I grew up at the piano, and I longed to write musicals.
If I had not had music in my life, I would be the neurasthenic vision of the playwright.
My view is that musicals are love stories with great final scenes. It's just that simple. Musicals are also conflicts between two worlds. And by those criteria, 'The Color Purple' is actually exactly the kind of story that makes for a great musical. Yes, it's got hard stuff in it, but so does 'Les Miserables' and 'Phantom of the Opera.'
In the theater, when people hear that you're writing a play, they want to know what it's all about, whether there's a role for them. You write it fairly quickly, and it becomes a group activity before you're really ready to have company.
When you fight something long enough, it becomes a center pole right in your life and you count on it to be there to fight with.
I'm just not having a very good time and I don't have any reason to think it'll get anything but worse. I'm tired. I'm hurt. I'm sad. I feel used.
If someone wants to say 'I love you' in a straight play, they say it, and then it's the other person's turn to talk. But in a song, you can sing about it for another three minutes. The musical form has that unique opportunity to express at length what joy really feels like.
What's so good about a heaven where, one of these days, you're going to get your embarrassing old body back?
At the heart of the failure of most plays is the inability to carry on a thoughtful conversation about your work with yourself.
