I’m interested in the theater because I’m interested in communication with audiences. Otherwise I would be in concert music.

Sondheim contrasts the theater’s built-in dialogue with an audience—story, character, and immediate emotional legibility—with the relative autonomy of “concert music,” which can exist without narrative or staging. The remark frames his career-long emphasis on dramatic purpose: songs are not ornamental but vehicles for character revelation and plot movement, designed to be understood in the moment by a live crowd. It also hints at his modernist musical instincts: if pure musical exploration were the goal, he suggests, he might have pursued the concert hall. Instead, he chooses the collaborative, communicative art of musical theater, where complexity must still land clearly and theatrically.