Edited by W. Anthony Sheppard, Marylin and Arthur Levitt Professor of Music, Williams College

W. Anthony Sheppard is Marylin and Arthur Levitt Professor of Music at Williams College. His first book, Revealing Masks: Exotic Influences and Ritualized Performance in Modernist Music Theater received the Kurt Weill Prize, his article on Madama Butterfly and film earned the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award, an article on World War II film music was honored with the Alfred Einstein Award by the American Musicological Society, and "Puccini and the Music Boxes" received the AMS H. Colin Slim Award. His most recent book, Extreme Exoticism: Japan in the American Musical Imagination, received the AMS Music in American Culture Award and the Society for American Music Lowens Award. Sheppard's research has been supported by the NEH, the American Philosophical Society, the ACLS, and the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Musicological Society and is now Series Editor of AMS Studies in Music.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez

Geoffrey Block

Andrew Buchman

Todd Decker

Lara E. Housez

Kim H. Kowalke

Jim Lovensheimer

Jeffrey Magee

Dominic McHugh

James O'Leary

Ashley M. Pribyl

W. Anthony Sheppard

Steve Swayne

Elizabeth A. Wells

Stacy Wolf

"To say I have put Sondheim on a pedestal would be an understatement. He is the genius of all geniuses. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost of my chosen religion: musical theater. As has been explored in multiple chapters in this book, Sondheim's monolithic greatness—to my mind and in the Broadway community at large—is connected to his ability to capture the nuanced paradoxes of the human heart and mind." - from the Afterword by Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Oscar and Grammy award-winning songwriter

"All hail to a comprehensive collection representing the latest work and thoughts by most of the big Sondheim players in the musicological field! The quality of the contributions is high, and several essays may become classics." - Stephen Banfield, emeritus professor, University of Bristol