Steven Spielberg honors Stephen Sondheim at 'West Side Story' premiere - New York Post

“West Side Story” is, after all, a famously colorful musical.

Before the lights went down, director Steven Spielberg movingly paid tribute to Sondheim in a long and detailed speech.

“His amazing work for ‘West Side Story’ [in 1957] first put him on the map, and launched a career that would completely redraw that map, reinvent the musical and theater and create a body of work that beyond any doubt is as immortal as anything made by a mortal can be,” Spielberg said.