Steve Gorman and Alex Dobuzinskis

(Reuters) -A Broadway composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim died Friday morning at the age of 91. His publicist stated that he had been instrumental in American musical theatre’s evolution beyond entertainment.

Kathryn Zuckerman, spokesperson for Reuters, told Reuters via email that the musical legend died in Roxbury, Connecticut. She said she did not have any additional details. New York Times had reported this earlier.

Sondheim received eight Tony Awards for music and lyrics, more than any other musician. His 2008 Special Tony Award for Achievement in Lifetime was also presented to him.

As a youngster, he learned the art of musical theater from Oscar Hammerstein II, his mentor, who was the legendary lyricist of the “Sound of Music.”

Lin-Manuel Miranda was mentored and created “Hamilton”.

Sondheim’s greatest hits include “Into the Woods”, which premiered on Broadway in 1987. It used fairy tales from children to unravel adult obsessions. 1979’s thriller “Sweeney Todd” is about a London barber who murders his victims and serves them as meat pies. 1962’s comedy “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way To the Forum” was a vaudeville-style comedy that takes place in Rome.

Also, he wrote the lyrics for Leonard Bernstein’s music for “West Side Story”, inspired by William Shakespeare’s play “Romeo and Juliet”. He collaborated with Jule Styne to write the lyrics for “Gypsy,” which is loosely based upon the memoirs Gypsy Rose Lee burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee.

Sondheim shared his love of theater in an interview for National Public Radio.

Many Sondheim’s most popular musicals have been made into movies. These include “Into the Woods”, starring Meryl Streep and the “Sweeney Todd,” starring Johnny Depp. Next month will see the release of a new version of West Side Story, directed by Stephen Spielberg and based on a Tony Kushner screenplay.

Sondheim stated that he had visited Spielberg’s set during a September guest appearance on CBS’ “Late Show With Stephen Colbert” and “agreed with the movie as really first-rate.”

Sondheim’s songs are well-respected for their sharp humor and insights into contemporary life, as well as for being able to give voice to complicated characters. However, few of his songs made it onto the charts.

HIT ‘CLOWNS”

However, he scored a hit and won one of the three Grammys in his career with “Send in the Clowns”, from the 1973 musical “A Little Night Music”. Frank Sinatra and Sarah Vaughan recorded it, as well as Judy Collins. Sondheim was also awarded a Best-Song Academy Award for 1991 for his song “Sooner Or Later (I Always Get My Man),”, which Madonna sang in “Dick Tracy”.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom was presented to Obama in 2015 at an White House ceremony.

Sondheim’s most significant achievement was the Pulitzer Prize, which he shared with James Lapine in 1984’s musical “Sunday in the Park with George.” It is about Georges Seurat (19th-century French Neo-Impressionist painter). They also worked together on “Into the Woods.”

Bernadette, an actress who played the parts of Dot in “Sunday in the Park”, and Marie in the role of the witch in “Into the Woods,” shared her sadness by tweeting that Sondheim had “gave us so many to sing about.”

Anna Kendrick (a co-star in the film version “Into the Woods”) called Sondheim’s passing “a tragic loss”.

She added, “Performing his works has been one of the greatest privileges in my career,” on Twitter (NYSE :).

New York City’s Broadway Theater industry was transformed as Sondheim won numerous accolades. The Broadway theater played an important role in American culture in the 1950s. Many Broadway songs made the pop charts. However, it lost its significance when rock music became more popular starting in 1960.

In his book, “The Rise and Fall of the Broadway Musical,” Mark N. Grant explains that musicals are increasingly borrowing material from TV and movies.

Sondheim agreed with the notion that Broadway was in decline and expressed this belief repeatedly during interviews.

According to him, “There is so much entertainment that theater is becoming more marginalized.” He stated this in 2012 to The Times of Britain.

However, Broadway musicals evolved into more artistic and Sondheim was a major contributor to that evolution. Sondheim explored important topics such as the need for family in “Assassins,” the pull of dysfunctional families in “Into the Woods,” the social inequalities in “Sweeney Todd” and Western imperialism at “Pacific Overtures.”

He also developed innovative ways to present plays. He would instead of telling the story from start to finish, he would go backwards and forwards in time to focus on a single theme. This was known as the “concept musical”.

Sondheim’s “West Side Story”, a Broadway play, was introduced to Broadway audiences by Sondheim in 1957. This story, about Maria, a Puerto Rican girl and Tony, a white boy from Manhattan, was made into an Oscar-winning film. In the songs “Maria”, “Somewhere” or “Tonight,” central characters express their love in songs.

CONFLICT with MOTHER

Sondheim was the son of wealthy Jewish parents, who were fashion designers. He was born in New York City on March 22nd 1930. His childhood was a lonely experience, and he referred to his first years as being surrounded by servants.

Sondheim, then 10, was the result of his parents’ divorce. He moved with his mom to Pennsylvania where she bought her farm. Later, he claimed that his mother was angry at him for divorcing. In the immediate vicinity, Hammerstein’s wife Dorothy found him a surrogate.

Hammerstein was the composer partner Richard Rodgers who created “Oklahoma!” Sondheim was taught how to make musical theater by his teenage friends, “South Pacific,” and “The Sound of Music”.

He mentored other Broadway performers after Sondheim’s fame. Sondheim helped Miranda to develop a musical about Alexander Hamilton’s founding father. In 2015, the Broadway hit was The Hamilton Play.

Sondheim was not able to surpass Andrew Lloyd Webber in box office success. Webber is the composer of “The Phantom of the Opera” (NASDAQ:),” and “Cats,” with whom Sondheim had a birthday.

Sondheim encouraged audiences to see the show, even though it sometimes led to box office disasters.

His less successful commercial plays received praise from critics. These included his 1976 play “Pacific Overtures,” depicting Japan in an era of Western colonialism. His 1990 Off-Broadway production, “Assassins,” about real-life characters who set out to murder an American president.

Many academics had a lot of respect for Sondheim. Five years after he was named visiting professor at Oxford University, England, in 1994, the Sondheim Review, a quarterly journal, began to review his work.

The acerbic irony in his lyrics was celebrated by his devotees, who described it as commenting upon everything from America’s limits to the downfall of marriage.

Sondheim’s 1970 musical, “Company,” contained these lines: “Here’s To the Girls Who Lunch/Aren’t They Too Much?/ Keeping House but holding a copy of “LIFE”/Just to Keep in Touch.”