Sondheim, Stephen. (1930-2021) & Styne, Jule. (1901-1994) [Lee, Gypsy Rose. (1911-1970) & Laurents, Arthur. (1917-2011)]. "Gypsy" - Vocal Score. New York: Williamson Music, Inc. & Stratford Music Corporation.
The 1959 musical comedy Gypsy was an adaptation of Gypsy: A Memoir, the autobiography of Gypsy Rose Lee, who had become famous in burlesque as a striptease artist. The show, with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and book by Arthur Laurents, was directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins in the original production at the Broadway Theatre in New York. It premiered on May 21, 1959, with set designs and light by Jo Meilziner. It contains many songs that became popular standards, including "Small World," "Everything's Coming up Roses", "You'll Never Get Away from Me," and "Let Me Entertain You," and has been referred to as the greatest American musical by numerous critics and writers, including Frank Rich who called it the American musical theatre's answer to King Lear. Theater critic Clive Barnes wrote that "Gypsy is one of the best of musicals" and described the character of Rose as "one of the few truly complex characters in the American musical." Gypsy afforded Ethel Merman her first full-length dramatic role in the theater and is considered by many to have been her greatest triumph as a stage performer. It was made into a motion picture starring Natalie Wood and Rosalind Russell in 1963.