The Secret Life of the American Musical Quotes

“The course assumed that every great musical has a single idea, a single stake, and that much of the writer’s job is to discover what it is and then cut away the thicket of things that don’t belong so that the idea can be explored and celebrated in a way that audiences take home with them. The course asked the question: How do all the diverse tools of the trade—music, rhyme, comedy, character, dance, drama, storytelling, even scenery and costumes, lights, and orchestrations—get pointed in the same direction toward the same goal? In a sense, it was an architecture class, exploring how a structure is designed and built that is strong enough to support a single vision and fulfill or confound an audience’s expectations, as required in the circumstance.”
― Jack Viertel, The Secret Life of the American Musical: How Broadway Shows Are Built

“...the history of the Broadway musical is the history of short Jewish men yelling at each other.”
― Jack Viertel, The Secret Life of the American Musical: How Broadway Shows Are Built