MICHAEL ARDEN

I want to create an environment that actors can be really free in.

Say you have a young black kid, and you come to see a Sondheim show. You love the material, but you look on stage, and you don't see anyone who looks like you. That puts a barrier between the audience and what they're trying to absorb.

It's exciting to share an art form that I would never have imagined sharing with the deaf community. Doing musicals, it's not like, 'Oh, I'll do a musical with a deaf person.'

At its core, 'Spring Awakening' is about the perils of miscommunication and what happens when people are denied a voice.

Before working with Deaf West, I had never met a deaf person, and now I can't imagine life without ASL.

If you've never heard a piece of Mozart, then Mozart could sound scary or confusing, so it's all about learning.

I had taken a directing class in high school. Looking back on it now, I think it was all heading that way.

Sometimes, disaster can inspire ingenuity.

I read 'Huffington Post' as if I am a shareholder.

The most exciting thing I've seen is directors not only being open to actors coming in the room with different abilities but actively looking at ways that the story can be enlarged with disabled actors.

I would want everyone to love someone in the purest sense of the word - an unconditional love in which you don't expect anything in return.

I often think about what love can inspire in the world, not just in the eyes of the object of your affection.

Growing up as a gay boy in West Texas, I definitely felt like a bit of an outcast sometimes - that there was a world that I would never be a part of.

Every decision you make has a consequence.

You can't ever go back; life is incredibly short and fragile.

The love I have for my husband is intertwined with his, and we are two individuals looking in the same direction - as opposed to staring in each other's eyes all the time.

I created my family with the people I met in the theater and escaped in the stories I told and the characters I got a chance to play. It's just always felt like home.

Magic in plays and musicals, I think, is more often created because of the work of an incredible company rather than a single component.

A lot of times, comedy writers will go for the gay joke, and I've been vocal about saying, 'Go for the smart joke.'

I tend to ask more questions than I should as an actor.

It's my goal to help actors achieve their best work, and I think I speak the same language as actors, so I understand how they do it, and I just love being able to create the playground in which they build their beautiful sandcastle.

I had a sort of rocky upbringing, and I think the theater was a safe place for me.

Haiti is a proud nation, rich in heritage and spirituality. How they have been able to not only survive but thrive is a testament to how the Haitian people have come together to rebuild, create new families, and care for one another.

I've played gay, and I've played straight... I'm proud to be a gay man myself, and I'm thrilled to get the opportunity to play a variety of different gay men.

We learn the most from listening, and I don't just mean with our ears.