Stephen Sondheim Wanted to Work With Trey Parker and Matt Stone

When Tony Award-winning composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim passed away, comedian Sam Morril went to an event celebrating the life of the man who wrote the music for Into the Woods and West Side Story. Among the artifacts of Sondheim’s life on display, Morril was wowed to discover a note that the composer wrote to South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone, which read something like, “I would be humbled to work with you guys.”

The high-brow/low-brow mash-up seems unimaginable, but Sondheim’s sentiment made sense to Morril, Patton Oswalt and Mark Normand on this week’s We Might Be Drunk podcast. “I was like, ‘This is amazing,’” said Morril, an appreciator of Parker and Stone’s musical prowess. “The songs are fucking… South Park: The Movie, the songs are like genius.”

“‘America, Fuck Yeah,’” agreed Normand.

Parker and Stone’s most impressive musical theater bona fides come from their Broadway smash The Book of Mormon, which won nine Tony Awards in 2011. But Oswalt said the boys have always had the goods. “You’ve seen Cannibal! the Musical, right?” he asked. “It’s all about the Donner Party, but it’s a musical, and it is catchy.” (Not familiar with the Donner Party? A quick history lesson: They were a group of American pioneers who became snowbound in the Sierra Nevada mountains during the winter of 1846-1847. Their plight led to starvation, disease and, you guessed it, cannibalism.)

The low-budget musical, “in the tradition of Friday the 13th Part Two and Oklahoma,” was the first real project Stone and Parker took on after meeting in a film class at the University of Colorado Boulder. The film, produced on the cheap, contained 10 original showtunes. “Yes, it’s funny,” said Oswalt, “but also you’re watching it going, ‘These songs are pretty good!’”

No word on whether Sondheim saw Cannibal! The Musical, but he was enchanted with Team America: World Police. A Redditor posted a letter from Sondheim to Parker, which is likely the same one referred to by Morril. The exact text reads as follows:

Dear Trey Parker,  

I would have written you sooner, but I’ve had trouble finding your address. I hope this reaches you, because it’s another fan letter. I saw Team America and voted for it as the best movie of the year (a fat lot of good it did you). I gather from friends to whom I’ve burbled on about it that it was treated rottenly by the critics and that you are much discouraged. I can’t blame you, but then again this is the time of discouragement. In any event, congratulations to you and your partner.

Would you ever be interested in writing a stage musical with an old traditionalist, namely me? 

Yours truly,

Stephen Sondheim