A handful of organizations and individuals have been named as beneficiaries of Stephen Sondheim’s estate trust, which is reportedly worth an estimated $75 million. The New York Times reports the Dramatists Guild Fund, Irish Repertory Theater Company, Library of Congress, and New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and Smithsonian Institute are among those lists.
Among the named individuals are Sondheim's husband, Jeff Romley; Sunday in the Park With George, Into the Woods, and Passion book writer James Lapine; playwright and former romantic partner Peter Jones; assistant Steven Clar; and Peter Wooster and Rob Girard, who lived in and worked on (respectively) a small house on Sondheim's Connecticut property.
The amount that each beneficiary will receive from the estate is unclear.
Mr. Sondheim contributed an extensive record collection to the Library of Congress after a fire destroyed his house in the ‘90s, with “11,000 to 13,000 LPS, mostly classical music, with a surprising number by Scandinavian and South American composers,” according to LoC Senior Music Specialist Mark Eden Horowitz. “And he argued on our behalf for two collections we ended-up receiving—the papers of Arthur Laurents and Hal Prince.” The library also has several collections that relate to the artist, including those of his collaborators Leonard Bernstein and Richard Rodgers, and his mentor Oscar Hammerstein.
