Mary Rodgers (1931-2014), the daughter of Richard Rodgers, was herself an achieved composer and creator who was surrounded by a few of the most notable personalities of American musical theater.
In "Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), written with New York Instances theater critic Jesse Inexperienced, she tells a narrative, each painful and completely satisfied, that's by no means something however candid, forgiving and witty.
Learn an excerpt beneath, through which Mary describes her first encounter along with her lifelong pal, Stephen Sondheim.
Steve and I performed a recreation the primary time we met. This was at Highland Farm, Oscar Hammerstein's house in Bucks County, in the summertime of 1944. Steve was one of many semi-orphans and unhappy strays with rotten mother and father whom Ockie and his spouse Dorothy had been all the time quasi-adopting, together with the fey and engaging Shawen Lynch and the mysterious, haughty Margot de Vaulchier, who was both a royal descendant of some unidentified mini-kingdom like Liechtenstein, or perhaps an escapee from Staten Island – who knew?
I assume I had include my mother and father; perhaps Daddy and Ockie had been engaged on Carousel, which opened on Broadway the following spring. Anyway, there we had been: a thirteen-year-old woman, fats and ungainly, as my father saved telling me, and a fourteen-year-old boy genius with a loopy narcissist divorcée of a mom who'd put him in army faculty – which he beloved.
With nothing in widespread besides R (me) and H (him), what do you do? You play chess. Three video games. He beat me fiendishly, took no time in any respect. As soon as we ran via that, we went to the piano, the place he performed both Rhapsody in Blue or An American in Paris. I did not know these Gershwin issues, oddly sufficient. Rising up, I solely went to Daddy's musicals; at house, he by no means performed Gershwin data. He did not play data a lot normally, however in particular he did not play Gershwin, the one composer he might need envied – effectively, perhaps not the mind tumor half. Or perhaps even that.
I used to be dazzled by Steve, utterly surprised. I knew straight away he was good; he simply reeked of expertise. Which, not illogically, was all the time the most important turn-on for me. I married two tall, blue-eyed males, however the ones I had essentially the most enjoyable with had been darkish. And, boy, was Steve darkish. He wasn't obnoxious, however impatient, a bit snappish. Nice, however not boy-girl nice. I used to be only a physique there. I do not suppose he thought I used to be as brilliant as he was, and he was proper. He knew I wasn't as much as his requirements. However no person was. Later, we did turn out to be virtually equals, besides within the mind division. However at that second I believed I might by no means be as infatuated with anybody once more. Which turned out to be true.
From "Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers" by Mary Rodgers and Jesse Inexperienced, revealed by Farrar Straus Giroux. © 2022 by Mary Rodgers and Jesse Inexperienced. Reprinted with permission.
For more information:
- "Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers" by Mary Rodgers and Jesse Inexperienced (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), in Hardcover, eBook and Audio codecs, obtainable by way of Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Indiebound
- Comply with @JesseKGreen on Twitter