[Weighing the idea, Thompson remembered his mother's response when his father asked what she thought of his sermons after church.] She didn't know the wisdom of opening night, ... It's the most vulnerable time for an actor. It's not the time to give notes. She was very blunt and more critical than positive. And my father would become beside himself for the rest of the afternoon.

The characters make fools of themselves repeatedly, and show how crazy we all act when we try to pursue eternal youth.

For me the challenge is to make sure the shows are good this year and to not burn out.

After I complete my first season.

The only downside I can see is that we can't prepay until 2014, rather than 2010.

We have to be careful of how we interact, and she gets blamed for all kinds of decisions I make, ... I think it's easier to blame her than me.

Part vision, part coaching, part recruitment and fundraising and part conversation and collaboration. My job is to articulate the vision of the theater and to make it happen, and I know the only way I can do that is to have a lot of people joining into that vision. I view it as a serve-and-lead kind of job. The hard part is figuring out when you need to do which.

Obviously at first, there were a lot of people who were worried about, 'Am I gonna have a job?'