FOR TEN YEARS, they exchanged notes, letters, faxes, and phone calls. Stephen Sondheim would contact him, and Paul Salsini, the founder and editor of T
he Sondheim Revie
w, would respond. And vice versa.
Now, Salsini, a Milwaukee journalist, has described his unlikely long-distance relationship with the fabled composer/lyricist in
Sondheim & Me: Revealing a Musical Genius
. The memoir includes the dozens of notes that Sondheim sent Salsini about articles in the magazine. It was clear that, at least at the start in 1994, he read every word of every issue, and often his comments were what Sondheim called “emendations,” pointing out a typo, a wrong first name or a misreading of a scene.
There were a few disagreements; Sondheim was furious about the magazine's review of one of his shows and called to loudly complain. After the magazine published his lyrics for a high school show, he wrote to “object vigorously to your reprinting my juvenilia.”
But mostly there was a good working relationship, and Sondheim's responses were encouraging and sometimes enthusiastic. “Congratulations on another good issue!” “Keep up the good work!” Sondheim & Me also includes numerous reports of talks, forums, and Q&As in which Sondheim revealed his process for composing, his inspirations, his comments on his shows (the original film of
West Side Story
“isn't any good,” the first act of
Sunday in the Park with George
“is a stunt,” the film of
A Little Night Music
is “dreadful”).
The magazine reported on the openings of
Passion
,
Saturday Night
, and the troubled Mizner musical. And the decade also saw the Broadway revivals of
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, Into the Woods
, and
Gypsy
. Besides all that, there was the $10 million Kennedy Center Sondheim Celebration with a repertory of six of his musicals.
It was a remarkable decade for Stephen Sondheim, and Paul Salsini and
The Sondheim Review
were there to report it all. Almost none of the book's material has been seen by the general public—at its height, T
he Sondheim Review
had but a few thousand subscribers.
To thoroughly understand the great, revolutionary artistry of Stephen Sondheim,
Sondheim & Me
is indispensable. In what may be something of an exclusive, the book also contains an extensive, detailed chronology of Sondheim's life, his works, and the many tributes he received. Sixty-four pages of photos of Sondheim productions, along with many
TSR
covers and the notes Sondheim wrote, enhance this illuminating, groundbreaking book.