Category: Uncategorized

Those of you who are not totally bored of my rantings about copyright infringement may enjoy a piece I wrote for the NY Times theater blog. Click here to read it, and thanks to Eric Piepenburg for asking me to continue the conversation on such a large platform. You will note many of the same…

I’m standing at a blackboard on which I’ve drawn a staff. Give me a key!, I shout. Someone yells “D Major!” I write two sharps on the staff. Okay, what time signature are we in? “4/4, Common time.” What’s the feel? Several conversations begin at once. Finally, a voice emerges: “Disco!” Got it. I mark…

I’ve been teaching a course in musical theater performance at USC for the past four years, but this semester, I was asked to come up with a class focussing on songwriting for the musical theater. I had taught writing courses at USC before, but they were solely attended by students in the School of Theater,…

I turned 39 this weekend, which means I’ve got a full year ahead of me to panic about turning 40. The last twelve months have certainly been busy – a Broadway show opened and closed, a new piece premiered at the Kennedy Center, two books published, bought a new house and sold the old one…

In 2002, I came up with an idea for a musical that would be combined with a book series, aimed at and featuring teenagers. (Note, please, that this was several years before High School Musical was part the cultural Zeitgeist; at the time, nobody was thinking about teenagers and musical theater.) The idea was about…