In the summer of 1953, Oscar Hammerstein II introduced twenty-three-year-old Stephen Sondheim to George Oppenheimer, a playwright and screenwriter. Sondheim had recently completed his fellowship with Milton Babbitt and was looking for a job. Oppenheimer was looking for an assistant to help write a new television series and hired Sondheim for $300 a week, although Sondheim had never written a professional script before.
Sondheim moved to Los Angeles to work on the series "Topper," based on the series of movies about an uptight banker, Cosmo Topper, and the ghosts only he could see or hear, George and Marion Kerby. The Kerbys would often try to get Cosmo to loosen up and enjoy life. More often than not they would complicate it.
Sondheim wrote about ten episodes on his own, and a similar number with Oppenheimer. "Topper" premiered on October 9, 1953. Sondheim stayed in Los Angeles for about six months, until he had saved enough money for an apartment in New York.
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community forum: Finishing the Chat... ››
“Assassins is about how society interprets the American Dream, marginalizes outsiders and rewrites and sanitizes its collective history. "Something Just Broke" is a major distraction and plays like an afterthought, shoe horned simply to appease. The song breaks the dramatic fluidity and obstructs the overall pacing and climactic arc which derails the very intent and momentum that makes this work so compelling...”
- Mark Bakalor
“I found [the Sondheim Celebration's Company] to be completely delightful. Almost all of the numbers excited and energized me, and most of the scenes were about as pitch-perfect as you can get. I just sat there with a big smile on my face the whole show.
Which is not to say that it is perfect...”
- popcornonmyknees
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