From 1984-86, I took time off before my senior year of college to return to Philadelphia and study piano more intensively with Sylvia Glickman, with whom I had studied in high school. During this time, I lived off-campus of the University of Pennsylvania, and collaborated on several musical theater productions with my friend, Seth Rozin, who was a theater major at Penn at that time. One of the productions was a full-length musical adaption of Jean Anouilh's comic play Thieves' Carnival. I wrote the score, and co-wrote the lyrics with Seth and David Goldstein. It was produced at Houston Hall on the Penn campus in 1985 and had 3 well-received performances.