The musical has always been in jeopardy – until – or was in jeopardy until it was realised that it is probably the safest living theatre art form.
It’s a terrible shame if you’re born the brightest guy in your class. If you’re not, then you have to hustle-and that’s good.
I don’t look back. I look forward and plan new shows. That’s really feeding the most important part of working in the theater.
Nothing is staged exactly as it was, because I can’t remember – and I consider that an advantage.
A star may guarantee business, but the tradeoff is a very short run.
I really wish people – maybe it’s naive – wish people had priorities and were willing to be artistic patrons.
I have a terrible memory because I’m not interested in the past. It’s done, it’s done.
I really don’t spend time thinking about the past. I think about the future. I’m not stopping.
I love big, bold, truthful theater – the tradition of Victorian theater.
I don’t think there’s a defined contemporary American musical, do you?
When I was a producer, the fun of the show was waking up with a hit and enjoying the period after the show opens. The fun of a director stops the day it opens. No matter if it’s a success or a failure, it’s not a whole lot of fun anymore.
I like to do everything you can possibly do before you go into rehearsal, because once we are in rehearsal or on the stage there will be a problem I didn’t anticipate. It’s really good to think we got it all nailed – of course you’ve never got it all nailed.
The idea that I have to be on the same side of the fence as Dan Quayle is cruelly depressing to me, but the truth is, I believe in family values.
The idea is to work and to experiment. Some things will be creatively successful, some things will succeed at the box office, and some things will only – which is the biggest only – teach you things that see the future. And they’re probably as valuable as any of your successes.
I’m a pragmatic man. I’ll veer on the dangerous side, because I love dangerous subjects, but I won’t shoot a show in the foot.
The truth is, for some absurd reason, no one is willing to admit that the interests of the producers and the theater owners are not the same.
There are wonderful composers and librettists out there. It’s the lack of creative producers that is troubling.
We’ve got to find a way to protect the process of making musical theater.
What’s missing in the musical theater is producers willing to nurture new work, raise the money and put it on.