Before Casey Nicholaw was an 11-time Tony-nominated director-choreographer (nominated this year for his direction of The Prom), Nicholaw made his Broadway debut as a performer. And before that, he was a kid on a school stage.

“As a kid I was a dancing [Native American] in Annie Get Your Gun,” he says in the video above. “My first role was in high school, I was Nicely Nicely Johnson [in Guys and Dolls].”

With a decades-long career, Nicholaw shared the show that most impacted him and the musical theatre song he’ll never get sick of. Plus, he reveals the title of his own bio-musical, which he would ask Prom composer Matthew Sklar and lyricist Chad Beguelin to write.

READ: How Casey Nicholaw Became the King of Musical Comedy

Of the 12 Broadway shows he’s directed and/or choreographed, the consensus from the people he has worked with is that Nicholaw is a person who operates with a generosity of spirit and runs a rehearsal room with joy—and discipline.

“I have a thing in my office that says, ‘Work hard and be nice to people,’” he says. The philosophy has done him well.