Wicked’s Stephen Schwartz on Jesus, the swinging sixties and success
The American music composer behind hit musicals such as Godspell and Wicked reveals his liberating time at Carnegie Mellon, his struggles with success early in his life and why he refuses to discuss religion
Music to the ears My parents were not musicians, but they were theatre-goers and concert-goers, and they listened to a lot of records. So I had a lot of music around me growing up. I’m told that when I was a toddler I used to like a recording of a soprano singing arias. I used to call her the “high lady”.
Also, it so happened we lived next door to a composer, named George Kleinsinger, who had some success with what we would now call concept albums. My parents and I would occasionally go next door and he would play the newest song he was working on. I’m told I would go to the piano after the session was done and pick out the tune he had played. George suggested my parents got me piano lessons. Because of his influence, I became interested in musical theatre at a very young age – I wanted to write musicals.
When things went pop I decided to study drama at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh. Today it’s the pre-eminent college for musical theatre in America, but there were no classes in that back then, it was purely classical theatre. But there was a student organisation, called Scotch ’n’ Soda, that put on a musical each year. I signed up, and told them I was a composer and would like to write for the show. It turned out they needed someone to write the music, and that’s how I got started.