"Just as I was in the middle of writing, a very serious book about Kinsey came out. I read a review and I couldn’t stop laughing. By the time I finished reading, I had seventeen ideas for songs."

Amid the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, his 2003 musical 'Caroline, or Change' seems even more eerily prescient. “There ain’t no under ground in Louisiana,” run its newly harrowing opening lines. “There is only under water.”

Your cheat sheet to the hottest genres at this year’s festival, August 12–28.

"I have written it specifically as an anti-'Forrest Gump' piece."

"It's a most bizarre play. I didn't expect this at all! I'm from the Netherlands."

"We try to explore the themes, the characters, and then we really get a good understanding of it. And—excuse my French—then we fuck around with it."

What 'Primo' really proves is that there is no way to do justice to Levi's words onstage.

I got a call from my manager, who said, “The Atlantic Theater Company’s doing 'The Cherry Orchard',” and I said, “Great . . . what’s 'The Cherry Orchard'?”

Don’t try to be fierce now, just do what you were doing. Don’t try to start acting all of a sudden.

Michael McKean’s roles are probably better known than he.