Almost all the shows I've been connected with have been extremely well cast. They're playing the show, not just doing the songs.

When you trance out properly, when you're completely in that world, there is no other world, so there's no conflict.

Musicals are — particularly musicals — plays also, but musicals particularly are… the last collaborator is your audience, and so you’ve got to wait ’til the last collaborator comes in before you can complete the collaboration.

Oh if life were made of moments Even now and then a bad one--! But if life were only moments, Then you'd never know you had one.

All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theatre live. That's why it persists.

He came from a rock band and even though he was not a lead singer, I knew he was musical just from that. I also knew that he was intelligent enough from talking to him, that he would not play this part unless he could handle it vocally. I knew he was not about to get up there and have to have his voice dubbed or come off croaking. So Johnny Depp casted Johnny Depp. I trusted him entirely. I knew that he was no fool and he would only do it if he felt he could handle it. I told him to listen to the score carefully and if you can handle it, fine by me, and I was right.

When I was growing up, there was no such thing as Off-Broadway. You either got your show on or you didn't.