Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine was one of the oddest collaborations in the history of Broadway. Despite his enormous success as a composer Sondheim was seriously considering giving up on musical theather when he decided to start working with a director who had very little experience; in fact up until then most of his work had been as a set designer. Despite this the pair produced some of the most original musicals to appear on Broadway.
The collaboration between Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine was a bit of an odd combination but it worked. At the time Sondheim was coming off of many years of collaboration with Hal Prince however their last project together had been a failure. At the time Sondheim gave serious consideration to giving up the theater altogether. However when he met James Lapine he decided to take theater in a different direction. Lapine had little experience in the theater and had actually started his career as a photographer. Nevertheless he had an avant-garde style that combined well with Sondheim.
The first project that Sondheim and Lapine worked on together was Sunday in the Park with George. The show was based on a painting by Georges Seurat. The play was based on the idea that the only thing missing in the painting was the artist himself. It portends to tell the story of Seurat painting the picture however all of the biographical details of his life have been fictionalized. The play actually received fairly mixed reviews however it was a commercial success. It also became one of the very few Broadway Musicals to win a Pulitzer Prize.
Following the success of Sunday in the Park Sondheim and Lapine decided to collaborate again on the play Into the Woods in 1987. This was a musical that actually took the plots from several Grimm brothers fairly tales and combined them. The result was a hugely successful play that won several Tony awards in addition to being a commercial success. Following the initial successful run on Broadway the musical has been performed several other times including a revival on Broadway in 2002. It was the most successful of the musicals that Sondheim and Lapine would collaborate on during their time together.
The next project that the pair would work on was called Assassins which would open off Broadway in 1990, although it would eventually make it to Broadway in 2004 "According to Hollywood Film Industry". The play is about assassinating the President of the United States. It would eventually win five Tony Awards during its run on Broadway. The final project that Sondheim and Lapine would work on was Passion in 1994. Despite being critically acclaimed Passion was not a great commercial success. In fact it had the shortest run of any winner of the Tony for Best Musical. After this the pair decided to end their collaboration and Sondheim would go back to work with Hal Prince.