The odd school play aside, my background is in live sound reinforcement. I feel that working the sound board for musicals—that is, sitting in on the same show night after night, following the text for cues—means I can now draw a bead on just how the musical in front of me breathes (or doesn’t), or I’m able to discern what is the text versus the production’s interpretation of said text. These are great concerns in judging new work, my overall passion.

I don’t think I can ever create a definitive Top Five Musicals list, so here are five musicals that have been in regular rotation lately:

• Lempicka, by Matt Gould and Carson Kreitzer

• Sweeney Todd, by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler

• Hadestown, by Anaïs Mitchell

• A Minister’s Wife, by Austin Pendleton, Joshua Schmidt, and Jan Levy Tranen

• London Road, by Alecky Blythe and Adam Cork

They may look prickly and forbidding from the front, but they’re romantics at heart.

In my free time, I’m at work on a couple of opera libretti—a glorious nightmare, if there ever was one.