Daily Inspiration Quote by Jerome Lawrence

Lawrence is taking a swing at a laziness that theater audiences can smell from the lobby: the “musicalization” of a play as mere decoration. “Don’t cartoon it” is a cutting phrase because it frames a common adaptation move as infantilizing. When songs arrive as big, obvious underlines, the characters flatten into types, the emotions into punchlines, the story into a souvenir version of itself. He’s not anti-musical; he’s anti-shortcut.

The provocation is in the bar he sets: make it better than the play. That’s heresy in a culture that treats source material as sacred and adaptations as derivative. Lawrence insists the musical form isn’t a costume you put on an existing script; it’s a different engine with different rules. Singing has to earn its space by doing something spoken dialogue can’t: compressing time, externalizing inner conflict, turning an idea into momentum. If the material doesn’t demand that kind of heightened expression, the songs will feel like interruptions rather than revelations.

Contextually, Lawrence is speaking from mid-20th-century American theater, when Broadway was packed with adaptations and “prestige” properties, and when the integrated musical had already proven its power to deepen character and theme rather than simply entertain. His subtext is professional and ethical: if you’re going to ask an audience to accept the unreality of people breaking into song, repay that leap with necessity. Otherwise you’re not honoring either form; you’re selling a louder version of the same thing.