The fact is popular art dates. It grows quaint. How many people feel strongly about Gilbert and Sullivan today compared to those who felt strongly in 1890?
When I was growing up, there was no such thing as Off-Broadway. You either got your show on or you didn't.
Nice is different than good.
Gotta watch out for directors.
The dumbing down of the country reflects itself on Broadway. The shows get dumber, and the public gets used to them.
The nice thing about doing a crossword puzzle is, you know there is a solution.
After the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution, songs became part of the story, as opposed to just entertainments in between comedy scenes.
I'm always conscious of what I'm writing, conscious of what the actor may ask me. I have a defense for nearly every line in the song.
My parents weren't around much, but I assumed everybody's family was the same. I didn't know people had mummies and daddies who would give them milk and cookies after school. I just thought everybody lived on Central Park West and they had a nanny to take care of them.
Making lyrics feel natural, sit on music in such a way that you don't feel the effort of the author, so that they shine and bubble and rise and fall, is very, very hard to do. Whereas you can sit at the piano and just play and feel you're making art.
Every time one can write a self-deluded song, you are way ahead of the game, way ahead. Self-delusion is the basis of nearly all the great scenes in all the great plays, from 'Oedipus' to 'Hamlet.'
