Watch the Broadway community pay tribute to Stephen Sondheim in Times Square
With the passing of Stephen Sondheim, the Broadway community gathered in Times Square to pay tribute to the iconic composer.
Those attending included Lin-Manuel Miranda, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Sara Bareilles, Raúl Esparza, Stephen Schwartz, Laura Benanti, Brian Stokes Mitchell, and Josh Groban.
Miranda spoke a few words and the entire impromptu chorus sang ‘Sunday’ from Sunday in the Park with George.
One of the most important figures in 20th-century musical theater, Sondheim was praised for having "reinvented the American musical" with shows that tackled "unexpected themes that range far beyond the [genre's] traditional subjects" with "music and lyrics of unprecedented complexity and sophistication". His shows addressed "darker, more harrowing elements of the human experience", with songs often tinged with "ambivalence" about various aspects of life.