Stephen Sondheim Works Acquired by Library of Congress

Stephen Sondheim‘s vast catalogue of work has been acquired for preservation by the Library of Congress.

The collection has approximately 5,000 items such as manuscripts, notebooks, musics and lyric drafts and scrapbooks from celebrated shows like “Company,” “Sweeney Todd” and “Into the Woods.” Sondheim, who died in 2021 at the age of 91, was a musical theater legend, having composed “Sunday in the Park With George,” “Follies,” “Gypsy” and countless other Broadway classics.

Highlights include a one-page inner monologue of subtext for Desirée for when she sings “Send in the Clowns” from “A Little Night Music,” lyrics for a “Side by Side by Side” reprise that ended up on the cutting room floor of “Company,” three boxes of specialty songs including birthday medleys he wrote for Leonard Bernstein, Harold Prince and other friends, as well as 40 pages of lyric sketches for “A Little Priest” from “Sweeney Todd,” with lists of more than 150 possible professions and types of people who could have been baked into pies written in the margins.

“Stephen Sondheim has been credited with reinventing American musical theater, and his papers support that claim,” said music division chief Susan Vita. “The wit, intelligence and theatrical daring of his work has succeeded in the way most great art does — it illuminates our shared human condition. This incredible collection now enjoys a permanent home at the nation’s library, which celebrates creativity in all its forms. As a treasured addition to our performing arts collection, it serves to honor and preserve Sondheim’s legacy.”

Sondheim’s history with the Library of Congress dates back to 1995 when he made his first donation, a vast record collection of approximately 13,000 albums. The collection of classical and contemporary music was accompanied by a hand-typed card catalog. He also sat for a series of interviews with senior music specialist Mark Horowitz in 1997. When Sondheim turned 70, the Library of Congress celebrated his birthday with a concert featuring Broadway stars like Nathan Lane, Audra McDonald and Brian Stokes Mitchell. 

The manuscripts of Sondheim join those of other Broadway composers in the Library of Congress, such as Oscar Hammerstein II, Bernstein and Richard Rodgers.