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Stephen Sondheim, an award-winning composer and lyricist, died in 2021 and left an archive of his vast work. Six of his musicals won Tony Awards for best score, and he received a Pulitzer Prize for “Sunday in the Park with George,” an Academy Award for the song “Sooner or Later” from “Dick Tracy,” five Olivier Awards, the Presidential Medal of Honor and a Tony Award for lifetime achievement in 2008.
Now, manuscripts, music and lyric drafts, recordings, notebooks and scrapbooks from Sondheim have been donated to the Library of Congress, offering the public a chance to see his creative process. Here are some facts about the late composer and lyricist’s work:
• The collection contains about 5,000 items, including manuscripts, music and lyric drafts, recordings, notebooks and scrapbooks.
• Items range from drafts of songs that were cut from shows or never made it to first rehearsal to a spiral music book titled “Notes and Ideas” from his time as a student at Williams College.
• The collection includes drafts of variations on lyrics to “I’m Still Here” from “Follies” and “Putting It Together” from “Sunday in the Park with George” that Sondheim wrote for Barbra Streisand at her request.
• There are lyrics for a reprise of “Side by Side by Side” that never made it into “Company.”
• The collection contains 40 pages of lyric sketches for “A Little Priest” from “Sweeney Todd” with lists of more than 150 possible professions and types of people written in the margins.
• The collection survived a 1995 fire that started in Sondheim’s office, located just feet from where the materials were stored on wooden shelves and in cardboard boxes.
• Senior Music Specialist Mark Horowitz convinced Sondheim to donate his papers to the Library of Congress in 1993, and Sondheim included it in his will.
• The collection arrived at the Library in March and will become available for public viewing on July 1.
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