Created especially for Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Sondheim turned 75 on March 22, but the feting is far from over. The Hollywood Bowl birthday party was Friday night. The stage was packed with stars of stage, screen and CD. The 18,000 seats were packed with fans and picnickers.

Merrily it rolled along.

Being a birthday party, merriment may have been sometimes forced. Birthdays are about aging, and past 16, are usually bittersweet. Friday was no exception. But it was probably happier than most.

Sondheim’s genius hardly needs restating here. He is America’s most celebrated living composer for the stage, and for all the right reasons. His shows go deep and cut deep. Psyches are rarely, in his songs, unscathed. Truths are told. Laughs in lyrics are dear, not cheap. He knows exactly who we are.

On Friday, many came out to remind us both who Sondheim is and who they were. Some have gotten old, but they’re troupers, and for Steve they’ll kick their legs again.

I don’t know Elaine Stritch’s age, and I won’t ask. But I’m delighted to report she still thinks herself a Broadway baby, and everyone seemed to agree when she sang the song from “Follies,” its original irony now gone in new directions but, like her, still functioning.

Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou have white hair they didn’t have in “Sweeney Todd” a quarter century ago. But they haven’t lost their diabolical comic timing in “A Little Priest.”

Like no one I can think of since possibly Genghis Khan, Sondheim is adored for his nastiness. Lansbury and Cariou cook up meat pies. You don’t want to know where they come from, but Sondheim tells you, and half of humanity is savaged in the process -- to our never-ending delight!

Bernadette Peters came by, and it wouldn’t have been a Sondheim evening without her. Her voice may not be in quite as good condition as she appears to be, but that didn’t stop her from going over the top, stopping the show with “Being Alive” from “Company” and “Children Will Listen” from “Into the Woods.” Sondheim, she reminded us, has always taken chances. And who wants him sung by singers who don’t?

Barbara Cook sang, with power, “Losing My Mind” from “Follies.” In fact, her singer’s mind remains even as the voice is inevitably lost, and in a duet with the young, fresh-voiced Josh Groban (“Move On” from “Sunday in the Park With George”), Cook demonstrated just how much Sondheim is sung by the mind as well as the vocal cords.

Birthdays are not necessarily the best times for priming the next generation. Broadway’s current crowd was well represented Friday, but the comparisons with the former stars did not favor the newcomers.

Hearing the likes of Jason Danieley, Marin Mazzie, Vanessa Williams, James Barbour, Jason Alexander and others, one was made aware of the effort it requires to sing Sondheim. Nothing with them quite took in a succession of numbers from “West Side Story,” “Follies,” “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and other famed shows.

But the format of such an evening did not help. Paul Gemignani, a longtime Sondheim hand, conducted a reduced and not well-rehearsed Los Angeles Philharmonic efficiently; his principle interest seemed to be keeping things moving. Perhaps it was thought a kindness, but camera operators tended to show younger singers in close-up and the older ones in long shots on the video screens. Consequently, we saw handsome but insecure singers trying too hard. Carol Burnett, on the other hand, may have to try pretty hard these days to patter through “Getting Married Today,” but, at least, she’s still Carol Burnett.

There were surprises. One was the indication that Groban may actually have talent. Perhaps Cook could mentor him. Without her, he schmalzed up “Johanna.”

Audra McDonald sang “Not a Day Goes By” from “Merrily We Roll Along.” It once looked as though she could single-handedly revolutionize Broadway singing -- until she got sidetracked by television. Too many days have now gone by and not another should be wasted. She is in her prime. When she sang, the intensity quotient took a large leap and the party was over. The music, the real show, had begun.

Barbra Streisand introduced the birthday boy warmly. Warren Beatty spoke distractedly. The concert was, in part, a benefit for a worthy new program -- “Children Will Listen” -- that gets kids into the theater. Three hundred high school students sang “Our Time,” from “Merrily,” and the camera panned along many new Mickeys and Judys, full of hope and promise.

It was nice to end with them, and so will I, leaving for another day the carping about why the Bowl couldn’t muster a real Sondheim show (as do places such as Ravinia with full concert versions of “Sweeney Todd” and “Passion”) and why Hollywood has such a history of treating Sondheim shabbily. The party had its moments.

Happy birthday, Steve.