 You obviously see a future for musical theater, but isn't the gap widening between theater music and pop music for the younger generation?
 In the past, theater music used to be the great pop music. People always wanted to go and see musicals. They still do. The difference is blindingly obvious: there are now no great tunes in pop and no great tunes in musical theater. My stuff isn't too bad at the moment, but every day record executives say they won't record one or other of the songs because they come from musical theater. And getting played on the radio is even more difficult nowadays than it used to be.
Do you have any system of working?
I always have tunes and ideas knocking around. My life was changed a few years ago when I got hold of the new Yamaha Clavinova. You don't have to write anything down as it can record instantly, and it's wonderful for arranging tunes into orchestrations. It's basically a machine invented for people playing in bars, but it's great for people like me who get up in the middle of the night and mess around with ideas.
Do you ever feel like easing up, doing less?
Well, I sometimes feel I'd like to do that book on architecture, or the book about all my pre-Raphaelite paintings. I'm always being told to take it easy, but it's not really in my nature. My wife, Madeleine, has been a calming influence, I think. I did suffer for a few years from this mystery amoeba, and I'd always be susceptible to colds and things. My immune system was weakened, and I can only repair that fully with a periods of extended rest. Which I might get around to some day!
Have we seen the last of the blockbuster musicals?
Not necessarily. You must remember that "Cats" was always a simple, rather intimate show that just happened to take off. "Phantom" is not a massive spectacular. I'm more worried about the big corporations like Disney, or Livent, that have entered the marketplace, because their budgets are limitless, and they court danger by operating as businesses first and creative organizations second.
Isn't that really the danger, that you might be squeezed out of the marketplace?
Absolutely not. Theater is not a business you can quantify. In the end, there are no rules. I had lunch the other day with Cameron Mackintosh, and he said, "You know, when all those big business people have had enough and gone away, you and I will still be here." And we will. As I said at the gala concert, musicals, whether small, medium, or big, are alive and well as long as someone wants to write one and someone wants to produce one. I have been very, very lucky. I have always wanted to write, and to work in, musical theater, and I have been lucky enough to do that.
How do you keep musical theater alive for a new, young audience?
Well, first of all, it is very important that musical education is sustained in our schools. The politicians are not being too clever about this at the moment. And I believe passionately in the work of the National Youth Music Theater, the beneficiaries of this gala concert. The NYMT is the best youth music theater in the world. It's British, and I am very proud to be associated with it.
But what about the shows themselves? How do you broaden and deepen their appeal?
Having a hit song in "Whistle Down the Wind" has been very important, as well as pleasing. It undoubtedly broadens the appeal of musical theater to new audiences. When "The Lion King" arrives in London from New York, that, too, will do exactly the same thing. And just look at the tremendous advance ticket sales we still have in London for "Starlight Express." That will be running well into the new millennium, and we shall have special celebrations to mark its fifteen years of continuous performances in London in March, 1999.
How do you feel about reaching such a landmark birthday?
I thought that "the big five-0" was something that happened to other people. It couldn't happen to a bloke like me. My wife Madeleine was the one who cajoled and bullied so many of the artists I have worked with over the years to take part in these festivities. That so many of them took part in the concert is a total joy to me. And totally overwhelming. |
