Editing Stephen Sondheim (section)

==== ''Do I Hear a Waltz?'' ====
''[[Do I Hear a Waltz?]]'', based on Laurents's 1952 play ''[[The Time of the Cuckoo]]'', was intended as another [[Rodgers and Hammerstein]] musical with [[Mary Martin]] in the lead. A new lyricist was needed,<ref>Laurents, Arthur (2000) ''Original Story By'', New York: Alfred A. Knopf {{ISBN|0-375-40055-9}}, p. 212</ref> and Laurents and [[Mary Rodgers]], Rodgers's daughter, asked Sondheim to fill in. Although Richard Rodgers and Sondheim agreed that the original play did not lend itself to musicalization, they began writing a musical version.{{sfn|Secrest|1998|pp=174–175}} The project had many difficulties, including Rodgers's alcoholism. Sondheim later called it the one project he truly regretted writing, given that the reasons he wrote it—as a favor to Mary, as a favor to Hammerstein, as an opportunity to work again with Laurents, and as an opportunity to make money—were not reasons to write a musical. He then decided to work only when he could write both music and lyrics.{{r|rich}}

Sondheim asked author and playwright [[James Goldman]] to join him as [[bookwriter]] for a new musical inspired by a gathering of former [[Ziegfeld Follies]] showgirls: initially titled ''The Girls Upstairs'', it became ''[[Follies]]''.<ref name="Chapin">Chapin, Ted (2003) ''Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies'', New York: Alfred A. Knopf. {{ISBN|978-0-375-41328-5}}</ref>