He would cry (tears were never far away), pick out moments he loved, spot every detail, wax lyrical. But when you were lucky enough to be on the receiving end of his admiration – an experience I had with both Assassins and Company at the Donmar – it was pretty exhilarating.
![over the garden wall scissors over the garden wall scissors](https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/0d8/a7e/a7e45af36625b8900e63c51d0ec925749c-over-the-garden-wall.1x.rsocial.w1200.jpg)
And I was working at the National Theatre when he first saw Stephen Pimlott’s (I thought) wonderful production of Sunday in the Park With George – and somehow the whole building knew his opinion of the second act by 10am the next morning. Not so much fun when he wasn’t – I watched him storm out of a production of A Little Night Music in Chichester in utter fury. He was an amazing collaborator when he was on your side. When he spoke about the final moments, and of Prospero accepting that his powers were gone, he burst into tears and retired to the bathroom. I once had supper with him alone at 49th Street, during which he described the legendary production of The Tempest by Giorgio Strehler. He was.Īs he got older, his emotions were closer to the surface – ironic for someone who was sometimes accused of a lack of warmth in his work. “You’re a curious man, Mr Sondheim,” she said. Years later, after his musical Assassins had debuted off-Broadway, Hepburn approached him slowly and shakily to deliver her verdict over the garden wall. From behind her, Spencer Tracy stepped out of the darkness, wrapped his arms around her and closed the curtains. When he first bought the house, he told a story of wandering out into the garden at dusk, turning back and seeing Hepburn standing in the lit window. A grand piano looked out on a walled garden filled with vines and flowers.
![over the garden wall scissors over the garden wall scissors](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/5165ihVc0RL._AC_SS450_.jpg)
#Over the garden wall scissors full
A beautiful brownstone, wood-panelled, with walls full of framed word games and puzzles. For this particular wide-eyed Brit, Steve’s life on East 49th Street was a dream of New York in the 20th century.
#Over the garden wall scissors how to
Steve saw everything: he taught me how to calculate exactly the amount of time it would take to walk to each individual theatre by judging how many blocks east to west (five minutes per block) and north to south (two minutes). Until his later years, when he chose to spend more time in Connecticut, he was all New York. ‘He burst into tears and retired to the bathroom’ … Sondheim and Mendes in 2003, when Gypsy launched on Broadway.