The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia

The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia is a wonderfully detailed and comprehensive reference devoted to musical theater’s most prolific and admired composer and lyricist. Entries cover Sondheim’s numerous collaborators, from composers and directors to designers and orchestras; key songs, such as his Academy Award winner ＂Sooner or Later＂ (Dick Tracy); and major works, including Assassins, Company, Follies, Sweeney Todd, and West Side Story. The encyclopedia also profiles the actors who originated roles and sang Sondheim’s songs for the first time, including Ethel Merman, Angela Lansbury, Mandy Patinkin, and Bernadette Peters.

Featuring a detailed biographical entry for Sondheim, a chronology of his career, a listing of his many awards, and discussions of his opinions on movies, opera, and more, this wide-ranging resource will attract musical theater enthusiasts again and again.

Rick Pender has been an award-winning theater critic since 1986. He has written for CityBeat, Cincinnati’s alternative newsweekly, since it was founded in 1994. In 2002 and again in 2017, the Society of Professional Journalists named him Ohio’s best critic. Pender is past chair of the American Theatre Critics Association and was the executive editor and publisher of Everything Sondheim and managing editor of The Sondheim Review.