‘The Woman Gave Him His Ticket, and He Walked Off’

Going Up

Dear Diary:

A few years ago, I went to see a friend in a play at the Signature Theater in Manhattan. The elevator was empty when I got in. Seconds later, Stephen Sondheim got in too and stood almost shoulder to shoulder with me.

I froze. I couldn’t speak.

After exiting the elevator, we both approached the young woman at the box office. He was in front of me.

“Reservation, Sondheim,” I heard him say.

The woman gave him his ticket, and he walked off.

It was my turn.

“Mere mortal,” I said.

“Aren’t we all?” she replied.

— Ellen Ratner

Close Call

Dear Diary:

I was a freshman at Marist College in fall 1983 when I returned to my dorm room to find a message scrawled on the little whiteboard hanging on my door: “Stephen Sondheim called. Call him back at … ”

Figuring it was one of my theater-loving friends from home making a joke, I called back from the pay phone at the end of the floor, only to discover that it was in fact Stephen Sondheim’s office number.

His assistant answered and asked when it would be convenient for him to call me back. I was so stunned that I didn’t ask why he was calling or how he had gotten the pay phone number. (It turned out he had tried my home in the Bronx first, and my mother had given him the pay phone number. “Did a Stephen Sondheim get ahold of you?” she asked when I called later.)

I explained to Mr. Sondheim’s assistant that I was in college and could only be reached at a communal pay phone but that I could be at it any time the next evening.

When the next night came, the phone rang at the designated time. I answered on the first ring. It wasn’t Mr. Sondheim. The caller was Gerald Chapman, his creative partner in the Young Playwrights Festival, a contest for teenagers that the two had recently started.

Mr. Chapman was calling to tell me that a one-act play I had written in high school had been selected as a semifinalist. (I had forgotten that I submitted it.)

So, I never got to speak with the theater legend, but in my mind, I can still see the message on that erasable board: “Stephen Sondheim called. Call him back at … ”

— John Roche

East Side Story

Dear Diary:

One Sunday night in the early 1980s, I dropped by my office on Park Avenue and 48th Street. As I was heading across Park Avenue to a parking garage in my small two-seater, a car ran a red light and T-boned me.

My car was crushed, and I was pretty shaken up. The police came to the scene. The other driver told the officers that I had run the light.

There were three people on a nearby corner who had seen the whole thing. Without hesitating, one approached the officers. He told them what he had witnessed and confirmed my story: The other driver had run a red light before crashing into me.

Still shaken, I approached the man and thanked him. He was reserved, humble and forthcoming. I asked for his name and phone number in case my insurance company needed to contact him. It was only when he told me his name that I learned this witness was Stephen Sondheim. Extraordinary!

The insurance company said later that the other driver’s claim had been closed because of the witness’s account. I called Mr. Sondheim to thank him again for stepping forward.

He asked how I was feeling.

— Barry A. Bryer

First Name, Please

Dear Diary:

Many years ago, my husband and I decided on the spur of the moment to see a Broadway show. We phoned and reserved tickets.

When we arrived at the box office, my husband got on the line, and I stepped to the side and stood next to a young man.

The person in front of my husband was Stephen Sondheim.

The woman at the box office asked Mr. Sondheim for his first name.

“I hope she doesn’t ask him to spell it,” I said quietly.

The young man next to me laughed.

— Marcia Altman

Waving Hello

Dear Diary:

I was waiting for a crosstown bus on East 49th Street near Second Avenue the day before Thanksgiving on my way to see a matinee of “Company.”

Stephen Sondheim’s townhouse is across the street, and I noticed that the blinds in the second-story window were open. I don’t know why, but I felt moved to get a better look.

I crossed the street and was on the sidewalk just beneath that window when I saw Mr. Sondheim suddenly swing around in a chair and wave.

Reflexively, I waved back.

I realized later that he had probably been trying to get the attention of the driver of the Lincoln Town Car that had just pulled up. It all happened so fast. I had walked past his house many times in the 30 years I had lived in the neighborhood, and nothing like this had ever happened before.

I went back to the bus stop. The driver locked the car and walked up the block. And Mr. Sondheim disappeared into his house.

— Christina Clarke

Read all recent entries and our submissions guidelines. Reach us via email diary@nytimes.com or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter.

Illustrations by Agnes Lee