Harold Prince
I'm crazy about Dublin. If you went back 3,000 years in my ancestry you wouldn't find a drop of Irish blood in the veins, but I love the place.
I suppose a certain degree of adulthood has entered my life. Aiming for Broadway, I can't think that way any more. Of course, Broadway will always be important. But it's not the focus of everything that you do. You know, I'm very happy I was born when I was, so I got there in time. When it was time to get there.
Despite the successes, you remember the failures - rather lovingly.
There was never any question that I would go to college, that I would travel, that I would go to the theater early and often.
I didn't go into the theater to be a producer, I went into the theater to be a director.
Artistic self-indulgence is the mark of an amateur. The temptation to make scenes, to appear late, to call in sick, not to meet deadlines, not to be organized, is at heart a sign of your own insecurity and at worst the sign of an amateur.
One thing is certain: We can't go back. The musical will never be the same as it was.
I don't look back. I look forward and plan new shows. That's really feeding the most important part of working in the theater.
'Evita' was four pieces of slick paper and a record album. It's the most scary, to sit down and dictate a musical scene by scene. It was a musical unlike anything I'd ever seen before myself.
The truth of the matter is that I have lasted a long time, and with it comes both good and bad things. One of the good things is that no one can ever take my career away from me. No one can ever say, 'You can't be in the theater any more.'
All these actors who died before I was born, all the theaters and the artistic movements - all that stuff fills you up and makes you feel like you're the inheritor of all this information and of all its passion.
I don't know why the guys with the big money don't find five terrific young producers and give each of them enough to commission a musical and to live on for a year. You'd be likely to get at least one project with a future.
When I was a 25-year-old kid, I raised $260,000 for my first show, 'The Pajama Game,' in such a homemade, pathetic, endearing way - a buck here, a buck there.
There are wonderful composers and librettists out there. It's the lack of creative producers that is troubling.
We've got to find a way to protect the process of making musical theater.
Ethel Merman would stay with a show for years and tour with it. So would Mary Martin, the great stars. They recognized the value of that success and nurtured it. Now, you come from Hollywood, you play 12 weeks and go away. I don't think that's the best policy.
I really wish people - maybe it's naive - wish people had priorities and were willing to be artistic patrons.
I don't think there's a defined contemporary American musical, do you?
The truth is, for some absurd reason, no one is willing to admit that the interests of the producers and the theater owners are not the same.
It's a terrible shame if you're born the brightest guy in your class. If you're not, then you have to hustle-and that's good.Collection: Class
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.Collection: Thinking
I have a terrible memory because I'm not interested in the past. It's done, it's done.Collection: Memories
When I was a producer, the fun of the show was waking up with a hit and enjoying the period after the show opens. The fun of a director stops the day it opens. No matter if it's a success or a failure, it's not a whole lot of fun anymore.Collection: Fun
I'm a pragmatic man. I'll veer on the dangerous side, because I love dangerous subjects, but I won't shoot a show in the foot.Collection: Men
Nothing is staged exactly as it was, because I can't remember - and I consider that an advantage.Collection: Remember
Producers want to put their music behind revivals but I don’t think that’s a good trend for the theater at all.Collection: Thinking