1. Carole King’s “Really Rosie”

“The ‘Nutshell Kids’ in this show were a big influence on the ‘Sack Lunch Bunch.’ I heard pieces of the album when I was younger, and I remember the song ‘Pierre.’ He’s a boy who just doesn’t care. He’s eventually swallowed by a lion, and he doesn’t even care then. He’s such a consistent punk, and it’s never examined why. The album’s lyrics had a bittersweetness, and the music is a little melancholy, which felt correct to me as a child.”

2. “American Utopia”

“I saw the first preview on Broadway, and I’ve been a couple of times since. It’s a distillation of everything I like, which is hyper-specific language and focus. You’re getting snippets of David Byrne, ways he was formed as a person in small doses. I find that to be far more illuminative than when someone like Bruce Springsteen tells you their entire life story that they’ve honed.”

3. “Our Town”

“I was in a production when I was 13, and everyone thought this was the most mundane, almost punitively boring piece of theater ever. When I was about 23, I reread it and realized it was maybe the greatest American play ever. It’s a three-act play about how no one appreciates life until it’s over, and it’s performed almost every night in America by high-school students. If anyone doesn’t appreciate life in the moment, it’s them.”

4. “The Best Years of Our Lives”

“I watched a lot of classic movies when I was young, and this was the first time I thought about people coming back from the Second World War, and it not having been simply a heroic, great time. It’s scored and presented in what I bet some people would find a saccharine way, but I find it a pretty stark movie.”

5. Werner Herzog’s “Into the Abyss” and “Encounters at the End of the World”

“I got into Werner Herzog because I found his voice, cadence and theatrical language funny. His documentaries look at very specific things — ‘Into the Abyss’ is about what it’s like to be on death row, and in ‘Encounters at the End of the World,’ he talks to researchers in Antarctica. He puts people in positions that might feel awkward at first, but it’s amazing how much they want to talk and not use their usual scripts.”