Anatomy of a Song (1976)

Stephen Sondheim, composer-lyricist; John Weidman, writer; and Frank Rich, theater critic, in a close study of how one Broadway musical song came to be: "Someone in a Tree" from "Pacific Overtures". Members of the Broadway cast join Sondheim in a performance of the number. Filmed in Sondheim's apartment in New York City. Members of the cast of "Pacific Overtures": Mako, James Dybas, Geddie Watanabe, Mark Hsu Syers. "It's my favorite song of anything I've written," Sondheim said. He demonstrates how he created the song, how the music tracks the libretto, gaining complexity and tension as the text becomes more urgent, how the song becomes a study of perceiving details in a seamless world.