Typed letter signed from the important composer and lyricist. One page, 5 x 5 inches (visible), matted and framed to 9 x 9 inches.  Personal letterhead, October 15, 1982, to Paul Roth. In full: “Thanks for your letter and the compliments. Unfortunately, your speculations are correct: by the time anybody gives my stuff a chance, they have killed the show. Not to mention the score.” Overall toning, unexamined out of frame, in apparently fine condition.

Notably, the letter was written the year following Merrily We Roll Along, which premiered on Broadway on November 16, 1981, in a production directed by frequent Sondheim collaborator Hal Prince, with a cast almost exclusively of teenagers and young adults. However, the show was not the success the previous Sondheim–Prince collaborations had been: after a chaotic series of preview performances, it opened to widely negative reviews, and closed after 16 performances and 44 previews.