[STEPHEN SONDHEIM, spoken]
My first professional show
Which is when I was twenty-three years old
Was called Saturday Night
It was based on a play called Front Porch in Flatbush
Which had been written by two well-known screenwriters
Philip and Julius Epstein
They had among other things written Casablanca
And they had written about their childhood in Brooklyn

The play was to be made into a musical
Uh, under the auspices of Lem Ayers
Who was a leading producer and set designer at the time
And we had about six backers auditions
And, um, raised about half the money, and Lem suddenly died
He was a very young man, about forty years old
And I was, I won't say devastated, but certainly disappointed