I really enjoy fusing text and music.

Sometimes, I stood at the front of the E train, watching the tunnel ahead, imagining what Anthem would look like on stage.

The idea for Anthem the play began over twenty years ago. I was assisting in the production of another Ayn Rand work, Ideal. I moved to New York and began working on producing the play with my partners. And as a way to raise money to cover some venture debt, we decided to stage Anthem for a limited run at the Lex Theatre in Hollywood.

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

Most of Ayn Rand's major characters are already formed at the start of the stories.

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.

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.