Stephen Sondheim lyrics for a musical version of "The Exception and the Rule"; according to Robbins, Bernstein would not work without Sondheim. When Sondheim agreed, Guare asked: "Why haven't you all worked together since "West Side Story"?" Sondheim answered, "You'll see". Guare said that working with Sondheim was like being with an old college roommate, and he depended on him to "decode and decipher their crazy way of working"; Bernstein worked only after midnight, and Robbins only in the early morning. Bernstein's score, which was supposed to be light, was influenced by his need to make a musical statement. Stuart Ostrow, who
Stephen Sondheim Willson's "Rock Island" from "The Music Man". The show was revived on Broadway in 2002. Sondheim and Lapine's last work together was the rhapsodic "Passion" (1994), adapted from Ettore Scola's Italian film "Passione D'Amore". With a run of 280 performances, "Passion" was the shortest-running show to win a Tony Award for Best Musical. "Assassins" opened off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on December 18, 1990, with music and lyrics by Sondheim and its book by John Weidman. The musical closed on February 16, 1991, after 73 performances. Its idea derived from Sondheim's days as a panelist at producer Stuart Ostrow's Musical Theater