By ANNA O'DONOGHUE

Stephen Schwartz (Photo by Joan Lauren)

Stephen Schwartz has the bio of a consummate overachiever. He skipped fifth grade, graduated high school at 16, and had his first song on Broadway at 21. Two years later, he was collaborating with Leonard Bernstein on a Mass for the Kennedy Center, and by age 30, he had chalked up four more Broadway credits. He then turned to the screen, generating the scores for Disney's Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, as well as Dreamworks's The Prince of Egypt. He is currently represented on Broadway by Wicked, which opened in 2003 and is still smashing box office records.

You would think someone with such a fast-paced, packed résumé would be fairly imposing—possibly a little frenetic—and certainly pretty pleased with himself. But on November 16, when Mr. Schwartz entered a room full of Juilliard students (a mix of composers, actors, musicians, and singers) eager to have "Lunch With an Alum," he brought a low-key directness and began with two disclaimers. "First," he told us, "I have nothing prepared. Nothing. So I hope you guys have a lot of questions, or we're all just going to eat in silence. And second: I'm here under slightly false pretenses. I didn't actually go to Juilliard College; I went to the Preparatory [Pre-College] Division." No one seemed to mind. The questions came fast and, during the hour-and-a-half-long lunch, the only silences were when a student paused mid-query to reformulate an idea. Mr. Schwartz's answers were rapid and fluid, displaying the dexterity of a professional wordsmith.

But for all his lyricist's ease with language, he constantly qualified himself, doubling back on answers in an effort to be clearer, to communicate more fully. Above all, Mr. Schwartz sees himself as a storyteller. "That's what this is all about—the story," he said. "Certain stories are musical; something about the character or the situation sings to me right away. And the fun is figuring just how to sing within that story. You don't just sit there and think, 'Oh, I could write a good ABA tune over here.'"

When a drama student mentioned how moved she had been by his work on The Prince of Egypt, he attributed it, again, to the story. "It began as a 'why me?' project. But early on," he explained, "it became a brothers story: two people who loved each other, but their convictions and responsibilities inexorably pulled them apart, so by the end they are enemies, literally separated by a sea, and that's just a great story to tell. And then musically, I just did a ton of research, and listened to Egyptian and Hebraic music—most of which wasn't useful, surprisingly—but out of that, ideas began to emerge. So that's what you may be responding to musically, those sort of ancient tonalities."

One of Mr. Schwartz's favorite catch phrases is, "in lieu of inspiration, do research." He has found that it can lead to spontaneous, magical experiences. "For instance, during the creative process for Prince of Egypt, we went on a research trip up the Nile at one point … and there was some little temple on the way. We had planned to visit it during the day, but we got there at night. The little boat docked, and somebody got permission for us to go in then, at night. There was nobody there but us—the artists were running around sketching things, and I was walking through this place. The moon was shining on these white columns, and you could hear the river going by, sort of churning along, and I started to get this sort of Philip Glass-like pattern in my head. And I just started singing it to myself and that became the song 'All I Ever Wanted.' All the imagery in that—the alabaster, the coolness of it—was all based on just being there, at night."

“Do what interests you. Trust your own visceral responses. Just forge ahead and do your thing, and breaks can come from some peripheral source. Because you can always tell when someone is just going through the motions, and when somebody really wanted to tell a story.”

For all of his accomplishments—which have earned him three Oscars, three Grammys, four Drama Desk Awards, and six Tony nominations, as well as an Olivier Award in London—Mr. Schwartz talked more about what he is doing now, including an opera commission. "I really don't know anything about that world at all, which is sort of the fun. I mean, it's just a great big adventure, it's sort of like going back to school." He is not interested in rehashing his résumé or in revisiting old ideas: "I feel kind of like having done stuff that was successful has bought me the right never to do anything that is successful again. I really don't care about that."

Collaboration excites him. "I love coming to a shared artistic vision with people, and I love the sense of open criticism I can find with people … and that can even be true in a committee situation. Because you're working with really smart members of that committee, who are in fact artists in their own right, and they can lead you to inspiration too." Mr. Schwartz is aware that the possibility of failure exists—"I mean, I've had so many things that flopped originally, or didn't work"—but he cares much more about challenge than about getting it right. "I mean, with the opera, often I just think, 'I'm out of my mind, I'm just going to completely fall on my face…' But actually, in a way, I don't care. Because, so what? You know? Maybe I have no business doing it, but it will be an adventure anyway."

He urged young artists to follow their own passions: "Do what interests you. Trust your own visceral responses. Just kind of forge ahead and do your thing, and breaks can come from some peripheral source. Because you can always tell when someone is just going through the motions, no matter how skillful it is, and when somebody really wanted to tell a story."

He is grateful for his success, not for its own sake, but in that it has earned him the right to pursue new stories and new means of expression: "I'm really very lucky, because I don't have to worry about, you know, if this new project doesn't succeed, how am I gonna put food on the table. And I have enough of a reputation that I don't have to struggle to figure out how I'm gonna get something produced. And you can't really ask for more than that."

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Anna O'Donoghue is a fourth-year drama student.