Stephen Sondheim

Songwriter Stephen Sondheim. Last fall he gave a talk at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York City. We broadcast that talk. Sondheim's latest work, "Passion," opens tonight.

Sondheim briefly wrote for the television show Topper before becoming the lyricist for the Broadway hits West Side Story and Gypsy. A trained composer, he later began writing his own musicals which, Sondheim says, continued in the Rogers and Hammerstein tradition. They include Sweeney Todd, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Into the Woods.

James Lapine worked with Stephen Sondheim on Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods and Passion. In Putting it Together, he draws on interviews with Sondheim and members of the cast and crew.

"I always considered song parody kind of cheap," the Emmy-nominated lyricist and performer says. "But ... I've gotten [such a] response from others ... that I'm appreciating it as an art form."

Actress Anna Kendrick got her start in the business at the age of six. She has a new memoir Scrappy Little Nobody, a collection of humorous essays about growing up in Maine and becoming a performer. Her film credits include Trolls, Pitch Perfect and Up In The Air, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award.