Tom Kitt

My love of Green Day is on so many levels. It's their genius for songwriting, the fact that they write about very important subjects, both personal and political, and they're just a timeless band.

'Next to Normal' was a show many people thought couldn't be done.

Any musical is a major undertaking.

Green Day is a band that you always felt had something to say, whether it was about the times or love or heartache.

I was very lucky in that I had a happy home life and that I was interested in things my parents wanted to provide for me.

Green Day were heroes of mine growing up.

I've had so many experiences with film or musicals or books where I just walk away changed in some way. One of the things that makes me want to be a writer is to pour my heart into something and hope that I can affect someone in that same way.

Most people have been touched by the battles of mental illness in some way or another. It's either going on in their families or next door to them, or they know people who have experienced it.

It's the basic rule of musicals: Characters sing when their emotions become so intense that they can't do anything else.

There's no better feeling as a writer than to see your piece going beyond what you can have ever imagined. And a wonderful way for that to happen is for new audiences to discover it.

I don't think you are ever really done working on something, especially if you can get back into rehearsal.

I was meant to be a composer. I was meant to meet my wife and have our three children. There were a number of factors that led to all of that happening, which, if you mapped it out, you would say, 'God, a lot had to go right for all of those things to line up.'

I hope Green Day write more for the theater. They're brilliant at it.

One of the arrangements I'm really proud of is '21 Guns' because the chorus has this descending bass line with a suspended type of progression that immediately screamed 'Bach' to me.

I'm very influenced by the work of George Martin and the string arrangements that he did for the Beatles.

The world of cheerleading is incredibly demanding, incredibly physical, and it has a lot of risk. The way people fly through the air is so thrilling to watch, but it takes hours and hours of practice and training.

I love musical comedy; I love comedy in general, and I have varied taste in terms of books, film, theatre, and culture.

I was inspired to be a singer/songwriter from an early age.

The thing about 'Next to Normal' is that it really is an ensemble piece for six actors. They are all asked to do very important things in the show, and I think all six are equal in terms of telling the story.

In the back of my mind, when we were developing 'Next to Normal,' I always heard Alice Ripley.

Alice Ripley was someone who had had a huge effect on me when I had gotten out of college and decided that this was the road I wanted to take - to write musicals.

It's all about the audience and the people who support your work and respond to it. So, anytime I hear that 'Next to Normal' is affecting people, it goes beyond my wildest dreams of what I set out to do when I started to write 'Next to Normal.'

'Cabaret' was one of the first pieces of musical theater I saw that showed the possibilities of what musical theater can do.

I didn't want to box myself into writing just rock music because you can try to force it into moments that don't want it.

Living involves making bold choices. You can't always know how they're going to turn out, and you can always play that game of wondering what might have been if you had made another decision.