One of theater’s great creative talents, composer and lyricist Stephen Joshua Sondheim (1930–2021) was born on this day in New York City to a well-to-do family and began piano lessons at age seven.

After studying with mentor Oscar Hammerstein, Sondheim made his Broadway debut writing the lyrics for Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story (1957).

“Probably one of the most frightening things in the world is staring at a blank sheet of paper and wondering how you're going to fill it… But somehow you do,” he once said.

Brilliant and innovative, Sondheim never played it safe. His breakthrough musical Company (1970) revolutionized the art form by tackling modern marriage in a nonlinear way. He crafted short, upbeat notes to celebrate excitement or anger, and soaring musical lines with long vowels to express passion.

“I love to write in dark colors about gut feelings,” he explained.

A Little Night Music (1973), written entirely in waltz time, featured his best-known piece, Send in the Clowns. In Pacific Overtures (1976), a Broadway musical set in 1853 Japan that blends traditional Kabuki theater with haunting melodies, he wrote, “The heart knows, the thought denies — is there no other way?”

Sunday in the Park with George (1984), inspired by the paintings of Georges Seurat, won Sondheim the 1985 Pulitzer Prize.

“Work is what you do for others… Art is what you do for yourself,” Sondheim said, winner of multiple Tony Awards and the Kennedy Center Medal. His genius for storytelling and songwriting lives on, inspiring generations of artists.