I did my first interview today with Annie’s Book Stop in Worcester. I was very lucky to sit down virtually with Selena Lovett and join a large, yet renowned, roster of writers. It was both a pleasure and a great experience for me. We talked about everything from coffee to that time Stephen Sondheim missed the chance to work with me.
Tag: Stephen Sondheim
Mr. Sondheim & Me
My longtime readers may remember that I wanted somebody to work with Stephen Sondheim on his show Evening Primrose, but nobody took me up on the idea. I thought that it was a great opportunity. I thought that reuniting John Collier’s story with Sondheim’s songs would be a public service, and a worthy act for anyone capable of it.
When such capable people demurred, I decided to take the task up myself. I labored on it for weeks. Maybe it was easy because the story and the songs were both so great. The work was light and joyous. It presented some bizarre problems that I think worked out beautifully. I had never done anything that made me so pleased, or that I was so proud of.
I then found Mr. Sondheim’s agent, and sent him my inquiry. I wasn’t going to try to stage it on Broadway or anything like that. I just wanted a little workshop, or maybe even a little run at a community theatre. It didn’t even have to be open to the public. As far as I was concerned I was asking for licensing more than permission. I assumed I’d either have the rights in hand in a few days when they got back to me, or I would have to submit my script, which was my dream because he would then see my work.
The agent I contacted wasn’t the current agent, so he forwarded it to the current agent, who called the maestro himself.
My whole rejection took less than three hours. Nobody wanted to revive the piece — James Goldman’s widow was to have a say in any revival. Mr Sondheim didn’t want a staging of work he did for film.
The whole affair was a bust from the start, or a bust long before the start. It seems I was the only person who wanted a revival.
My next step was calling Collier’s people. I thought that I could take the music out and run it as a straight play. But the rights were tied up.
What do I do now?
I have one if the finest things I’ve ever written — a genuine labor of love burning a hole in my hard drive because I will never be able to use it.
The lesson of the story might be something about licensing, or something about how one’s literary crushes might might have the same lack of interest as one’s regular crushes. And it’s best to ask them out before making plans concerning them.
Or maybe it’s a lesson in having a secret — a beautiful thing that the copyright laws and America’s greatest composer conspire to keep from the world.
DEAR MR. SONDHEIM,
NOTE: this is an unrevised version of an entry from my old blog from August 12th, 2016
NOTE: this is an unrevised version of an entry from my old blog from August 12th, 2016
I have become fascinated by a 60s TV special that you were part of — an adaptation of John Collier’s Evening Primrose. Collier was one of the greatest short story writers of the 20th century, and you, well I suspect that you don’t want to be flattered, but you are quite good yourself.
This should have been the first big feather in your cap. You completely understood the story and used bits of Collier’s dialogue to great effect. But there is a falling off after the first number. It isn’t you of course. The screen play is trash. I don’t want to spoil it for everyone else, but the brilliant sideways love story gets — well you know what happens. The very end is fine but the queer genius of the story is thrown out entirely and replaced with something barely plausible and trite. I don’t think that the screen writer (or maybe some officious producer) knew what the story was about, and ruined it, or, if he did understand, he might have thought that it was too edgy for viewers.
These are old complaints I am sure. And I know that you are 86 and semi-retired. Nineteen sixty-six must seem like a thousand years ago, but, for the sake of the rest of us, would you mind writing a few songs to go along with the proper plot of the story? If you like, go right ahead and someone else can tidy up the script. Certainly I want that person to be me, but anyone on earth would do it if you asked (remember though, if by any chance they do turn you down, you have a volunteer).
Collier’s story has the quality of earthy unreality that you handle so well. You did it in Into the Woods, and Sweeney Todd. Please do it here. I heard a rumor that you were doing another version of Road Show. I love that production. Leave it as it is. The public should come around eventually.
Just give us, not the Primrose that we have, and certainly not the Primrose we deserve, but the Primrose that only you can deliver.
With great admiration,
Thomas Olivieri, August 2016
Thomas Olivieri 