It’s the end of times and Stephen Colbert’s last broadcast was last night. I haven’t been a late night TV fan since O’Brien was booted out by Leno - or more recently, since Tomlinson’s show featuring all my favorite improv actors was brutally cancelled before its time (producers don’t understand comedy when it’s looking them in the eye) - but this felt historic. The first strike on the First Amendment match of this administration was the announcement of Late Night’s end in May 2026, and here it finally was1. The end of an era. The first domino to fall that toppled free speech in the country of liberty and justice for all.
A lot of Colbert’s skits and guest stars this week (and this past month, and even this past year) have appeared to be rightfully deserved self-indulgent reaches - actors and singers with nothing to promote, but with respect for Colbert and a desire to say goodbye. David Byrnes burnt down the Paramount house, Pope Leo XIV “hid” in his dressing room, Paul McCartney wished the show hello and goodbye, and David Letterman even came back to the roof of the Ed Sullivan theater to throw CBS property onto the street below.
As a former theater kid, though, there was one performance that will forever stand out to me more than any other.
Colbert’s final week kicked off with a rendition of “Putting It Together” from Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George”, as performed by some of Broadway’s best and brightest: Ben Platt, Annaleigh Ashford, Christopher Jackson, Patrick Wilson, and (*inhales in theater-kid-wet-dream-fugue-state*) Bernadette Peters.
On first glance, the performance is just an opportunity for Colbert and his audience to all simultaneously gush with delight as a group of five individually talented singers do a song they may otherwise never get the chance to perform as a unit. It’s like Colbert watched a middle schooler dreamcast the show on TikTok and said, “Huh, interesting…let’s make it happen. For funsies!” But it’s not just that, is it? I mean, it could be! I too would make all my favorite singers play house on national television if I could. I just think Stephen Colbert is too brilliant to let that be the only reason for this performance.
Art isn’t easy
It’s the call that echoes throughout the song: Art isn’t easy. Art isn’t easy. Art isn’t easy. Sondheim never does anything accidentally; if it’s being repeated, it’s because he wants you to remember it - to hang onto the words long after the rest of the words have stopped ringing in your ears. In the context of its original show, it’s a take on the interpretation of artwork, and how art will constantly be changing and evolving even when our opinions on the work itself remain stagnant.
The art of making art / is putting it together / bit by bit
In the context of the kicking off the final week of The Late Show, Colbert is asking his audience to remember how important art is in the dawning of this newest era of censorship and AI takeover. Art isn’t easy, and art (when handled with care and love) is put together bit by bit - each puzzle piece perfectly cut to fit into its place, each word pondered over and examined and analyzed over again until the piece flows.
Colbert is asking his audience to remember this when they watch his final week; he’s Sondheim crafting his musical, and nothing he is airing or saying or broadcasting is done without intent, without meaning, without underlying message. Byrnes didn’t just sing “Burning Down the House” because Colbert is a big Talking Heads guy; he sang it because The Late Show is burning down and taking all of CBS with it. Every sketch, every guest, every joke is being done with design and with precision, sculpted to perfection by an entire team of writers, producers, technicians, interns, and Colbert himself.
anyways, fuck AI
I have zero other headings in this piece, but bolding out “fuck AI” just felt right in the context of “Putting it Together”. It might not have been what Colbert wanted his audience to focus on or pull from the performance, but it’s been ringing through my ears the way Sondheim intended; it rings louder every time Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez holds up a jar of brown “water” to Congress, every time Kevin O’Leary talks about the importance of a data center 2.5 times the size of Manhattan that will raise the temperature of the state of Utah by nearly thirty degrees, every time my cousin sends a ChatGPT response in the family group chat on how to pronounce our last name. It keeps ringing. It won’t stop. Art isn’t easy.
Art was never meant to be easy. We’ve been cutting art and theater and creative programs for decades already because we’ve deemed it the lowest priority - the thing that doesn’t need to be enhanced when we could be elevating STEM or business or other areas of study instead. And yet, we keep consuming art.
We turn to comfort shows when we need a break from the ever-increasingly-horrific news. We escape into books as reality gets heavier. We send each other songs and comedic Instagram reels and artwork over and over again until the world goes from uncontrollable to somewhat digestible. We cling to art. We need art. We need to be reminded of our own humanity. AI can replicate it as close to each individual brushstroke as possible, but it will never be able to move us the way real art can.
(…No matter how good that “San Juan” song is.)
The creation of art is meant to challenge us just as much as the consumption of it is meant to move us. If art really was easy, billionaires wouldn’t be working so hard to replicate it. Staying for the credits of any good movie shows us just how much effort is put into real art - the thousands of hours that thousands of people collectively pull together to make something. Maybe it’s nothing more than a horror movie with a serial killer whose mask has heart eyes (I love you, Josh Ruben) but it’s still art, regardless of the form it takes. Art isn’t easy, and that’s one of the things that makes it so beautiful.
I don’t want to live in a world where we create art because it is an “easy” thing to do - I want to continue living in a world where we inspire one another through our art, where we push boundaries to break through mental barriers as well as physical ones, where we keep trying because to try is the most human thing we can do. Art at its best reminds us that there is always more to do - that we have to keep going and have to keep trying because we owe it to each other. We owe it to ourselves.
I want to count the brushstrokes and wonder what audiobook the painter was listening to when they were working. I want to read the acknowledgements of a book and trace the names of the people who inspired the author to keep putting words to their stories. I want to stare at a sculpture in a park and wonder how many memories were created under its view. I want art to create community and force us to care when that community is struggling. I want art to push us to step outside ChatGPT prompts and Meta glasses and immediate answers and “easy”, and teach us to step into challenging and countless hours and hard work because that’s where art and culture and humanity thrives.
Art isn’t easy, and the day it becomes easy is the day we lose ourselves.
for more woke snowflake bullshit, check out:
for the record, cancelling Colbert is not even in the top fifty bad things this administration has done. but can’t a white guy just tell a joke anymore!! time for stephen’s podcast era
YES! obsessed with this message and how you put it together! also i love sondheim
Loved this ❤️