Jason Robert Brown Quotes

'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.

Lizzy Weiss is such a great writer, and she really writes for the performances.

Any opera is interesting if the characters are worth seeing.

If you're going to make a musical, don't cartoon it from the play. Make it better than the play. Have a reason for making it sing.

Everything I learned as an actor, I have basically applied to writing.

I was essentially trained by Oscar Hammerstein to think of songs as one-act plays, to move a song from point A to point B dramatically.

Stepping back into theatre, a childhood dream, I always felt like I would be onstage. I hadn't imagined myself in a composer role... I find it so satisfying to be behind the scenes and writing the music and watching it elevated and characterized by different voices than my own. It's so exciting.

I learned how to write TV by writing 'Grey's Anatomy.'

The narrative shouldn't stop for the song in a musical. The music has to continue the narrative of the storytelling.

I think with musicals, it's much more part of the script. They don't want songs that would stop the show; they need songs that keep the plot moving.

It's much easier to write a song for a musical than just writing a song because, writing for a musical, you know what the story is about, so you know what the songs have got to say.

I don't find writing for the theater that different from writing a rock song.

For me, playwriting is sharing my experiences, telling my stories.

It's like, in movies where you talk to the audience 90 percent of the time, it's - you kind of want to stay away from that stuff. But, you know - but to write exposition brilliantly is hard.

Mostly, I would like people to ask other writers about the craft of their writing so we could learn from one another. We ask movie directors why they chose to use certain lights and angles and speeds of film, but most of the time, we ignore the craft of a writer.

It's writing songs within the structure of telling a story, so it becomes a platform for diverse songwriting, for a writing process that's broader than just figuring out a song. You're also dealing with always pushing the story forward, with casting the voices, with the orchestration, with the arrangements.

Obviously, a theatrical masterpiece needs more than a plot; many television shows are nothing but plot, and it is doubtful that they will stand the test of time. But I also don't think that making fun of plot or acting like we're all somehow 'above' structure is such a good idea.

In school, I used to write scripts and all that good stuff.

Some of our best writers are self taught. Screenwriting is a combo of craft and art. The craft part can be taught, about how to be visual and economical with scenes. However, finally it's the individuality of the writer that will come into play.

I always have something big enough to say as a playwright. It's storytelling.

I want to write musicals for my whole life. I always did.

I've written close to 20 screenplays and 100 sketches - I know exactly how to do them. They're judged by set criteria that I know.

Before 'Memphis,' I had never considered working on a musical. But when Joe DiPietro sent me the script, I heard the entire score in my head.

In fiction, you learn about pacing and how to build tension - which is something you want in a really good nonfiction feature article as well.

Haseeb Hassan is a fantastic director. He really understands characters and their relationships. He always gives sound advice and direction.