At the 64th GRAMMY Awards on Sunday, April 3, Ben Platt, Cynthia Erivo, Leslie Odom Jr. and Rachel Zegler will pay tribute to the artists who have passed away in the last year during the in memoriam section of the ceremony. Among the honorees is the late composer Stephen Sondheim, who passed away on Nov. 26, 2021.
"He's meant so much to me. When I was a kid, I grew up listening to his musicals," Platt, an actor, singer and songwriter, told GRAMMY.com by phone. "He really shaped my worldview about how to be a person from his writing."
Prior to his death at the age of 91, Sondheim, won seven GRAMMY Awards and was nominated 17 times during his long and celebrated career. Sondheim's last win was for the 1994 musical theater album Passion, though he had been heavily in the spotlight at the time of his death.
In 2021, the prolific composer and lyricist was featured in the movie, tick, tick..Boom!; a revival of his Broadway show "Company" (for which Sondheim took home a GRAMMY for Best Score From An Original Cast Show Album in 1970) was in previews; and a second film version of West Side Story, which he wrote the lyrics to in 1957, was days away from its glitzy New York City premiere.
In addition to performing in Sunday's Sondheim tribute, Platt is part of the Dear Evan Hansen team nominated for Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media. (The actor reprised his Tony Award-winning role as Evan Hansen in the 2021 film adaptation.) A Dear Evan Hansen win would mark Platt’s second GRAMMY Award for the same show — the original "Dear Evan Hansen" Broadway cast recording won Best Musical Theater Album 2018.
GRAMMY.com spoke with Platt all about his nomination, what the tribute to Sondheim will look like and how he's continuing to honor Sondheim’s legacy by filming a movie of another one of his GRAMMY-nominated musicals, "Merrily We Roll Along."
What was your reaction when you were asked to perform this special tribute?
It was one of those universe things of feeling like you're in the right place at the right time. The flashiness of being on the GRAMMYs is exciting no matter what, but there's something deeply honoring and humbling about doing it in this way.
I saw Cynthia five times in "The Color Purple." We all saw Leslie in "Hamilton." I love the West Side Story film. It's a special concoction of theater people. You'll never get a group that truly represents the theater community and I’m proud this is the crew to carry out this particular message.
What can you tell us about the performance?
I don’t know what I am allowed to reveal or not reveal. Leslie, Cynthia, Rachel and myself are all representing different songs, and presenting different motifs. They all blend together in this really beautiful medley. I think it's really beautiful this year that it gets to be both for him in particular, and for the entire in memoriam section at large.
Are you able to reveal what song of his you're singing on Sunday?
I'm not supposed to. But I will say they're all from different shows. And they're all very familiar, beautiful, popular tunes that I hope many people will know.
Have you gotten the music yet?
We all gave our two cents about what we wanted it to feel like and sound like. Leslie and his really brilliant arranger Bruce Healey put it in motion and created this great arrangement. We've all been learning it separately. We get together on Friday and rehearse together off site. Then we rehearse again on Saturday. Then there’s a dress rehearsal and then we do it.
Who picked the songs?
It's a collaboration. We gave a list and [the producers] told us which ones that they were particularly interested in. We all expressed which ones fit our voices and then we all found a happy medium together.
What does Sondheim mean to you?
When I was a kid, I felt a little bit different than a lot of my peers in the sense that my mind was sometimes elsewhere.
In "Sunday in the Park with George" [which Sondheim won a GRAMMY Award for Best Cast Show Album in 1984], which is my favorite musical of all time, [Sondheim writes] a lot about that mindset — what it's like to be an artist and what you have to sacrifice to really love what you do and be passionate about what you do. How sometimes relationships and other aspects of your life have to really take a backseat when you're devoting yourself to your art. Hearing that expressed in such a beautiful way was so moving to me.
What’s your favorite Sondheim lyric? Mine is "Let Me Entertain You."
I would say it's a tie between "anything you do/let it come from you/that it will be new" from "Sunday in the Park with George" and "if life were only moments/ that you'd never know you had one" from "Into The Woods."
Did you ever meet Sondheim?
He came to see "Dear Evan Hansen" but he didn’t come backstage. I auditioned for him once for a revival of "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" that James Corden was going to do that never came together. I got to sing "Love, I Hear" for him. Of course, I hated the audition. It wasn't nearly good enough for me because it was for Sondheim. But I did get to look him in the face and wave and say hello.
We were meant to sit down and have dinner with Rick Linklater, Beanie [Feldstein] and Jonathan Mark Sherman to talk about our Merrily We Roll Along project. But we didn’t get it together in time before we lost him.
How much of the movie have you shot already?
Just the first sequence.
When is the next time you film?
Holidays 2023.
It’s incredible how different it must feel to go from shooting Dear Evan Hansen in such a short time to filming this movie, which takes place over the course of 20 years.
This is a very special once in a lifetime situation that is definitely a leap of faith for all involved. I think everybody, particularly those that know and love "Merrily," what a particularly special opportunity it is to make this piece work in a way that it never has before.