I would call it a comedy variety show. We have some people just doing straight standup. We usually try to have one musical act of sort. So its just people being funny in different ways not just sketch not just standup not just characters all of those things.
No writing musicals is the hardest thing in the world. And it was really funny because I remember when the South Park movie came out there were some critics that said 'Well it's obvious that in order to get it to be 90 minutes they filled some time with music.'
Working with people the musical part is one thing but the personal part is totally different and just as critical. If the friendship is there and it's a lasting friendship then it will take care of itself.
To her audience Janis Joplin has remained a symbol artifact and reminder of late Sixties youth culture. Her popularity never derived from her musical ability but from her capacity to link her fantasies of freedom and immortality with ours.
Punk is musical freedom. It's saying doing and playing what you want. In Webster's terms 'nirvana' means freedom from pain suffering and the external world and that's pretty close to my definition of Punk Rock.
I like to say jazz music is kind of like my musical equivalent of comfort food. You know it's always where I go back to when I just want to feel sort of grounded.
I worked on scores. I went to the musical library in Berlin which is very famous. I discovered that we had scores of Beethoven printed scores of Beethoven that are full of mistakes. Not the wrong or false notes but the wrong dynamic understandable things.
Sometimes I like to play the soundtracks to famous musicals so we can all sing along. South Pacific is one of my favorites. Our neighbors must hate us.
I'm doing a new musical on Broadway which opens in October called 'The Boy from Oz ' where I play Peter Allen. For those of you who don't know he became first famous in America for marrying Liza Minelli.
We really were a very musical family. Father managed to buy us a small pump organ and I just loved this instrument.