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wasn't as melodic and the people were so un-happy. Teenage rebellion struck, and I decidedal l Rodgers must be bad and all Sondheim mustbe good. Thankfully, with age, I've come torealize that there can be just as much pith in aRodgers and Hart or Rodgers and Hammcrsteinsong. Similarly, my dad's come to appreciateSondhcim's work, most notably Sweeney Todd.He'll watch th e video of the original Hal Princeproduction at the drop of a hat and swears it'sone of the best musicals ever. Andy Propst,N ew York City

Because I played instruments. I had beeninvited to audition for the understudy roles ofPirelli and The Beggar Woman in John Doyle'sBroadway production of Sweeney Todd. so Ithought I should see it rirst. Since I w as a flutean d voice major in college. I will admit to beingjaded about what I was going to see. I imag-ined that the acting would be superior and themusic would be just so-so. I spent the entirefirst act with my jaw dropped. They all acted,sang and played in the best version of SweeneyI had ever seen. T he musicianship w as amazing,and I heard things I had never heard before inrelation to the characters and the inst rument sbeing "one." It was so gritty an d real that Ileft thinking "Oh my gosh, I can't understudythat, it's too complex!" I didn' t need to worry; Iwasn't cast. A bit later I was dhlled in for Doyle'sCompany and learned, from the ground up.ho w to dive into a Sondheim musical with bothfeet . . . and fingers. K r i s t i n H u f f m a n , M i l f o r d ,Conn. , w ho played the role of Sarah (p lus f lute , sa xan d piccolo) in the Tony Award- winn ing revival ofCompany

Believe it or not, during my senior year inhigh school in the late '70s I began studying(ireek! Later that year I was cast in a produc-tion of The Boy Friend, in which I was a featureddancer in a tango number. One night on TV apromo appeared for an upcoming episode ofThe Dick Cuvett Show with Elaine Stritch as aguest. A s it happened, she is a distant relative ofmy best friend, w ho called an d told me I had towa tch . Elaine sang "Anyone C an Whistle," an dyou can imagine th e moment when I heard th elyric "I can dance a tango, I can read Greek." Itw as a definite "stop moment." Never mind that,as so many Sondheim fans often report, the restof th e song spoke to me on very specific an dintimate levels. That was the night that StephenSondheim's art entered my world. John B e l l ,Center Valley, Pa.

When I took the plunge and first subscribedto cable TV in the early '80s, I was determinedto get my money's worth by watching everythingon the pay channel. Showt ime used a clevermarketing ploy to promote its presentation ofthe national tour of S-ii-eenev Todd: "This is tt

musical that shocked Broadway!" I had heard ofSondheim from reading theatre re\iews in newsmagazines, but had never seen any of his shows.From the first viewing of Sweeney I was hooked.I borrowed a V C R , taped th e show next time itw as on and watched it over and over, sometimesmult iple times in one day. N e a r obsession f o l -lowed, and I read all I could about th e creatorsand performers. That started me down the pathof eventually writing occasional pieces fo r TSR. B . J . Sedlock, Defiance, Ohio

A l though I adored th e original Broadway ver-sion oilnto th e Woods, my favorite productionw as one for which I served as musical directorat the Black River Playhouse in Chester. X.J..an old church converted into a theatre-in-the-round. Aside from an excellent cast, what madethis production so marvelous w as the intimatespace the theatre scats no more than 100people with actorsliterally walking aroundth e theatre and forc-in g the audience tojoin the characters intheir journeys throughthe woods. The circu-la r nature of the spaceillustrated how theseindividuals were notmerely embarking on alinear journey to reachsome unobtainableobject (especially whenthey realize that theirphysical prizes wereuseless), but rather theywere spiraling deep intotheir psyches toward theepiphany that no oneis truly alone. With ou rdirector 's expert staging, this charming theatre-in-thc-round enhanced th e f rus t ra ted journeysof the main characters, while their relentlesslycircular movements were obsessively in syncwi th Sondhcim's score, \\ith its repeated musi-cal motives and lyrical phrases. Patrick Koran.B l o o m f i e l d , N . J .

TflOrtHS iSKfWD

I first discovered Stephen Soadheinw h e n I was about seven and saw a reraepisode of The Brady Bunch. ~Go On?" Carol Brady (Florenceand Marcia (Maureen McCoraat a school talent showboes. they sang 'Togethec.I instantly found themusically superior B O don that siuoai l~k's a

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that p articular episode has been rerun over th elast 35 years in hundreds of markets around theworld to tens of millions of viewers, it just mightbe S ondheim's most w idely heard lyric. Andrew M i l n e r , Bryn Mawr, Pa .

Is there any show in American musicaltheatre more graceful than A Little Night Music?A ny examination of what went wrong with theAmerican Dream more incisive than Assassins?(Well, may-be RoadShow.)A ny medi-tation onevil morechilling-yet-exhila-rating thanSweeneyTodd?WhatmakesSond-heim'sscores themost pen-etrating inth e canonis their in -tegrity, inthe senseof whole-ness, ofbeing com-plete andundivided.

Those crit-ics who in-sist that ' 'Sondheim can't w rite melody" clearlyhaven't been listening to the soaring "Kiss M e"or the long, sustained orchestral line und erlyingth e frantic N ew York patter in "Another Hu ndredPeople." Instead, they've been hearing th e words an d little wonder. Sondheim's lyries are thequirkiest , th e edgiest, th e most literate; they arebearers of emotional truth. "Which comes firstgenerally the w ords or the music?" that clue-less interview er asks C harley Kringas in"Franklin Shepard, Inc." In Sondheim, the wordsand the music are one. \bu can pick them apart,but they're as intertwined as a double helix ofD N A . That 's th e quality that makes a Sondheimmusical a "Sondheim Musical" to the extentthat casual observers tend to forget the HughWheelers and the James Lapincs and the JohnWeidmans of this world and assume Sondheimw rote, in the w ords of Buddy Plummer, "thewhole show." They provide the book, but he sup-plies th e soul. Diane Nottle, New York City

The bold jacket to the original cast LP, stilllooking groovy after al l these years, proudly

proclaims Company: A M usical Coined*.glance at w hat quickly became a "desert!disc" for me, I thought it might have boiironic moniker. Hadn't Sondheim abaafl"pure" musical comedy as he pushed tbcforward with this landmark concept shoiw rong I was. Sondheim and Furth's Cattakes all the elements of musical cornedbook! th e score! th e choreography! t h e f jtion numbers! and puts them in serviJan acute, incisive look at relationships uais still raw and truthful today. The charaaar c so identifiable, so familiar that it's asible to leave the theatre withou t looking!ourselves an d those good an d crazy peoffriends. And Sondheim's score? Itfindseveryday life and yet sounds like no othej"Thrilling" an d "pulsating" come to mind.It's edgy and rhythm ic, like the city that its DNA. Moreover, Company lends itself staggering variety of interpretations by (tors and p erform ers. Every new productadventure. The orchestration, the settintone might change, will change, bu t I :provoked, intrigued, laughing, crying. it's simply th e best that musical theatre)musical comedy can offer. Company isIt remains the most affecting show for iSondheim's entire canon. Joe Marc he sClark, N . J .

Th e original production of Follies w a >Instead of being told in a typical clear nastyle, the show had a dreamlike atmospheJgoing from scenes with th e lead characters!vignette w ith a minor one, from present toand then having th e past and present inter^ing. Things that could seem unreal or pret^Btious worked and seemed natural. A nd wheJon a dark, almost bare stage, in the middle^the quarreling characters, Loveland suddeJappeared out of nowhere, filling th e the; ; : - .light and music the effect w as incredible. IFinancial reasons w ould probably keep anydon that level from being done today u n f < : inatcly, because part of the point of Follies isdcontrast between th e lavishness of the "Foil*an d the reality of the lead characters' lives. 1original performers supplied unforgettable mcnts: Gene N elson's dance to "The Right Gthe way, at the end, when Buddy is telling Salthey will deal w ith things tomorrow , Dorothy-Collins looked ou t into the empty theatre ana Isaid, "Dear God, this is tomorrow." Greg Da- Irak, T r u m b u l l , Conn.

For every artist, there is one moment in ywlife w hen something clicks within you and thra(just make sense. For me, I w ill always rernem- Iber the moment I saw Sunday in the Park \cidi \George for the first time. It was a period of t i ta jwhen I wasn't sure of my path. I was uncertain jwha t I should do with my life. A s "Sunday"finished the first act, I found tears pouring dammy face. N ot tears of sadness, bu t rather joy. m1 2 - - _ 5 : - - - - . _ ;