I don't like to produce albums. I hate producing albums, as a matter of fact, because I'm an obsessed mixer and I can't leave it alone.
I have a musical called Goodbye and Good Luck, based on a Grace Paley short story. I also have King Island Christmas, and there are 20 different productions of it this year.
I'm not totally altruistic. I've always had great career ambitions. But it has to come out in an organic way. If you push yourself out beyond where you are supposed to be, there's this pressure.
I may not be the most famous songwriter in the world, but you know a David Friedman song when you hear it. It took me a long time to appreciate that.
I've written several deeply personal songs this year, which I really love. Some of them came out of intense sadness. This has been an extremely difficult year for me.
Songwriting is the most terrifying thing to me, because you are really laying your heart out there.
Composition is definitely what I'm born to do, and it came last.
My career keeps shifting; I keep doing the next thing and it keeps growing.
I wanted to produce Nancy LaMott's albums, so I created my own record company.
I fought for years and spent a fortune fighting and never got anywhere.
I've been doing my big theater projects, which take years, and writing a song here and there.
As a person, I'm not that hopeful, but somehow the hopeful part of me reveals itself through my songs.
I have been writing since I was about 20, and at first I wrote in secret and never showed anybody. I was very concerned about making a living, so I conducted.
When I got to Broadway, I conducted five Broadway shows.
I'm trying to have everything that I put into the world be something that makes a difference in the way I want to make a difference.
For Hunchback, we needed this live, gigantic choir. So we went to London and said, This is Disney! I need singers who can sing high D's, hold them for 18 seconds, and do it 60 times!
It sometimes feels like I'm not doing anything.
I write and direct the Duke University Children's Hospital Benefit every year.
There is no seam between my songs and myself-they really are me. It's not like I'm performing; I'm just singing stuff that I really believe.
I'm not comfortable singing in front of people yet. That's going to take another 100 performances.
