Other productions included 'Anyone Can Whistle,' which opened on Apand closed a week later 'Do I Hear a Waltz?' with composer Richard Rodgers 'Assassins,' a revue telling the stories of successful or attempted presidential assassins 'Passion' a story of obsessive love adapted from an 1869 Italian novel and 'Road Show' (a.k.a. 'Into the Woods' presented a fresh take on traditional fairy tales and their unexpected outcomes. Though 'Merrily We Roll Along,' a story of friends told going backwards in time, would prove a difficult show (it was retooled and re-staged several times), Sondheim followed with 'Sunday in the Park With George,' a study of the creative process, told through the works of Impressionist artist Georges Seurat and his great-grandson, also an artist. Things are being done somewhere out thereД«eginning in the 1970s, Sondheim teamed with director Hal Prince on some of his most innovative shows, including 'Follies,' 'A Little Night Music,' and 'Sweeney Todd,' the grimly delicious tale of a murderous barber seeking revenge, and the meat pie baker who helpfully disposes of his victims. (The show was inspired by an Ingmar Bergman film, 'Smiles of a Summer Night.') And in the kabuki-style 'Pacific Overtures,' Sondheim's lyrics offer an acerbic view of the 19th century opening of Japan to the West: One of his most memorable songs, 'Send in the Clowns,' from 'A Little Night Music,' is melancholic to the extreme. Though most of Sondheim's musicals were not overpowering box office successes вЂ“ not of 'The Lion King' variety, at any rate вЂ“ he drew passionate audiences who were not dissuaded by dark properties that commented on race, class or politics, with music that did not bow to Tin Pan Alley traditions. Starring Zero Mostel, it would also prove one of the longest-running of his shows, with 964 performances. But it was for the 1963 comedy 'A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,' for which Sondheim crafted both words and music, that he won his first Tony Award. He followed with another collaboration, with composer Jule Styne: 'Gypsy,' starring Ethel Merman. Sondheim's lyrics for such songs as 'Something's Coming,' 'Maria,' 'Tonight,' 'America,' 'Cool' and 'I Feel Pretty' were sharp, pungent and вЂ“ combined with Bernstein's vibrant music вЂ“ timeless. He'd contributed one song to the 1956 play 'Girls of Summer' before he began collaborating with composer Leonard Bernstein on 'West Side Story,' an updated telling of 'Romeo & Juliet' via rival street gangs in Manhattan. Be true to yourself.'ДЄ graduate of Williams College in Massachusetts, Sondheim learned at the knee of Hammerstein, and from avant-garde composer Milton Babbitt, and he brought to his work a playful precision and a love of word games and puzzles that would color his output (including, in 1973, a screenplay for the twisting murder mystery, 'The Last of Sheila'). But he also took to heart Hammerstein's advice to his protГ©gГ©: 'Don't copy me. In 2002 Sondheim told 'Sunday Morning' correspondent Martha Teichner that if it hadn't been for Hammerstein, he probably would have become a mathematician.

The composer and/or lyricist of some of Broadway's most revolutionary and artistically challenging musicals, Stephen Sondheim (March 22, 1930-November 26, 2021) is credited with helping to reinvent musical theater вЂ“ a giant of the stage whose distinctive artistic temperament would give life to such shows as 'West Side Story,' 'Gypsy,' 'Company,' 'Follies,' 'A Little Night Music,' 'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,' 'Sunday in the Park With George,' and 'Into the Woods.'ДЄs a youngster, Sondheim and his family were friends with Broadway titan Oscar Hammerstein, who became a father figure and mentor to Stephen. The Associated Press contributed to this gallery.

В© Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/via Getty ImagesДЄ look back at the esteemed personalities who left us this year, who'd touched us with their innovation, creativity and humanity.Д«y senior producer David Morgan.

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