- All Quotes
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'Phantom of the Opera' started in my little 100-seater converted church in Britain with a stage where we did what we did. But it was the score itself was what made it.
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You can't just sort of come with, say, 'Yesterday,' or 'A Hard Day's Night,' and it be in the wrong place in the wrong show, and expect the song to work theatrically.
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Surely, you go to the theater because you want to have a great evening in the theater.
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I don't really care very much if I don't think that the critics really understand music.
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We felt we had to know something of his back story. I don't think people in the cinema would just accept that he's there. I think we had to learn how he (got there).
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It must have been an extraordinary time. I guess the worrying thing about musical theatre to me, is if you look at the London season this year, mine is actually the only one to have come in.
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I think back at the time, if it had been 1988, I would have thought Michael and Sarah probably would have been cast but I don't think, I think it's much better that the girl is younger and if Sarah would have been 26 or 27 then.
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I think Michael Crawford realised, I think we all realised, once we'd gone the route of casting a very young girl, you can't really cast a 65 year old man opposite. Slightly different resonance I think. No, we weren't going to go there. We'd have Jack Nicholson in the lead.
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I'm not a critic, and I never talk about other people's work.
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I began to think, now is the time. I found quite a lot of opposition in Hollywood about the idea of doing a film musical and we ended up having to buy the rights back. I'm glad we did because it meant John and I were able to make exactly the movie we wanted.
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I'm alive. I have my music; I have my children. I am the luckiest man.
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Nobody ever thinks that the work they're going to do could ever be bigger than the one they do before, especially if you're lucky enough like I had to have such a huge thing as 'Phantom' was.
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I wonder what would have happened if automation and computers had existed when 'Oklahoma!' was having its out-of-town try-out, and three days before closing in Boston, when it was still called 'Away We Go,' they added a new song called 'Oklahoma!' I don't think that could happen today. It's almost impossible to change musicals on the go now.
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They should go back to the medieval tradition, which is that the nave of the church is always used for local business.
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I never wanted to be a performer. I suppose I was precocious, really.
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Two years ago I hadn't even thought of the Woman in White, and I was doing a television show and I said I hadn't found a story and the next day somebody rang me and said have you ever thought of the Woman in White.
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What strikes me is that there's a very fine line between success and failure. Just one ingredient can make the difference.
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Corny answer is of course is that everyone who wants musicals are children in different ways, aren't they? So you think of them in different ways. There are things of mine I'm sorry haven't come here.
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We try to get the best performance out of the artists. There is no point in saying to them, 'You're useless.'
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My love of musical theater was certainly not typical. I mean, it was considered to be very, very abnormal, in fact!
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I do want to write again. I hope to. But it's also important for me to realize, as I get older, that I don't have to be doing everything all at once.
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I often think of random melodies. And I pretty much hear in my head what I want to do with the orchestra as I'm writing on the piano.
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I have lived and worked in Britain all my life. Not even in the dark days of penal Labour taxation in the Seventies did I have any intention of leaving the country of my birth.
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As a composer at a point where I can absolutely pick and choose what I want to do, I don't want to write about anybody I don't care about.