Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.
Stephen Sondheim
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.
Musicals are, by nature, theatrical, meaning poetic, meaning having to move the audience's imagination and create a suspension of disbelief, by which I mean there's no fourth wall.
I chose and my world was shaken. So what? The choice may have been mistaken; the choosing was not. You have to move on.
I was essentially trained by Oscar Hammerstein to think of songs as one-act plays, to move a song from point A to point B dramatically.
I was raised to be charming, not sincere.
The nice thing about doing a crossword puzzle is, you know there is a solution.
I'm interested in the theater because I'm interested in communication with audiences. Otherwise I would be in concert music.
Every time one can write a self-deluded song, you are way ahead of the game, way ahead. Self-delusion is the basis of nearly all the great scenes in all the great plays, from 'Oedipus' to 'Hamlet.'
One difference between poetry and lyrics is that lyrics sort of fade into the background. They fade on the page and live on the stage when set to music.
Nice is different than good.
I was a mathematician by nature, and still am - I just knew I didn't want to be a mathematician. So I decided not to take any mathematics courses.
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.
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.
I prefer neurotic people. I like to hear rumblings beneath the surface.
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.
Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten.
After the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution, songs became part of the story, as opposed to just entertainments in between comedy scenes.
Oscar Hammerstein was a surrogate father during all those many days, and weeks and months when I didn't see my own father.
I think 'lunch' is one of the funniest words in the world.
There's something inimical about the camera and song.
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.
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.
Musicals are plays, but the last collaborator is your audience, so you've got to wait 'til the last collaborator comes in before you can complete the collaboration.
When the song is part of the action and working as dialogue, even two minutes is way too long.
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.
Everyone I used to play with has either given up or is dead.
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 love the theater as much as music, and the whole idea of getting across to an audience and making them laugh, making them cry - just making them feel - is paramount to me.
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.
Math and music are intimately related. Not necessarily on a conscious level, but sure.
When the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you've written.
Lyrics have to be underwritten. That's why poets generally make poor lyric writers because the language is too rich. You get drowned in it.
I would have been a geologist.
Gotta watch out for directors.
The dumbing down of the country reflects itself on Broadway. The shows get dumber, and the public gets used to them.
Generally, the best recording is the original cast, because that's the way the piece grew: integrally, with them.
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.
My idea of heaven is not writing.
I really don't want to write a score until the whole show is cast and staged.
When I was growing up, there was no such thing as Off-Broadway. You either got your show on or you didn't.
Nowadays, there are sometimes more producers than there are people in the cast, because it takes that much money to put a show on.
I fell into lyric writing because of music. I backed into it.
A close-up on screen can say all a song can.
I certainly wanted my name in lights. I wanted my name on a marquee. I wanted recognition on Broadway.
The more restrictions you have, the easier anything is to write.
So many good songs get written fast, because you know exactly what has to work.
Everybody faces a blank piece of paper, no matter what they've written or painted or composed before. I can't imagine approaching every single new project with-without doubt.
By the time I was 22, I was a professional. A young and flawed professional, but not an amateur.
Every writer I've ever spoken to feels fraudulent in some way or other.
