The theater is a communal experience, and whatever the emotional connection between an audience member and the actors onstage, it ripples through the whole audience. Part of the fun of the play is being a part of that audience.

One of the things that's different about London and the English market is that theater and film and television are all based in London. It's not quite the same as in the States where if the playwright here wants a successful TV or film career, they're whisked away by Hollywood.

Each audience seems to have a life of its own, which is why watching the show regularly is so exciting, because it's always a different experience.

I find it very invigorating having Ken Lonergan, who's an established, Pulitzer-nominated playwright doing Howards End, or Chris Hampton who's won an Oscar writing a TV series, or having an actor like Mark Rylance, who is probably England's leading theater actor, in the lead in Wolf Hall.

The notion that the staging of the play Harry Potter should be raw magic and street theater rather than high-tech theater, was essential.

I think that the marketplace has changed in many dramatic ways but actually in some sense it's remained the same because the challenge of creating quality programming is the same, and I've always thought that if you follow the great material everything else will fall in to place.

I think people want the intimacy in the engagement of sitting in a theater with people and seeing something happen live and engage in that. I think that could be a very powerful experience.