ABSTRACT
America's finest new composer to emerge in the 1960s was Stephen Sondheim. Oscar Hammerstein suggested that Sondheim work on a series of four complete musicals, writing the libretto, music, and lyrics all himself but with Hammerstein's guidance. Sondheim's association with Burt Shevelove bore additional fruit. Shevelove felt the ancient comedies by the Roman writer Titus Maccius Plautus. Sondheim had mixed feelings. He wanted to work on Broadway, but not as a lyricist, explaining, Lyric writing is, at best, a very limited art. Once Gypsy reached the stage, Sondheim resumed his ancient Roman project with Shevelove and with Larry Gelbart, the co-librettist. Sondheim felt these interludes contributed to "one of the most brilliantly inventive and the most hilariously staged opening numbers in the history of musical comedy". Sondheim's next theatrical endeavor was quite a struggle. Before Hammerstein died, he asked Sondheim to promise to work with Rodgers.
