The Six Degrees of Sondheim

[MartinG]

Wolf Blitzer was among a number of notable figures born in Augsburg, Bavaria, including Hans Holbein, Leopold Mozart and...
Bertolt Brecht, a figure famously not admired by SJS, but whose The Threepenny Opera was revived on Broadway in 1989 with a cast including...
Kim Criswell, who has appeared in Side By Side By Sondheim and Into The Woods. 


Betsi Cadwaladr

[KathyB]

I can get somewhere with three degrees from Betsi Cadwaladr, and then I get stuck, hoping that it's going to lead me to Georges Seurat, but not able to make the right connections.

[Bookman George]

Betsi Cadwaladr served as a nurse during the Crimean War at a hospital run by

Florence Nightingale (who apparently did not cotton to Ms. Cadwaladr, but that's another story) who was the subject of the 1952 biographical film The Lady with the Lamp, which featured

Michael Wilding, who was soon to marry

Elizabeth Taylor, who many years later played Desiree in the film version of A Little Night Music, music and lyrics by.....

Stephen Sondheim




Susan B Anthony

[Chris L]

Susan B. Anthony was invited to the White House to celebrate her 80th birthday with...
President William McKinley who is shot in...
Stephen Sondheim's show Assassins.

H.P. Lovecraft
(Believe it or not, there's a remarkably direct connection, but it's obscure and I've only seen it in a single, authoritative source. You don't have to use it, but bonus points if you do.)

[Chris L]

H.P. Lovecraft
(Believe it or not, there's a remarkably direct connection, but it's obscure and I've only seen it in a single, authoritative source. You don't have to use it, but bonus points if you do.)

If you're holding out for the direct connection, you have my official permission to Google it. I did, just to verify that I was remembering correctly, and I found it.

[Leighton]

Did SJS begin work/consider working on an HP Lovecraft musical?  I haven't checked, it's just a blind guess.

If I am right - Justin Fletcher

If I am wrong - ignore this and carry on!

[Chris L]

Did SJS begin work/consider working on an HP Lovecraft musical?  I haven't checked, it's just a blind guess.

If I am right - Justin Fletcher

If I am wrong - ignore this and carry on!

I've seen speculation on maybe Reddit about a Lovecraft musical, but that's not it. This, to give you a hint, is about something he actually did write, but you've probably never heard of it.

[KathyB]

Did SJS begin work/consider working on an HP Lovecraft musical?  I haven't checked, it's just a blind guess.

If I am right - Justin Fletcher

If I am wrong - ignore this and carry on!

I've seen speculation on maybe Reddit about a Lovecraft musical, but that's not it. This, to give you a hint, is about something he actually did write, but you've probably never heard of it.

To me, Lovecraft sounds like something that's in "Ten Years Old." That probably doesn't fall under the category of "probably never heard of it," though, and I don't have the lyrics. (Yes, I know I can Google them.)
I'm going to look for a longer connection than one degree because I'm bored.

[KathyB]

H.P. Lovecraft was born in Providence, RI, the home of Brown University (which is also where one of the characters in "The Call of Cthulhu" is a professor)
Brown University has an acclaimed playwriting program.  Its graduates have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama four times.
SJS has also won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.


Edited to add that I'm having a hard time finding the lyrics to "Ten Years Old" online. I know my search engine skills leave a lot to be desired, though.

Let's keep this with
Justin Fletcher

[Chris L]

H.P. Lovecraft was born in Providence, RI, the home of Brown University (which is also where one of the characters in "The Call of Cthulhu" is a professor)
Brown University has an acclaimed playwriting program.  Its graduates have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama four times.
SJS has also won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.


Let's keep this with
Justin Fletcher

That'll do. The more direct connection was that when Sondheim was in college he adapted Lovecraft's short story "The Rats in the Walls" as a radio play (from Sondheim's Broadway Musicals by Stephen Banfield).

Justin Fletcher

[MartinG]

Justin Fletcher provided one of the voices for Shaun the Sheep, created by...
Nick Park of Aardman Animations, whose films Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and A Matter of Loaf and Death featured...
Geraldine McEwan, who appeared as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing at Stratford in 1961 with... 
Christopher Plummer who was in The Sound of Music which of course has a number of Sondheim connections including...
Charmian Carr as Liesl, who also appeared as Ella in Evening Primrose.



Edith Cowan

[Leighton]

Edith Cowan was educated at the school of Canon Sweeting, the former Headmaster of Bishop Hale's school
The Australian theatre director Andrew Lutton was also educated there, many years later
Lutton's theatre company, ThinIce, has co-produced with the Sydney Theatre Company
Toni Collette has also worked with STC, and she starred in The Wild Party with Mandy Patinkin
Patinkin has lots of Sondheim connections!

Henry VIII

[Chris L]

Henry VIII was the titular subject of a collaborative play by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher
Shakespeare also wrote Romeo and Juliet...
...which was modernized into the musical West Side Story by, well, you know.

Aaron Sorkin

[Bookman George]

Aaron Sorkin created West Wing, which starred

Martin Sheen, who as a very young man starred in the movie The Subject Was Roses, which included a song called "Albatross," written and sung in the movie by

Judy Collins, who had a hit with "Send in the Clowns," which was written by someone whose name escapes me....



WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN

[Chris L]

William Jennings Bryan was depicted in the play....
Inherit the Wind as Matthew Harrison Brady...
...who was played in a 1988 TV adaptation by Kirk Douglas...
...who cohosted the 1986 New York Philharmonic tribute to the Statue of Liberty with Angela Lansbury...
...who has many Sondheim connections.

Meghan Markle