Stephen Sondheim was an American composer, songwriter and lyricist.

Sondheim began his career by writing the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy, before eventually devoting himself solely to writing both music and lyrics.

His best-known works include A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Sunday in the Park with George, and Into the Woods.

Sondheim's numerous awards include eight Tony Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Tony in 2008), an Academy Award, eight Grammy Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, a Pulitzer Prize, a Kennedy Center Honor, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In 2010, the Henry Miller Theater on West 43rd Street in New York was renamed for him. He also has a theater named for him in the West End of London.

Film adaptations of Sondheim's work include West Side Story, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Into the Woods, and an updated version of West Side Story in 2021.

For many years, Sondheim collaborated with producer-director Hal Prince. They teamed up on nine musicals: 1957's West Side Story, 1962's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, 1970's Company, 1971's Follies and A Little Night Music, 1976's Pacific Overtures, 1979's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, 1981's Merrily We Roll Along and 2003's Bounce.

After parting ways with Prince in the early 1980s, Sondheim worked with playwright James Lapine, collaborating on the Pulitzer-winning Sunday in the Park With George, the 1984 Broadway production that starred Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters in a story about an iconoclastic artist.

Sondheim died November 26, 2021 in Roxbury, Connecticut. He was 91.