Backstage Book Club: Edition #4 - "Putting It Together"
Among the hallowed halls of musical theatre composers, perhaps none are as deified as Stephen Sondheim, the composer-lyricist responsible for modern classics such as Follies, Company, Sweeney Todd, and Into The Woods. One of his shows, Sunday in the Park With George, looms above the rest when marked on the scale of critical acclaim, winning the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
James Lapine, Sunday’s book writer and director, is a legend in his own right -- with Sondheim, he wrote Into the Woods and Passion, and his work on landmark pieces such as Falsettos and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee has proved deeply influential for generations of creatives. In 2017, after viewing a revival of Sunday in the Park with George, he was inspired to revisit the piece, creating an oral history through interviews with forty members of the original productions cast, creative team, and crew.
That oral history, Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created "Sunday in the Park with George", will be released on August 3rd, from Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. The following is an edited version of Mr. Lapine and I’s conversation and an exclusive excerpt from Putting It Together.
~~
The decision to excavate these memories through oral history was quite effective.
JAMES LAPINE: I was asked about writing a memoir, but I didn’t want to write a memoir; I just had this particular two-year period to write about. I don’t think I’ll ever write a memoir. I’m not that analytical about it, to tell you the truth. I’m not that analytical about anything I do. I leave it to people like you -- if you want to make sense of it, be my guest.
Your use of “theatre games” as a way of establishing connection was embraced by some of the company, and rejected by others. Do you believe these exercises are important to the early work of creating a piece of theatre?
LAPINE: I don’t. I never did. I don’t think I ever did it again. It came from my interest in more avant-garde theater. I lived down the street from where Robert Wilson had this little incubator space, and they used to do all these kinds of dances and games and things like that, and I think that’s what influenced me in doing it. And I read about it. I don’t do it anymore. I don’t think I did it after Sunday. I do exercises, maybe, but nothing like I did during that.
Much is made of how difficult it would have been to evolve Sunday in the Park with George in the age of the internet, where its initial growing pains would have been broadcast through message boards and fan communities long before opening night. Do you believe this has damaged the overall creative process of developing new works of theatre?
LAPINE: Well, I think only to the degree that people get cold feet. That’s where I think it’s bad -- if you go out of town and it doesn’t go well, it’s hard to have the producing team or theater keep their enthusiasm up for the project. And you look at something like Hadestown or -- there are other examples of shows that maybe didn’t start out so well, Next to Normal’s another one -- but they overcame it, just because they were passionate about it and just kept making it better and better and better. But I don’t think there’s any set rules in that regard. I think, again, if people are passionate about something -- and Sondheim is a perfect example of somebody who made work that was outside the norm and he was so passionate about it, as were Hal and the others, that’s how it got made.
And of course, you’re now working on Flying Over Sunset, set to premiere in November. Have you had difficulty getting that piece onto its feet, in the face of so much pressure to rely on known properties?
LAPINE: We got rejected by any number of people with the project, including the person who came on board before it was even written, who ended up rejecting it. As anyone will tell you who’s sitting as a creator, it’s hellish out there now to get work done and get people to support it. Unless it’s based on a movie, unless it’s based on something they can pitch -- something that's already a proven product is obviously much easier.
I shiver to think of what could potentially happen when André Bishop (the Artistic Director of Lincoln Center, who is producing Flying Over Sunset) eventually decides to retire.
LAPINE: I have to agree. He’s very, very loyal. He’s very loyal to the people he’s been working with for decades, and that kind of loyalty does not exist anymore, as far as I can see in any other institution. Sadly.
It is somewhat remarkable how firmly Bernie Jacobs and the Shubert Organization stood by you during the difficult development of the show's second act - as a writer, what do you wish up and coming producers would keep in mind when working on new material?
LAPINE: Well, they weren’t really producers, you know. They weren’t artistic producers, they were commercial producers in the business sense. A lot of producers today are artistic producers who have ideas or want to put teams together. But you know, even then, working with Sondheim was… no one messed with him, he did what he did.
This isn’t necessarily about new material, but any material -- there has to be an artistic passion to do a show. Whether it comes from the author or the producer, whomever, somebody has to have a vision for something and a passion for doing it. And a producer can do it, they can have a book they love, a movie they love, an idea they love, and use that energy and passion to go out and find people to share it, but I think that someone has to have a driving passion for the project.
The difference in the speed at which you and Sondheim wrote (he took a significant amount of time to turn over the material mentally before putting pen to paper, you put your ideas on the page and then refined them) is a fascinating dichotomy in your collaboration.
LAPINE: Like any collaboration or partnership, you get to know each other better, you begin to understand what each other’s tastes are, and you are a partnership in that. We didn’t have that on Sunday because we didn’t know each other. We learned as we were doing, and then when we went onto Woods and Passion, we knew very much who we were and what we did, and how we worked, and that of course created a bit of an advantage to a collaboration. We were also lucky because there were only two of us, which is not that often that you’ve got just two people creating something. It’s usually at least three. It’s usually at least a director along with two musical people.
There were a couple of pieces that were missing -- or missing that we didn’t even know we needed. Sunday was the one where we really, really were missing two building blocks, you know.
(Two crucial songs from the second act, Lesson #8 and Children and Art, were not written until less than a week before Sunday was set to open on Broadway.)
You certainly had enough plates spinning to ensure that you had more pressing things to think about than when things were being turned in.
LAPINE: You know, it’s like you’re making a picture, and if you don’t have two of the colors that you need for the picture, it’s hard to complete it. I think the great surprise of it was when I looked back and -- I didn’t put this in the book, but I didn’t understand how important those songs were until they went in. I remember saying, “oh, these things are supposed to be here and they’re not here.” I didn’t think about it as, “oh my God, these are what the show’s about, and if we don’t have it, we don’t have a show.” And that’s something I discovered with everyone else on the spot.“Oh, I forgot these are there for a reason and they connect the dots.”
Maybe what you’re saying about spinning plates is true. I had so much else on my mind. It didn’t matter, they wouldn’t have been written any sooner anyway. Steve used to say “do you want it Tuesday or do you want it good.”
You speak of an initial fear of committing to a longer artistic partnership with Sondheim when he first approached you about wanting to do another show together following Sunday. What was behind that impulse to keep one foot out of the door?
LAPINE: We actually had an offer to do a film of Sunday, which I was really excited to do, and Steve didn’t want to do it. He wanted to write another show instead. Well, it was just so early on in our friendship and process that it took me aback -- and I am one of those guys with one foot out the door. Didn’t have anything to do with him. Just had to do with my lack of any kind of commitment to anyone, because I was like a hippie. I don’t know what it is about that, but, I mean, people say “well, why do you choose what you do,” and for me, I have to do a project that challenges me in a way I haven’t been challenged. So that had nothing to do with working with Steve again, because of course, all the three things we did were challenging in their way, to both of us. But I was never really that committed to just doing theater, to be perfectly honest, so I think it had more to do with that. I had no thoughts about what I was known as, believe me. That was not a part of my thinking. No, it was just part of the adventure of life and creativity, you know? I like doing things I’ve never done before, so that’s really what it was more about.
Sondheim and Lapine at the Booth theatre, New York. (Photograph: Sara Krulwich/Getty Images)
When you think back on your creative process working on Sunday, what is the moment that stands out to you as indicative of the experience?
LAPINE: The obvious one is “Finishing the Hat.” Only because it was such a momentous, such an incredible song, and when it came in, it was just immediately announcing “this is what this show is about.”
But I don’t have any recollection of how much we talked about it and whether I was surprised by that song or not when it came in or not. I think you’re right about the spinning plates, now that you mention it. I had two hats, and I guess when I’m in production I’m mostly wearing my director’s hat because the writer’s already delivered the script. I’ll take a moment to appreciate things as they come in or appreciate a good moment I directed or something an actor finds, but I don’t linger on it.
I think anybody who’s able to do that is in some odd ways maybe not as involved as they should be in what they’re doing if that makes sense. I think when you’re really involved in something, you’re not analyzing it, you’re not thinking about this that or the other thing, you’re just in it. You just live.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can purchase a copy of Putting It Together at this link
Make sure to check back with Backstage Book Club next month, when we will be covering From Camelot to Spamalot by Megan Woller
If you are interested in submitting a book for consideration, please contact Margaret at www.margaret-hall.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Excerpted from PUTTING IT TOGETHER: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created "Sunday in the Park with George" by James Lapine. Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Copyright © 2021 by James Lapine. All rights reserved.
LAPINE: Our next meeting was around lunchtime one day. Luis, your majordomo, brought me up a plate of food on a gorgeous tray with fine china, silver place settings, and a linen napkin. You never ate lunch.
SONDHEIM: Yes, right. Luis was very elegant. He did everything for me. He cooked. He cut my hair. He tailored my clothes.
LAPINE: It’s a moment that inspired me later in life to do the adaptation of Moss Hart’s Act One. The moment when Hart came to meet with George S. Kaufman at his home—
SONDHEIM: Yes, that must have been a similar thing. Kaufman lived very elegantly.
LAPINE: When I read that book, there were a lot of similarities.
SONDHEIM: Sure, I see it now. Which reminds me. One of the first things I remember was that you sketched out the relationships of the people.
LAPINE: Right. Did I bring that in first?
SONDHEIM: I think I saw that when I came down to your loft for a visit.
LAPINE: Do you remember coming to my place? I was panicked that you wanted to see where I lived.
SONDHEIM: Sure. Yes, it wasn’t poverty row, but it was, as they say, minimal. You served cheese.
LAPINE: I was nervous about you visiting. It was a small, dark, funky loft in the Financial District. I think I asked Luis to get someone to help me clean it before you came.
SONDHEIM: I wish you hadn’t cleaned it.
LAPINE: I know. You wanted to see it before it was tidied up. It was like Anne Frank’s hiding place—an attic over an art supply building on three-block-long Ann Street. You had to go up some back stairs to get to it.
SONDHEIM: I remember the room. But mostly what I remember is that transparent piece of paper on your desk. That’s so vivid in my head right now. You put a piece of tracing paper over the reproduction of the painting and you had little arrows going: mother, question mark; lover; and you had already started to orchestrate the characters based on who the six or seven main characters in the painting were. You were making a structure out of a visual.