.." "I approach the material as if doing a play by Chekhov or Shakespeare," says Nunn, "Nothing is allowed through as a simple matter." Of the writing process, Boublil says, "It was a real, total collaboration. Not only on the writing but also on the casting process. We really made a new team of writers, and we made a new show." This seems reminiscent of West Side Story, the first collaborative show. Each successful musical since then has been a collaborative effort and has grown in success each time. Musicals are now more eager to tackle subjects that were formerly only touched by straight plays, off-Broadway, and fringe productions. The mass audience is ready to be entertained and intellectually challenged in conjunction. Commercial musicals are encouraging the majority of non-theatre goers, the children of computer games, the internet and television, to experience a once bourgeois form of entertainment. Nothing can replace the immediacy of the theatre and the sense of occasion at every performance. The musical is a most powerful conveyer of emotion. As the songwriter Yip Harburg says Words make you think thoughts, music makes you feel a feeling, a song makes you feel a thought....
