Sondheim studied music at Williams College and trained in New York under the tutelage of Milton Babbitt. After writing scripts for the popular early 1950s sitcom Topper, Sondheim stumbled across another piece of good fortune. He met the playwright Arthur Laurents at a party, who told him that Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was being updated and turned into a musical with a score by Leonard Bernstein. The musical became West Side Story (1957), and as a result of this chance...