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

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.

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.

I don't like abrasion while I'm working. I don't thrive on chaos. I enjoy what I'm doing, and it seems to work better when I am enjoying it.

What's missing in the musical theater is producers willing to nurture new work, raise the money and put it on.

I'm a pragmatic man. I'll veer on the dangerous side, because I love dangerous subjects, but I won't shoot a show in the foot.

Audiences are quite happy to be astonished, and they don't care who does that astonishing.