“If one wants to go on living, one must evolve. Before, when we compose...” — Mitch Leigh Quote

If one wants to go on living, one must evolve. Before, when we composed, we would start by a series of music themes. Once created, we would hire writers and lyricists to make up the text and the story line. I was the first to do this backwards with 'Man of La Mancha.'

To call somebody a Jewish composer is obviously redundant.

The old joke was Mitch Leigh, land baron, barren land.

If I do what I really want to do, I'm not going to do a typical commercial Broadway show, so I'm going to write what I want to write.

I'll write anything; I don't want to judge its form.

I think, in some ways, that is the balm of stories, of fables, of tales: it's the way we're wired. We have always needed to distill what we're going through and try to understand it by looking either backwards or forwards. And the hardest is to look in the now.

As an actor, you want to be able to move your character forward into new ground, but also it's really interesting to go backwards and unpeel those layers and the interesting elements of what your character is and what informs the decisions that you make so that you can have as much meat to work with.

To those like Mitt Romney who want to take us backwards, let's send a strong message in November: as we say in Brooklyn, 'Fuhgeddaboutit.'

I never felt my career was going backwards.