After I write a sequence, I just open the script and then sit at the piano keyboard and "play" the script. (And because I also draw and paint, sometimes I sketch out the action as well.)

After each performance of an Austin Shakespeare production, audiences are invited to stay for a ten-minute discussion of the work. And this tradition continues in our New York run.

I think a successful adaptation rises or falls on the work presented. If people need to read the book to understand the play, I didn't complete the job.

Basically, I composed the musical structure in one pass. The rest was editing and small adjustments. And when the play was read by actors with the music, the sequence timed-out perfectly.

I certainly did my best to bring the story [Anthem] to life in another medium.

Jumping twenty or so years later, Ann Ciccolella, artistic director of Austin Shakespeare, approached me with the idea of staging Anthem. She had heard my film score to Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life. And she said, I want to do Anthem as an oratorio. Well, I figured what she meant was a straight play with music.

If Anthem finds an audience in New York City, my hope would be to see the play transferred to a commercial theatre for an open-ended run.