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Article: Getting personal with Stephen Sondheim.(Metropolitan Times)(Brief Encounters)
- Article from:
- The Washington Times (Washington, DC)
- Article date:
- July 14, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 News World Communications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Biographer Meryle Secrest can't play the piano and "hates" New York City.
How, then, did the Rockville-based writer happen to pick a composer and lyricist (and former piano prodigy) intimately associated with New York as the subject of her most recent book, "Stephen Sondheim: A Life" (Knopf, $30)?
And how did she get him to talk? Mr. Sondheim, whom many consider America's most inventive musical dramatist, reputedly is so reticent that his last full-length interview in print was in 1994.
(Mr. Sondheim's work is very much alive in Washington these days: Signature Theatre will produce "A Litte Night Music" in the fall, and in the spring, the ...