While the film festival is on everybody's mind for the next week-and-a-half, there are other things that remind us that Sundance is a year-round source of inspiration for some.

Duncan Sheik is happy to credit the Sundance Film Institute for some of his recent success, he told The Salt Lake Tribune Thursday.

He won several Tony Awards in 2007 for his musical score for the play "Spring Awakening," which is still a hit on Broadway. But it took about eight whole years to create the play, and it was in 2000 when Sheik spent three weeks as a Sundance Fellow at the Sundance Institute Lab when he was developing the project.

"It was a beautiful summer," Sheik said. "That program is an A+."

Sheik will miss Sundance this year, but he'll be performing on Feb. 2 at the Eccles Center, where many of this year's films are being screened.