 All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theatre live. That's why it persists. |
| When the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you've written. |
| When you know your cast well and their strengths and weaknesses, you can start writing for them, just the way Shakespeare wrote for his actors. |
| The more restrictions you have, the easier anything is to write. |
| The worst thing you can do is censor yourself as the pencil hits the paper. You must not edit until you get it all on paper. If you can put everything down, stream-of-consciousness, you'll do yourself a service. |
| I played the organ when I went to military school, when I was 10. They had a huge organ, the second-largest pipe organ in New York State. I loved all the buttons and the gadgets. I've always been a gadget man. |
| One of the hardest things about writing lyrics is to make the lyrics sit on the music in such a way that you're not aware there was a writer there. |
| The movie adaptations of stage musicals that I've seen, without exception, in my opinion don't work. A lot of people would disagree with me. |
| I don't listen to recordings of my songs. I don't avoid it, I just don't go out of my way to do it. |
| I firmly believe lyrics have to breathe and give the audience's ear a chance to understand what's going on. Particularly in the theater, where you have costume, story, acting, orchestra. |
| I was raised to be charming, not sincere. |
| You can't have personal investors anymore because it's too expensive, so you have to have corporate investment or a lot of rich people. |
| A close-up on screen can say all a song can. |
| My mother wanted me off her hands. She was a working woman. She designed clothes, and she was a celebrity collector. It's my mother's ambition to be a celebrity. |
| The dumbing down of the country reflects itself on Broadway. The shows get dumber, and the public gets used to them. |
| If you're dealing with a musical in which you're trying to tell a story, it's got to sound like speech. At the same time it's got to be a song. |
| If people have split views about your work, I think it's flattering. I'd rather have them feel something about it than dismiss it. |
| My personal life and my artistic life do not interfere with each other. |
| When I was growing up, there was no such thing as Off-Broadway. You either got your show on or you didn't. |
| Everyone I used to play with has either given up or is dead. |
