In the Rodgers and Hammerstein generation, popular hits came out of shows and movies.

Lemuel Ayers had had a huge success producing and designing Kiss Me, Kate. He wanted to produce this as a musical. I got the job. It was a professional score.

The last collaborator is your audience ... when the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you've written. Things that seem to work well -- work in a sense of carry the story forward and be integral to the piece -- suddenly become a little less relevant or a little less functional or a little overlong or a little overweight or a little whatever. And so you start reshaping from an audience.

You have to be submitted for the Pulitzer, and unbeknownst to us, a choral director whom I know had submitted us.

I really don't want to write a score until the whole show is cast and staged.

Hit songs did not come out of musicals. Pop-rock was creating the hits. There were very few songs that made the charts out of any Broadway musical.

Friendship, obligation and greed are not good enough reasons to write anything.