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.

There are wonderful composers and librettists out there. It's the lack of creative producers that is troubling.

I was there when the quote-unquote golden age of musical theater was flourishing. I met everybody who worked in theater or was famous in theater from the '40s on.

I always had a good time in theatre, even when shows don't turn out as well as I'd like.

I don't think there's a defined contemporary American musical, do you?

It's nice to stay up nights worrying about the material, and not about the investors who gave you $10 million to do your musical.

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.