ABSTRACT
In 1971, the Tony Awards created two separate prizes for the songs of a musical: the "Best Lyrics" and the "Best Score". However, both Tonys that year went to the same person, Stephen Sondheim, for his concept-musical Company. Sondheim was the fifth "combined" (solo) composer/lyricist to win a Tony for his songs, but it had been seven years since a previous "solo" songwriter, Jerry Herman, had won for Hello, Dolly. During the 1970s and 1980s, half of the Best Score Tonys had gone to composers who had written their own lyrics, and from 1990 to 2016, eleven more Tonys went to solo writers. Solo songwriting has not been limited to American shows, of course, but the other major hub of musical theater, London, has not had a very large number of composer/lyricists bring new productions to the West End in recent years.
