New York Public Library continues its "The Creative Process" series with a 1975 interview with late theatrical icons Stephen Sondheim and Harold Prince, streaming for free (with registration) March 21 at 5:30 PM ET. The rarely-seen interview, conducted by New Yorker writer and critic Brendan Gill, covers Company, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Candide, Allegro, Do I Hear a Waltz?, and the then still in–development Pacific Overtures.
Recorded June 2, 1975, at NYPL's Library for the Performing Arts, the upcoming stream is the first time the interview has been screened outside of the library walls.
Sondheim and Prince began collaborating when the latter produced the original production of West Side Story, with Sondheim contributing lyrics. Prince would go on to produce Sondheim's Broadway debut as a composer-lyricist with 1962's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum before both producing and directing Company in 1970. The latter work, currently enjoying a Broadway revival, would kick off a decade-long collaboration between the two artists that many credit with changing the face of musical theatre, producing such works as Follies, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures, Sweeney Todd, and Merrily We Roll Along.
Prince died in 2019 at the age of 91, and Sondheim died in 2021, also at the age of 91. This streamed interview coincides with what would have been the composer-lyricist's 92nd birthday March 22.
The Sondheim-Prince interview follows a March 11 stream of a 1974 interview with Liza Minnelli, John Kander, and Fred Ebb.
To register for the free event, click here.
