Writing for the theater is a whole different can of fish. The music now has the responsibility of so many things. The plot could be giving you different views of the character; the emotional highlights of a moment.

The music takes on all different jobs and hopefully is part of telling the story. Each song has to be a story unto itself. It's a very different set of muscles.

I love the gothic literature. It always has such great stories with characters bigger than life and the stakes are always high. And because there's always a wolf at the door, the emotions are high; the romance, the sexuality, friendships, and relationships. You don't know if the guy kissing you one minute is going to bite you the next. This heightens all of the sensibilities and emotions, and therefore, it sings to me. And that's where the music comes from.

I enjoy the kind of characters that allow you to write the dark stuff. I love Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky, and when I'm writing for Dracula or Jekyll & Hyde, I get a chance to use that vocabulary.

There's a tendency for people in New York to think the world exists between the East and the Hudson Rivers, and I don't share that opinion. To me the world is a big place and I try to reach people everywhere. Listen, if I'm nothing else, I feel I've been a man of the people. I'm not going to pretend to be one of those snobby New York theater people.

If my life is not crazy and complicated, then something's wrong. I'm happiest when it is, and the fact of the matter is, it's what keeps me fresh.

I feel my work is a success in so far as I get to wake up every morning and do what I love to do more than anything in the world.