Gregg Coffin and The Story Behind Five Course Love

You know, they tell you when you write your first piece to write about what you know.

So when I wrote the musical Convenience, I wrote from the heart about my family and what we leave behind and how we learn to crawl forward. And I wrote it in the musical idioms that shaped me when I was growing up, and first became affected by melody and music.

When Mark Cuddy asked me if I wanted to write something for Geva’s Nextstage to close the 2003/04 season, I immediately said, “Yes!” and then promptly started shaking in my boots. Because I feared “The Sophomore Curse.” I feared that I would have nothing left to say musically: I feared that I had composed myself out by writing a two-act sung-through piece as my first show. There are only so many notes, you know.

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