I always thought the story [Anthem] would work in three dimensions - and studying that cut material was very useful.

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.

Ayn Rand called her novella Anthem a "hymn to man's ego." My approach to Anthem the play was to provide the story a further dimension through music and sound. The work is now larger than a hymn. It's really "spoken opera."

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 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.

Who can I marry? Where can I live? What kind of career can I achieve? These are just some of the stories breaking with Anthem-like implications. And the ideas crushing the individual are all around us, chipping away at us constantly.

Actually, one Anthem cue is a good example of the process. There is a four-minute sequence of music in Anthem, which underscores a prison sequence, and it lines up with five different, smaller scenes within one large scene.