My poor sister was forced to be in the plays that I would write. We would go to my grandma's retirement building and perform 'Phantom of the Opera.'
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I'd go over to my grandmother's house, and she'd be playing opera. They loved opera. Not only did they play it on the radio, but they played it on their piano. Everybody learned how to read music and how to play.
I was into opera as a kid - I'd play 'Carmen' and sing and dance. My mom signed me up for a theater group before preschool, and I never looked back.
So, through all that early professional career I would occasionally do a musical, a pantomime or a play with songs. The next stop would be a Shakespeare, or an Ibsen, or a play by a brand new writer who had never done anything in the theater before.
I was a very imaginative child, and my parents were very encouraging of that. My sister and I would put on plays; I would write my own stories.
You hear about Broadway your whole life, and I learned what it meant to work on Broadway in 'The Phantom of the Opera.'
My auntie Anne took me to 'Phantom of the Opera' in London. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
My mother had no idea that her daughter would turn out to be a writer, but she would not let me go through a day of my childhood without music.
I've just been more interested in doing film right now and I don't want to go away from my family for six months, which was what I would have had to have done if I did the play on Broadway.
I would write plays for my grandmother, who was stone deaf, my mother and the dog, that was our audience.
Going to the theater is such a joyous experience. My dad would take my sister and me to plays when we were very young, like six or seven years old.