Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created "Sunday in the Park with George

This is a book about following associations—and about how they cohere into something tangible. And, in retrospect, this string (how my mind was looking to put something together before I was aware of it) was this book’s genesis: If I could somehow make the process legible, I might find making art myself less intimidating and begin to make headway.

I’ve always been a freak for the zealous pursuit of the better, especially where culture is concerned. I love the story of it, and also the motive. So that, too, is what this book is—a celebration of the art that happens when instinct meets rigor.

“First of all, synthesizing involves artistry . To create a work or treatment of significant size and to convey it effectively to others requires a sense of form, of arrangement of parts, of the attention and predilection of audiences, of launching, development, and closure . All of these skills are identified particularly with th

This is one of the paradoxes of creative collaboration. Great Groups are made up of people with rare gifts working together as equals. Yet, in virtually every one there is one person who acts as maestro, organizing the genius of the others. He or she is a pragmatic dreamer, a person with an original but attainable vision. Ironically, the leader is