Theater, film and television director, librettist and playwright James Lapine has won three Tony Awards for best book of a musical – for Into the Woods, Passion and Falsettos. A frequent collaborator with Stephen Sondheim and William Finn, he is also the recipient of 9 Tony Award nominations, 5 Drama Desk awards, a Pulitzer Prize in Drama, and the Mr. Abbott Award for lifetime achievement in theater. His new musical, Flying Over Sunset, will be opening in Lincoln Center this November. He is the author of the highly acclaimed new book, “Putting It Together; How Stephen Sondheim And I Created Sunday in the Park with George.”
Leading our conversation is Honorary Lamb Foster Hirsch, a professor of film at Brooklyn College and the author of 16 books on film and theater, including The Dark Side of the Screen: Film Noir, A Method to Their Madness: The History of the Actors Studio, and Kurt Weill on Stage: From Berlin to Broadway.