Remembering the late, great Stephen Sondheim on what would have been his 92nd birthday

Would the soundtrack of a gay man’s life be what it is if not for the gifts of Stephen Sondheim?

Absolutely not!

Send in the Clowns, Some People, Rose’s Turn, Ladies Who Lunch, Feel Pretty and on and on.

Sondheim is responsible for these songs that come from such classic shows as A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Follies, Company, and Sunday in the Park With George and he wrote the lyrics for Gypsy and West Side Story just to name a handful.

The Broadway musical legend, who died last November at his home in Roxbury, Conn., would have been 92 today.

Overall, he wrote music and the lyrics for a dozen Broadway shows, a list which doesn’t include revues like Side by Side by Sondheim, Putting It Together and the autobiographical Sondheim on Sondheim. Five of them won Tony Awards for best musical, and six won for best original score.

His Sunday in the Park took the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for drama.

His show revivals were also successful. Three won Tonys, including Assassins in 2004, which started in Off Broadway.

Later, Sondheim received a 1993 Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime achievement, and in 2015 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. In 2008, he was granted a Tony Award for lifetime achievement, topped by the 2010 renaming of the Henry Miller Theater in his honor.

Below are some of my personal favorite from Sondheim shows to enjoy in celebration of his birth: