Considered one of, if not the one, Sondheim’s most popular songs, “Send in the Clowns” is a song in A Little Night Music that appears in Act 2. The character of Desirée Armfeldt sings this emotional ballad as she attempts to reveal her feelings for Fredrik, her former lover. Since it’s first appearance in 1973, “Send in the Clowns” has gone on to become a popular standard in American culture. In the years following, Frank Sinatra recorded a cover of the song; in 1975, Judy Collins’ recorded a cover that went on to win a Grammy Award for Song of the Year.

What is perhaps most peculiar about this wildly popular song is that it almost did not exist. Here’s what Sondheim had to say on the matter, directly from his book of annotated lyrics, Finishing the Hat:

The song in this scene was supposed to be Fredrik’s, since the action is his, the passive reaction being Desirée’s, and I started to write one. But by design, Desirée had only two songs in the first act, neither one a solo, and none in the second. During rehearsals, Hal [Prince] called me to say that he thought this scene might be the ideal place for a solo for her and that he had directed it so that the thrust of the action came from her rather than from Fredrik. I went skeptically to see a rehearsal, and he had indeed accomplished what he had promised: the scene was now Desirée’s.

When it came to casting the role of Desirée Armfeldt, Sondheim and Prince knew that they needed someone in early middle age, charming, and seductive enough to make Fredrik think of cheating on, and perhaps even leaving, his beautiful and very young wife. She had to be an actress capable of playing light comedy, of which there were few practitioners still working on the stage; the tradition of light comedy had been all but replaced by the more “forceful situation comedies of the Neil Simon school”. They knew that whomever they cast with those qualities, they would not also be a strong singer.

So, Glynis Johns was cast. Johns was a British stage actress, most famous in the United States for playing Winifred Banks in the Disney film adaptation of P.L. Travers’ Mary Poppins. To Sondheim’s delighted surprise, Johns had a small, but silvery voice that was musical and smokily pure. Sondheim was a “sucker for smoky female sounds”.

Sondheim had tailored songs before to fit the talents and limitations of particular performers (“Everything’s Coming Up Roses” for Ethel Merman and “The Ladies Who Lunch” for Elaine Stritch). Johns’ chief limitation was an inability to sustain a note; her breathiness was her liability as a singer. Sondheim’s solution was to write short, breathy phrases for her (this suggested questions rather than statements). When recording the song, Johns recorded it perfectly in one take, despite only being in a recording studio once before for Mary Poppins. Johns’ version of “Send in the Clowns” remains Sondheim’s favorite to this day.

To this day, Sondheim is still unsure of why “Send in the Clowns” is so immensely popular. He doesn’t think the song is eminently worth singing; why this ballad of all the ones he had written?

When asked about what the song is truly meant to be about, Sondheim stated:

I get a lot of letters over the years asking what the title means and what the song’s about; I never thought it would be in any way esoteric. I wanted to use theatrical imagery in the song, because she’s an actress, but it’s not supposed to be a circus […] [I]t’s a theater reference meaning ‘if the show isn’t going well, let’s send in the clowns’; in other words, ‘let’s do the jokes.’ I always want to know, when I’m writing a song, what the end is going to be, so ‘Send in the Clowns’ didn’t settle in until I got the notion, ‘Don’t bother, they’re here’, which means that ‘We are the fools.’

“Send in the Clowns” and A Little Night Music came at a point in Sondheim and Prince’s careers where they were at a standstill. Follies (1971) had been an utter disaster, financially speaking. With their next show, Sondheim and Prince needed a guaranteed hit. They relied on the jokes and charm of A Little Night Music to win over the hearts of audiences and succeeded in doing so.

Penn State Centre Stage’s production of A Little Night Music runs November 5 – 15th in the Playhouse Theatre. Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased here.