Written for the anthology series "ABC Stage 67" and produced by Hubbell Robinson, it was broadcast on November 16, 1966. According to Sondheim and director Paul Bogart, the musical was written only because Goldman needed money for rent. The network disliked the title and Sondheim's alternative, "A Little Night Music".


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: After Sondheim finished "Evening Primrose", Jerome Robbins asked him to adapt Bertolt Brecht's "The Measures Taken" despite the composer's general dislike of Brecht's work. Robbins wanted to adapt another Brecht play, "The Exception and the Rule", and asked John Guare to adapt the book. Leonard Bernstein had not written for the stage in some time, and his contract as conductor of the New York Philharmonic was ending. Sondheim was invited to Robbins' house in the hope that Guare would convince him to write the lyrics for a musical version of "The Exception and the Rule"; according to Robbins, Bernstein would not work without Sondheim. When Sondheim agreed, Guare asked: "Why haven't you all worked together since "West Side Story"?" Sondheim answered, "You'll see". Guare said that working with Sondheim was like being with an old college roommate, and he depended on him to "decode and decipher their crazy way of working"; Bernstein worked only after midnight, and Robbins only in the early morning. Bernstein's score, which was supposed to be light, was influenced by his need to make a musical statement. Stuart Ostrow, who worked with Sondheim on "The Girls Upstairs", agreed to produce the musical (now entitled "A Pray By Blecht" and, later, "The Race to Urga"). An opening night was scheduled, but during auditions Robbins asked to be excused for a moment. When he did not return, a doorman said he had gotten into a limousine to go to John F. Kennedy International Airport. Bernstein burst into tears and said, "It's over". Sondheim later said of this experience: "I was ashamed of the whole project. It was arch and didactic in the worst way." He wrote one-and-a-half songs and threw them away, the only time he ever did that. Eighteen years later, Sondheim refused Bernstein and Robbins' request to retry the show.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Sondheim lived in a Turtle Bay, Manhattan brownstone from his writing of "Gypsy" in 1959. Ten years later, while he was playing music he heard a knock on the door. His neighbor, Katharine Hepburn, was in "bare feet – this angry, red-faced lady" and told him "You have been keeping me awake all night!" (she was practicing for her musical debut in "Coco"). "I remember asking Hepburn why she didn't just call me, but she claimed not to have my phone number. My guess is that she wanted to stand there in her bare feet, suffering for her art".


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: After "Do I Hear a Waltz?", Sondheim devoted himself solely to writing both music and lyrics for the theater – and in 1970, he began a collaboration with director Harold Prince resulting in a body of work that is considered one of the high water marks of musical theater history, with critic Howard Kissel writing that the duo had set "Broadway's highest standards".


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: The first Sondheim show with Prince as director was 1970's "Company". A show about a single man and his married friends, "Company" (with a book by George Furth) lacked a straightforward plot, and was instead centered around themes such as marriage and the difficulty of making an emotional connection with another person. It opened on April 26, 1970, at the Alvin Theatre, running for 705 performances after seven previews, and won Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Music, and Best Lyrics. "Company" was revived on Broadway in 1995, 2006, and 2020/2021 (the last revival began previews in March 2020, but shut down until November 2021 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic; in this revival, the main character was gender-swapped).


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: "Follies" (1971), with a book by James Goldman, opened on April 4, 1971, at the Winter Garden Theatre and ran for 522 performances after 12 previews. The plot centers on a reunion, in a crumbling Broadway theater scheduled for demolition, of performers in "Weismann's" "Follies" (a musical revue, based on the "Ziegfeld Follies", which played in that theater between the world wars). The production also featured choreography and co-direction by Michael Bennett"," who later created "A Chorus Line" (1975). The show was revived on Broadway in 2001 and 2011.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: "A Little Night Music" (1973), with a more traditional plot based on Ingmar Bergman's "Smiles of a Summer Night" and a score primarily in waltz time, was among the composer's greatest commercial successes. "Time" magazine called it "Sondheim's most brilliant accomplishment to date". "Send in the Clowns", a song from the musical, was a hit for Judy Collins and became Sondheim's best-known song. The show opened on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre on February 25, 1973, and ran for 601 performances and 12 previews. It was revived on Broadway in 2009.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: "Pacific Overtures" (1976), with a book by John Weidman, was one of Sondheim's most unconventional efforts: it explored the westernization of Japan, and was originally presented in a mock-Kabuki style. The show closed after a run of 193 performances, and was revived on Broadway in 2004.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: "" (1979), with a score by Sondheim and a book by Hugh Wheeler, is based on Christopher Bond's 1973 stage play derived from the Victorian original. It was revived on Broadway in 1989 and 2005; there will be a Broadway revival at the Lunt-Fontaine Theatre in the spring of 2023, with previews beginning in February, and officially opening in March.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: "Merrily We Roll Along" (1981), with a book by George Furth, is one of Sondheim's more traditional scores; songs from the musical were recorded by Frank Sinatra and Carly Simon. According to Sondheim's music director, Paul Gemignani, "Part of Steve's ability is this extraordinary versatility". However, the show was not the success their previous collaborations had been: after a chaotic series of preview performances, the show opened to widely negative reviews, and closed after a run of less than two weeks. Due to the high quality of Sondheim's score, however, the show has been repeatedly revised and produced in the ensuing years. Martin Gottfried wrote, "Sondheim had set out to write traditional songs ... But [despite] that there is nothing ordinary about the music." Sondheim later said: "Did I feel betrayed? I'm not sure I would put it like that. What did surprise me was the feeling around the Broadway community – if you can call it that, though I guess I will for lack of a better word – that they wanted Hal and me to fail." An acclaimed feature documentary on the show and its aftermath, "Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened", directed by "Merrily" cast member Lonny Price, and produced by Bruce David Klein, Kitt Lavoie, and Ted Schillinger premiered at the New York Film Festival on November 18, 2016. A film adaptation of "Merrily We Roll Along", directed by Richard Linklater, began production in 2019 and is expected to continue periodically over the following two decades, to allow the actors to age in real time. There will be an Off-Broadway revival that is scheduled to run between November 2022 and January 2023 at the New York Theatre Workshop.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: "Merrily"s failure greatly affected Sondheim; he was ready to quit theater and do movies, create video games or write mysteries: "I wanted to find something to satisfy myself that does not involve Broadway and dealing with all those people who hate me and hate Hal." Following "Merrily", Sondheim and Prince did not collaborate again until their 2003 production of "Bounce".


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: However, Sondheim decided "that there are better places to start a show" and found a new collaborator in James Lapine after he saw Lapine's "Twelve Dreams" off-Broadway in 1981: "I was discouraged, and I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't discovered "Twelve Dreams" at the Public Theatre"; Lapine has a taste "for the avant-garde and for visually-oriented theatre in particular". Their first collaboration was "Sunday in the Park with George" (1984), with Sondheim's music evoking Georges Seurat's pointillism. Sondheim and Lapine won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the play, and it was revived on Broadway in 2008, and again in a limited run in 2017.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: They collaborated on "Into the Woods" (1987), a musical based on several Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Although Sondheim has been called the first composer to bring rap music to Broadway (with the Witch in the opening number of "Into the Woods"), he attributed the first rap in theater to Meredith Willson's "Rock Island" from "The Music Man" (1957). "Into the Woods" was revived on Broadway in 2002, and at the St. James Theatre in 2022.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Sondheim and Lapine's last collaboration on a musical was the rhapsodic "Passion" (1994), adapted from Ettore Scola's Italian film "Passione D'Amore". With a run of 280 performances, "Passion" was the shortest-running show to win a Tony Award for Best Musical.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: In 2013, Lapine directed the HBO feature-length documentary "Six by Sondheim", which he executive produced with former "New York Times" theater critic Frank Rich, an old friend and longtime champion of Sondheim's work. Sondheim himself acts and sings in the documentary as Joe, the cynical theater producer in the song "Opening Doors".


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: "Assassins" opened off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on December 18, 1990, with a book by John Weidman. The show explored, in revue form, a group of historical figures who tried (either with success or without) to assassinate the President of the United States. The musical closed on February 16, 1991, after 73 performances. The "Los Angeles Times" reported the show "has been sold out since previews began, reflecting the strong appeal of Sondheim's work among the theater crowd." Frank Rich in his review for "The New York Times" wrote that ""Assassins" will have to fire with sharper aim and fewer blanks if it is to shoot to kill." "Assassins" eventually had a Broadway run in 2004.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: "Saturday Night" was shelved until its 1997 production at London's Bridewell Theatre. The following year, its score was recorded; a revised version, with two new songs, ran off-Broadway at Second Stage Theatre in 2000 and at London's Jermyn Street Theatre in 2009.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: During the late 1990s, Sondheim and Weidman reunited for "Wise Guys", a musical comedy based on the lives of colorful businessmen Addison and Wilson Mizner. A Broadway production, starring Nathan Lane and Victor Garber, directed by Sam Mendes and planned for the spring of 2000, was delayed. Renamed "Bounce" in 2003, it was produced at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in a production directed by Harold Prince, his first collaboration with Sondheim since 1981. Although after poor reviews "Bounce" never reached Broadway, a revised version opened off-Broadway as "Road Show" at the Public Theater on October 28, 2008. Directed by John Doyle, it closed December 28, 2008. The production won the 2009 Obie Award for Music and Lyrics, and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Asked about writing new work, Sondheim replied in 2006: "No ... It's age. It's a diminution of energy and the worry that there are no new ideas. It's also an increasing lack of confidence. I'm not the only one. I've checked with other people. People expect more of you and you're aware of it and you shouldn't be." In December 2007, he said that in addition to continuing work on "Bounce", he was "nibbling at a couple of things with John Weidman and James Lapine".


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Lapine created a multimedia production, originally entitled "Sondheim: a Musical Revue", which was scheduled to open in April 2009 at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta; however, it was canceled due to "difficulties encountered by the commercial producers attached to the project ... in raising the necessary funds". A revised version, "Sondheim on Sondheim", was produced at Studio 54 by the Roundabout Theatre Company; previews began on March 19, 2010, and it ran from April 22 to June 13. The revue's cast included Barbara Cook, Vanessa L. Williams, Tom Wopat, Norm Lewis, and Leslie Kritzer.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Sondheim collaborated with Wynton Marsalis on "A Bed and a Chair: A New York Love Affair", an Encores! concert on November 13–17, 2013 at New York City Center. Directed by John Doyle with choreography by Parker Esse, it consisted of "more than two dozen Sondheim compositions, each piece newly re-imagined by Marsalis". The concert featured Bernadette Peters, Jeremy Jordan, Norm Lewis, Cyrille Aimée, four dancers and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra conducted by David Loud. In "Playbill", Steven Suskin described the concert as "neither a new musical, a revival, nor a standard songbook revue; it is, rather, a staged-and-sung chamber jazz rendition of a string of songs ... Half of the songs come from "Company" and "Follies"; most of the other Sondheim musicals are represented, including the lesser-known "Passion" and "Road Show"".


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: For the 2014 film adaptation of "Into the Woods", Sondheim wrote the new song "She'll Be Back", sung by The Witch, which was eventually cut from the film.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: In February 2012, it was announced that Sondheim would collaborate on a new musical with David Ives, and he had "about 20–30 minutes of the musical completed". The show, tentatively called "All Together Now", was assumed to follow the format of "Merrily We Roll Along". Sondheim described the project as "two people and what goes into their relationship ... We'll write for a couple of months, then have a workshop. It seemed experimental and fresh 20 years ago. I have a feeling it may not be experimental and fresh any more". On October 11, 2014, it was confirmed the Sondheim and Ives musical would be based on two Luis Buñuel films ("The Exterminating Angel" and "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie") and would reportedly open (in previews) at the Public Theater in 2017. In August 2016, a reading for the musical was held at the Public Theater, and it was reported that only the first act was finished, which cast doubt on the speculated 2017 start of previews. There was a workshop in November 2016, with the participation of Matthew Morrison, Shuler Hensley, Heidi Blickenstaff, Sierra Boggess, Gabriel Ebert, Sarah Stiles, Michael Cerveris, and Jennifer Simard. The working title was reported to be "Buñuel" by the "New York Post" and other outlets, but Sondheim later clarified that they still had no title. In June 2019, the Public Theatre denied reports that it would be part of its 2019–2020 season, as it was still in development, but would be produced "when it is ready". On April 27, 2021, it was reported that the musical was no longer in development. While appearing on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" on September 15, 2021, Sondheim announced he was working on a new musical called "Square One" in collaboration with Ives. The same day, Nathan Lane revealed that he and Bernadette Peters were involved in a reading of this new work. In Sondheim's final interview before his death, he confirmed that "Square One" was adapted from the Buñuel films. Sondheim makes a posthumous cameo appearance as himself in the 2022 Netflix film "".


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: The Kennedy Center staged a 15-week repertory festival of six Sondheim musicals—"Sweeney Todd", "Company", "Sunday in the Park with George", "Merrily We Roll Along", "Passion", and "A Little Night Music"—from May to August 2002. The Kennedy Center Sondheim Celebration also included "Pacific Overtures", a junior version of "Into the Woods", and Frank Rich of "The New York Times" speaking with the composer for "Sondheim on Sondheim" on April 28, 2002. The two men took their discussion, dubbed "A Little Night Conversation with Stephen Sondheim", on a West Coast tour of different U.S. cities including Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Portland, Oregon in March 2008, then to Oberlin College in September. The "Cleveland Jewish News" reported on their Oberlin appearance: "Sondheim said: 'Movies are photographs; the stage is larger than life.' What musicals does Sondheim admire the most? "Porgy and Bess" tops a list which includes "Carousel", "She Loves Me", and "The Wiz", which he saw six times. Sondheim took a dim view of today's musicals. What works now, he said, are musicals that are easy to take; audiences don't want to be challenged". Sondheim and Rich had additional conversations: January 18, 2009, at Avery Fisher Hall; February 2 at the Landmark Theatre in Richmond, Virginia; February 21 at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia; and April 20 at the University of Akron in Ohio. The conversations were reprised at Tufts and Brown University in February 2010, at the University of Tulsa in April, and at Lafayette College in March 2011. Sondheim had another "conversation with" Sean Patrick Flahaven (associate editor of "The Sondheim Review") at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach on February 4, 2009, in which he discussed many of his songs and shows: "On the perennial struggles of Broadway: 'I don't see any solution for Broadway's problems except subsidized theatre, as in most civilized countries of the world.'"


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: On February 1, 2011, Sondheim joined former "Salt Lake Tribune" theater critic Nancy Melich before an audience of 1,200 at Kingsbury Hall. Melich described the evening:


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: He was visibly taken by the university choir, who sang two songs during the evening, "Children Will Listen" and "Sunday", and then returned to reprise "Sunday". During that final moment, Sondheim and I were standing, facing the choir of students from the University of Utah's opera program, our backs to the audience, and I could see tears welling in his eyes as the voices rang out. Then, all of a sudden, he raised his arms and began conducting, urging the student singers to go full out, which they did, the crescendo building, their eyes locked with his, until the final "on an ordinary Sunday" was sung. It was thrilling, and a perfect conclusion to a remarkable evening – nothing ordinary about it.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: On March 13, 2008, "A Salon With Stephen Sondheim" (which sold out in three minutes) was hosted by the Academy for New Musical Theatre in Hollywood.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Sondheim was an avid fan of puzzles and games. He is credited with introducing cryptic crosswords, a British invention, to American audiences through a series of cryptic crossword puzzles he created for "New York" magazine in 1968 and 1969. In 1987 "Time" called his love of puzzlemaking "legendary in theater circles", adding that the central character of Anthony Shaffer's play "Sleuth" was inspired by the composer. According to a rumor (denied by Shaffer in a March 10, 1996 "New York Times" interview), "Sleuth" had the working title "Who's Afraid of Stephen Sondheim?" Sondheim's love of puzzles and mysteries is evident in "The Last of Sheila", an intricate whodunit written with longtime friend Anthony Perkins. The 1973 film, directed by Herbert Ross, featured Dyan Cannon, Joan Hackett, Raquel Welch, James Mason, James Coburn, Ian McShane, and Richard Benjamin.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Sondheim also wrote occasional music for film: most notably, he contributed five songs to Warren Beatty's 1990 film "Dick Tracy", including the ballad "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)", sung in the film by Madonna, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. He also contributed to "Reds" (1981) (both to the score, and with the song "Goodbye for Now"), "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution" (1976) ("The Madam's Song", later recorded as "I Never Do Anything Twice"), "Stavisky" (1974) (writing the score), and "The Birdcage" (1996) ("Little Dream", and the eventually-cut "It Takes All Kinds"). For the 2014 movie adaptation of "Into the Woods", Sondheim wrote a new song for the character of The Witch (played by Meryl Streep) entitled "She'll Be Back", which was eventually cut from the film.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Sondheim collaborated with "Company" librettist George Furth to write the play "Getting Away with Murder" in 1996, though the Broadway production closed after 31 previews and only 17 performances.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: After he was mentored by Oscar Hammerstein II Sondheim returned the favor, saying that he loved "passing on what Oscar passed on to me". In an interview with Sondheim for "The Legacy Project", composer-lyricist Adam Guettel (son of Mary Rodgers and grandson of Richard Rodgers) recalled how as a 14-year-old boy he showed Sondheim his work. Guettel was "crestfallen" since he had come in "sort of all puffed up thinking [he] would be rained with compliments and things", which was not the case since Sondheim had some "very direct things to say". Later, Sondheim wrote and apologized to Guettel for being "not very encouraging" when he was actually trying to be "constructive".


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Sondheim also mentored a fledgling Jonathan Larson, attending Larson's workshop for his "Superbia" (originally an adaptation of "Nineteen Eighty-Four"). In Larson's musical "Tick, Tick... Boom!", the phone message is played in which Sondheim apologizes for leaving early, says he wants to meet him and is impressed with his work. After Larson's death, Sondheim called him one of the few composers "attempting to blend contemporary pop music with theater music, which doesn't work very well; he was on his way to finding a real synthesis. A good deal of pop music has interesting lyrics, but they are not theater lyrics". A musical-theatre composer "must have a sense of what is theatrical, of how you use music to tell a story, as opposed to writing a song. Jonathan understood that instinctively."


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Around 2008, Sondheim approached Lin-Manuel Miranda to work with him translating "West Side Story" lyrics into Spanish for an upcoming Broadway revival. Miranda then approached Sondheim with his new project "Hamilton", then called "The Hamilton Mixtape", which Sondheim gave notes on. Sondheim was originally wary of the project saying he was "worried that an evening of rap might get monotonous". However, Sondheim believed Miranda's attention to, and respect for, good rhyming made it work.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Sondheim provided a voice cameo for the 2021 film adaptation of "Tick, Tick... Boom!", directed by Miranda, for the scene in which a fictionalized version of himself leaves a phone message. Sondheim worked on a revised text of the message and voiced it himself after Bradley Whitford, who portrays him, was unavailable to re-record the line.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: A supporter of writers' rights in the theater industry, Sondheim was an active member of the Dramatists Guild of America. In 1973, he was elected as the Guild's sixteenth president, and he continued his presidency of the non-profit organization until 1981.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: According to Sondheim, he was asked to translate "Mahagonny-Songspiel": "But, I'm not a Brecht/Weill fan and that's really all there is to it. I'm an apostate: I like Weill's music when he came to America better than I do his stuff before ... I love "The Threepenny Opera" but, outside of "The Threepenny Opera", the music of his I like is the stuff he wrote in America – when he was not writing with Brecht, when he was writing for Broadway." He turned down an offer to musicalize Nathanael West's "A Cool Million" with James Lapine around 1982.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Around 1960, Sondheim and Burt Shevelove considered making a musical of the film "Sunset Boulevard", and had sketched out the opening scenes when they approached the film's director Billy Wilder at a cocktail party on the possibility. Wilder rejected the idea, believing the story was more suited to opera than musical theater. Sondheim agreed, and resisted a later offer from Hal Prince and Hugh Wheeler to create a musical version starring Angela Lansbury. This occurred several years before a musical version was produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein wrote "The Race to Urga", scheduled for Lincoln Center in 1969, but when Jerome Robbins left the project it was not produced.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: After writing "The Last of Sheila" together, Sondheim and Anthony Perkins then went on to try to collaborate again two more times, but the projects were ultimately unrealized. In 1975, Tony Perkins said he and Sondheim were working on another script, "The Chorus Girl Murder Case". "It's a sort of stew based on all those Bob Hope wartime comedies, plus a little "Lady of Burlesque" and a little Orson Welles magic show, all cooked into a "Last of Sheila"-type plot", said Perkins. He later said other inspirations were "They Got Me Covered", "The Ipcress File", and "Cloak and Dagger". They had sold the synopsis in October 1974. At one point, Michael Bennett was to direct, with Tommy Tune to star. In November 1979, Sondheim said they had finished it. However, the film was never made. In the 1980s, Perkins and Sondheim collaborated on another project, the seven part "Crime and Variations" for Motown Productions. In October 1984 they had submitted a treatment to Motown. It was a 75-page treatment set in the New York socialite world about a crime puzzle – another writer was to write the script. It, too, was never made.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: In 1991, Sondheim worked with Terrence McNally on a musical, "All Together Now". McNally said, "Steve was interested in telling the story of a relationship from the present back to the moment when the couple first met. We worked together a while, but we were both involved with so many other projects that this one fell through". The story follows Arden Scott, a 30-something female sculptor, and Daniel Nevin, a slightly-younger, sexually attractive restaurateur. Its script, with concept notes by McNally and Sondheim, is archived in the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Sondheim worked with William Goldman on "Singing Out Loud", a musical film, in 1992, penning the song "Water Under the Bridge". According to the composer, Goldman wrote one or two drafts of the script and Sondheim wrote six-and-a-half songs when director Rob Reiner lost interest in the project. "Dawn" and "Sand", from the film, were recorded for the albums "Sondheim at the Movies" and "Unsung Sondheim".


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: In August 2003, Sondheim expressed interest in the idea of creating a musical adaptation of the 1993 comedy film "Groundhog Day". However, in a 2008 live chat, he said that "to make a musical of "Groundhog Day" would be to gild the lily. It cannot be improved." The musical was later created and premiered in 2016 with music and lyrics by Tim Minchin and book by Danny Rubin (screenwriter of the film) with Sondheim's blessing.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Nathan Lane mentioned that he once approached Sondheim on the possibility of creating a musical based on the film "Being There" with Lane starring as the central character of Chance. Sondheim declined on the basis that the central character is essentially a cipher, whom an audience would not accept expressing himself through song.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Over Sondheim's prolific career in stage and film, he received an Academy Award, 8 Tony Awards, and 8 Grammy Awards. He also received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for "Sunday in the Park with George" (1985, shared with James Lapine) and was honored with the Kennedy Center Honors, Lifetime Achievement (1993). He received the Hutchinson Prize for Music Composition (1950) and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1983). He was also awarded the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member James Earl Jones (2005), the Algur H. Meadows Award from Southern Methodist University (1994), a Special Laurence Olivier Award (2011) "in recognition of his contribution to London theatre", and a Critics' Circle Theatre Award (March 2012), which according to drama section chair Mark Shenton "is effectively a lifetime achievement award." He became a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame (2014). In 2013, Sondheim was awarded The Edward MacDowell Medal by The MacDowell Colony for outstanding contributions to American culture In November 2015, Sondheim was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in a ceremony at the White House.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Sondheim founded Young Playwrights Inc. in 1981 to introduce young people to writing for the theater, and was the organization's executive vice-president. The Stephen Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts, at the Fairfield Arts and Convention Center in Fairfield, Iowa, opened in December 2007 with performances by Len Cariou, Liz Callaway, and Richard Kind (all of whom had participated in Sondheim musicals).


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: The Stephen Sondheim Society was established in 1993 to provide information about his work, with its "Sondheim – the Magazine" provided to its membership. The society maintains a database, organizes productions, meetings, outings, and other events, and assists with publicity. Its annual Student Performer of the Year Competition awards a £1,000 prize to one of twelve musical-theatre students from UK drama schools and universities. At Sondheim's request, an additional prize is offered for a new song by a young composer. Judged by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, each contestant performs a Sondheim song and a new song.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Most episode titles of the television series "Desperate Housewives" refer to Sondheim's song titles or lyrics, and the series finale is entitled "Finishing the Hat". In 1990, Sondheim, as the Cameron Mackintosh chair in musical theater at Oxford, conducted workshops with promising musical writers including George Stiles, Anthony Drewe, Andrew Peggie, Paul James, Kit Hesketh-Harvey, and Stephen Keeling. The writers founded the Mercury Workshop in 1992, which merged with the New Musicals Alliance to become MMD (a UK-based organization to develop new musical theater, of which Sondheim was a patron).


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia established its Sondheim Award, which includes a $5,000 donation to a nonprofit organization of the recipient's choice, "as a tribute to America's most influential contemporary musical theatre composer". The first award, to Sondheim, was presented at an April 27, 2009, benefit with performances by Bernadette Peters, Michael Cerveris, Will Gartshore, and Eleasha Gamble. The 2010 recipient was Angela Lansbury, with Peters and Catherine Zeta-Jones hosting the April benefit. The 2011 honoree was Bernadette Peters. Other recipients were Patti LuPone in 2012, Hal Prince in 2013, Jonathan Tunick in 2014, and James Lapine in 2015. The 2016 awardee was John Weidman and the 2017 awardee was Cameron Mackintosh.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Henry Miller's Theatre, on West 43rd Street in New York City, was renamed the Stephen Sondheim Theatre on September 15, 2010, for the composer's 80th birthday. In attendance were Nathan Lane, Patti LuPone, and John Weidman. Sondheim said in response to the honor, "I'm deeply embarrassed. Thrilled, but deeply embarrassed. I've always hated my last name. It just doesn't sing. I mean, it's not Belasco. And it's not Rodgers and it's not Simon. And it's not Wilson. It just doesn't sing. It sings better than Schoenfeld and Jacobs. But it just doesn't sing". Lane said, "We love our corporate sponsors and we love their money, but there's something sacred about naming a theatre, and there's something about this that is right and just".


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: In 2010, "The Daily Telegraph" wrote that Sondheim was "almost certainly" the only living composer with a quarterly journal published in his name; "The Sondheim Review", founded in 1994, chronicled and promoted his work. It ceased publication in 2016.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: In 2019, it was observed in the media that three major films of that year prominently featured Sondheim songs: "Joker" (Wall Street businessmen sing "Send In the Clowns" on the subway), "Marriage Story" (Adam Driver sings the song "Being Alive", Scarlett Johansson, Merritt Wever, and Julie Hagerty sing "You Can Drive a Person Crazy"), and "Knives Out" (Daniel Craig sings "Losing My Mind" in the car). Sondheim's work is also referenced in television such as "The Morning Show", where Jennifer Aniston and Billy Crudup sing "Not While I'm Around".


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Several benefits and concerts were performed to celebrate Sondheim's 80th birthday in 2010. Among them were the New York Philharmonic's March 15 and 16 "Sondheim: The Birthday Concert" at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, hosted by David Hyde Pierce. The concert included Sondheim's music, performed by some of the original performers. Lonny Price directed, and Paul Gemignani conducted; performers included Laura Benanti, Matt Cavenaugh, Michael Cerveris, Victoria Clark, Jenn Colella, Jason Danieley, Alexander Gemignani, Joanna Gleason, Nathan Gunn, George Hearn, Patti LuPone, Marin Mazzie, Audra McDonald, John McMartin, Donna Murphy, Karen Olivo, Laura Osnes, Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Bobby Steggert, Elaine Stritch, Jim Walton, Chip Zien, and the 2009 Broadway revival cast of "West Side Story". A ballet was performed by Blaine Hoven and María Noel Riccetto to Sondheim's score for "Reds", and Jonathan Tunick paid tribute to his longtime collaborator. The concert was broadcast on PBS' "Great Performances" show in November, and its DVD was released on November 16.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: "Sondheim 80", a Roundabout Theatre Company benefit, was held on March 22. The evening included a performance of "Sondheim on Sondheim", dinner and a show at the New York Sheraton. "A very personal star-studded musical tribute" featured new songs by contemporary musical-theatre writers. The composers (who sang their own songs) included Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, Michael John LaChiusa, Andrew Lippa, Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Lin-Manuel Miranda (accompanied by Rita Moreno), Duncan Sheik, and Jeanine Tesori and David Lindsay-Abaire. Bernadette Peters performed a song which had been cut from a Sondheim show.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: An April 26 New York City Center birthday celebration and concert to benefit Young Playwrights, among others, featured (in order of appearance) Michael Cerveris, Alexander Gemignani, Donna Murphy, Debra Monk, Joanna Gleason, Maria Friedman, Mark Jacoby, Len Cariou, BD Wong, Claybourne Elder, Alexander Hanson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Raúl Esparza, Sutton Foster, Nathan Lane, Michele Pawk, the original cast of "Into the Woods", Kim Crosby, Chip Zien, Danielle Ferland, and Ben Wright, Angela Lansbury, and Jim Walton. The concert, directed by John Doyle, was co-hosted by Mia Farrow; greetings from Sheila Hancock, Julia McKenzie, Milton Babbitt, Judi Dench, and Glynis Johns were read. After Catherine Zeta-Jones performed "Send in the Clowns", Julie Andrews sang part of "Not a Day Goes By" in a recorded greeting. Although Patti LuPone, Barbara Cook, Bernadette Peters, Tom Aldredge, and Victor Garber were originally scheduled to perform, they did not appear.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: A July 31 BBC Proms concert celebrated Sondheim's 80th birthday at the Royal Albert Hall. The concert featured songs from many of his musicals, including "Send in the Clowns" sung by Judi Dench (reprising her role as Desirée in the 1995 production of "A Little Night Music"), and performances by Bryn Terfel and Maria Friedman.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: On November 19 the New York Pops, led by Steven Reineke, performed at Carnegie Hall for the composer's 80th birthday. Kate Baldwin, Aaron Lazar, Christiane Noll, Paul Betz, Renee Rakelle, Marilyn Maye (singing "I'm Still Here"), and Alexander Gemignani appeared, and songs included "I Remember", "Another Hundred People", "Children Will Listen", and "Getting Married Today". Sondheim took the stage during an encore of his song, "Old Friends".


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: To honor Sondheim's 90th birthday, "The New York Times" published a special nine-page Theater supplement on March 15, 2020, featuring comments by "Critics, Performers and Fans on the Bard of Broadway." Due to theater closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Broadway revival of "Company" set to open March 22, 2020, Sondheim's 90th birthday, was ultimately delayed. However, the virtual concert "" was livestreamed on the Broadway.com YouTube channel on April 26. Participants in the event included Lin-Manuel Miranda, Steven Spielberg, Meryl Streep, Nathan Lane, Mandy Patinkin, Victor Garber, Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone, Neil Patrick Harris, Jake Gyllenhaal, Christine Baranski, Sutton Foster, Josh Groban, Ben Platt, Brandon Uranowitz, Katrina Lenk, Kelli O'Hara, Jason Alexander, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Beanie Feldstein, Audra McDonald, Laura Benanti, and Raúl Esparza. After New York City theaters eventually reopened in 2021, Sondheim attended revivals of two of his musicals: the opening night of "Assassins" at the Classic Stage Company on November 14, and the first post-shutdown preview of "Company" at the Jacobs Theatre on November 15.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: According to Sondheim, when he asked Milton Babbitt if he could study atonality, Babbitt replied: "You haven't exhausted tonal resources for yourself yet, so I'm not going to teach you atonal". Music critic Anthony Tommasini wrote that Sondheim's work, "while hewing to a tonal musical language, activated harmonies and folded elements of jazz and Impressionist styles in his own distinctive, exhilarating voice."


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: He is known for complex polyphony in his vocals, such as the five minor characters who make up a Greek chorus in 1973's "A Little Night Music". Sondheim used angular harmonies and intricate melodies. His musical influences were varied; although he said that he "loves Bach", his favorite musical period was from Brahms to Stravinsky.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Raymond-Jean Frontain writes that thematically, Sondheim's musicals occupy a paradoxical place in gay culture, describing him as a gay creative artist who never created an explicitly gay character, but nevertheless attained gay cult status. Frontain continues:


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: He incarnates the paradox of a highly intellectualized gay perspective that prizes ambivalence, undercuts traditional American progressivism, and rejects the musical's historically idealistic view of sex, romance, and the family; but that at the same time eschews camp, deconstructs the diva, and is apparently oblivious to AIDS, the post-Stonewall struggle for civil equality, and other socio-political issues that concern most gay men of his generation.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Luca Prono described Sondheim's work as rejecting the traditional image of the Western world typically presented in Broadway productions, and instead depicting it as "predatory and alienating". His works have acquired a cult following with queer audiences, and his songs have been adopted as life scores for successive generations of gays, and have often had a primary role in AIDS fundraising events. "Somewhere" from "West Side Story" was informally adopted as a gay anthem before the start of the gay liberation movement, but Sondheim rejected that reading, saying, "If you think that's a gay song, then all songs about getting away from the realities of life are gay songs."


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: I'm interested in the theater because I'm interested in communication with audiences," [...] "Otherwise I would be in concert music. I'd be in another kind of profession. I love the theater as much as music, and the whole idea of getting across to an audience and making them laugh, making them cry – just making them feel – is paramount to me."


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Matt Zoller Seitz characterized Sondheim's work for its bravery to express the truth, in all its complexity: "compassionately but without sugarcoating anything," devoid of the "easy reassurances and neat resolutions" typically demanded in the marketplace.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Sondheim was often described as introverted and solitary. In an interview with Frank Rich, he said: "The outsider feeling—somebody who people want to both kiss and kill—occurred quite early in my life". Sondheim jokingly told the "New York Times" in 1966: "I've never found anybody I could work with as quickly as myself, or with less argument", although he described himself as "naturally a collaborative animal".


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Sondheim opened up about being gay when he was about 40. He rarely discussed his personal life, though he said in 2013 that he had not been in love before he turned 60, when he entered into a roughly eight-year relationship with dramatist Peter Jones. Sondheim married Jeffrey Scott Romley, a digital technologist, in 2017; they lived in Manhattan and Roxbury, Connecticut.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: In 2010–2011, Sondheim published, in two volumes, his autobiography, "Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954–1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes" and "Look, I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981–2011) with Attendant Comments, Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Digressions, Anecdotes and Miscellany". The memoir included Sondheim's lyrical declaration of principle, stating that four principles underpinned "everything I've ever written". These were: "Content Dictates Form, Less is More, God is in the Details – all in the service of Clarity."


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: In "Six by Sondheim", James Lapine's 2013 documentary film about the creative process, Sondheim revealed that he liked to write his music lying down and would occasionally have a cocktail to help him write.


title: Stephen Sondheim

text: Sondheim died of cardiovascular disease at his home in Roxbury, on November 26, 2021, at the age of 91. Collaborator and friend Jeremy Sams said Sondheim "died in the arms of his husband Jeff". On December 8, 2021, Broadway theaters dimmed their marquee lights for one minute as a tribute. Beneficiaries of the trust managing Sondheim's estate included the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress, and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.


title: Lesotho

text: Lesotho ( ), officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a country landlocked as an enclave in South Africa. It is situated in the Maloti Mountains and contains the highest mountains in Southern Africa. It has an area of over and has a population of about /1e6 round 0 million.


title: Lesotho

text: It was previously the British Crown colony of Basutoland, which declared independence from the United Kingdom on 4 October 1966. It is a fully sovereign state and is a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the African Union, and the Southern African Development Community. The name "Lesotho" roughly translates to "land of the Sotho".


title: Lesotho

text: Basutoland emerged as a single polity under King Moshoeshoe I in 1822. Moshoeshoe, a son of Mokhachane, a minor chief of the Bakoteli lineage, formed his own clan and became a chief around 1804. Between 1820 and 1823, he and his followers settled at the Butha-Buthe Mountain, joining with former adversaries in resistance against the Lifaqane associated with the reign of Shaka Zulu from 1818 to 1828.


title: Lesotho

text: Further evolution of the state emerged from conflicts between British and Dutch colonists leaving the Cape Colony following its seizure from the French-allied Dutch by the British in 1795, and also from the Orange River Sovereignty and subsequent Orange Free State. Missionaries Thomas Arbousset, Eugène Casalis and Constant Gosselin from the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society, invited by Moshoeshoe I, were placed at Morija, developing Sesotho orthography and printed works in the Sesotho language between 1837 and 1855. Casalis, acting as translator and providing advice on foreign affairs, helped set up diplomatic channels and acquire guns for use against the encroaching Europeans and the Griqua people.


title: Lesotho

text: Trekboers from Cape Colony arrived on the western borders of Basutoland and claimed rights to its land, the first of which being Jan de Winnaar who settled in the Matlakeng area in 1838. Incoming Boers attempted to colonise the land between the two rivers and north of the Caledon, claiming that it had been abandoned by the Sotho people. Moshoeshoe subsequently signed a treaty with the British Governor of the Cape Colony, Sir George Thomas Napier, that annexed the Orange River Sovereignty where Boers had settled. These outraged Boers were suppressed in a skirmish in 1848. In 1851, a British force was defeated by the Basotho army at Kolonyama. After repelling another British attack in 1852, Moshoeshoe sent an appeal to the British commander that settled the dispute diplomatically, and then defeated the Batlokoa in 1853. In 1854, the British pulled out of the region, and in 1858, Moshoeshoe fought a series of wars with the Boers in what is known as the Free State–Basotho War. As a result, Moshoeshoe lost a portion of the western lowlands. The last war with the Boers ended in 1867 when Moshoeshoe appealed to Queen Victoria who agreed to make Basutoland a British protectorate in 1868.