I wouldn't want to be just pigeonholed as an extravagant director.
— Harold Prince
'Showboat' is the quintessential family show.
I like to do everything you can possibly do before you go into rehearsal, because once we are in rehearsal or on the stage there will be a problem I didn't anticipate. It's really good to think we got it all nailed - of course you've never got it all nailed.
You think, 'Musicals, they must always be romantic' - You'd be surprised how few of them historically have ever been romantic.
A star may guarantee business, but the tradeoff is a very short run.
I was nine. I saw Orson Welles in 'Julius Caesar.' It was involving, emotional, imaginative. I've never forgotten it.
Lyrics can't do what they do - or should do - when you're creating a musical with rock lyrics. There's plenty of room for rock musicals, just not all rock musicals.
I always liked the visuals to be choice and at the same time minimalist. And, I love black boxes. After all, that's what theatre is, it's an empty space, and it's both limited and unlimited because the space is the space, but what you can do with people's imaginations is really endless.
The musical has always been in jeopardy - until - or was in jeopardy until it was realised that it is probably the safest living theatre art form.
Audiences are very willing to be taken somewhere, and to ask an audience beforehand what it wants is probably, I think, a mistake. Much better you should tell them what you want and hope they agree with it.
Producing should be a creative responsibility.
I've always loved Victorian melodrama. And I've always liked larger-than-life theater, providing it's truthful and honest. I like what the theater can provide in energy and bombast - I enjoy it when it's large, and by that I don't mean in size, I mean in emotions. Shakespeare did that.
The idea is to work and to experiment. Some things will be creatively successful, some things will succeed at the box office, and some things will only - which is the biggest only - teach you things that see the future. And they're probably as valuable as any of your successes.
I saw 'On The Town' about nine times. I discovered it. I loved it. I was in college.
I've never been able to understand where great artists come from.
There have always been revivals. Some have always been successful. And many of them have failed.
Producers want to put their music behind revivals but I don't think that's a good trend for the theater at all.
There's no lack of talent out there. I suspect there is a lack of creative guidance, and that would not be solely the responsibility of a director but also a producer.
I really don't spend time thinking about the past. I think about the future. I'm not stopping.
Collaboration is just, really, a group of people getting in a room with their eye on a very similar prize and wanting to come out with the same show. The director, ultimately, is the guy in front of whom the buck stops. So, he has to have the courage to prevail. But, he has got to have a huge amount of respect for his collaborators.
