Ellen McLaughlin Quotes

The L.A. theater scene is very different. The perception has been that people who love theater do theater in New York. The people who want to be discovered do theater on the side in L.A. But there are people who are very dedicated to theater who love theater in L.A.

I'm a theater guy at heart; I love the theater. I was lucky enough to spend a good decade and a half in the New York theater community.

I'd love to do something where I can act and dance at the same time, like on Broadway or in movies.

I want to be a recording artist for my whole entire life. But Broadway is something I would come back to at any given moment. I love, love, love doing theater.

I was a huge theater geek growing up, and that was not the easiest thing in the world, especially growing up in Chicago, where sports are really the norm. I was always off to the theater at night, from 7 years old on. Friends there in the Midwest who could talk to you about the idiosyncrasies of 'Pippin' were few and far between.

Being a part of the theater community has been important to me from the time I was a child, through my parents.

I had begun my professional career when I was 9 years old at the Cleveland Play House, and it was a very specific, real theater sort of like, you know, in England and the Berliner Ensemble - very devoted people. And I thought the theater was the greatest place I had ever been, and that's what I wanted to do.

I love theater. Just, it never spoke to me.

I had just done something in TV, but my real love is theater. I had won this award and I was up at Yale, and I was happy because it came with money.

I always go back and do theater. I love it. It keeps an actor improving in a way, it sort of keeps your craft alive, if that makes sense.

When I was younger, all I wanted to do was be a singer, and then I got into a great acting class in New York and became obsessed with that.

I was thrown into a community production of 'Bye Bye Birdie' or something when I was a kid. I wanted to just build the sets, but I wasn't allowed to just build the sets unless I auditioned for the play. So I auditioned for the play and was thrown into the chorus. During the course of that I fell in love with it, and I never really turned back.

What I do miss that I don't get anymore? You're going to think I'm crazy, but you want the truth, so here it is. The lights! I miss the spotlights. I don't mean it figuratively. I mean it literally. I love the feeling of lights.

I love theater. I grew up doing theater.

I love acting, truly my favorite people are actors.

I don't see my dancing or acting as two separate things. I don't define them separately, so I can't say one has helped the other, It's all the same thing. More than anything I love being on stage and performing.

You know, I love acting.

I was a total theater geek in high school, no question. I was cast in 'Godspell' freshman year - with Vanessa Williams, by the way. She and I are still friends. We went to high school together.

Actually, I didn't like Dartmouth very much, but the whole theater scene I really liked.

A friend of mine had his own theater company, and he jumped me in like I was in a gang. And once I came in, it was just that simple. For the first time in my life, I felt, 'This is a career, this is a life that I think I can grow old doing.' It was love at first sight. I loved being on stage and reading these plays. It was great.

I could beat my mike stand into the stage, but I was still in pain. Maybe fans liked it, but sometimes people forget you're a person and they're more into the entertainment value. It's taken a long time to turn that around and give a strong show without it being a kamikaze show.

Performing on stage is what I've done since I was a kid and it's where the passion that has started from the very beginning for me, and that's what I'm going to enjoy.

My passion was to be on Broadway and to be part of this community because I saw what it was like from the outside as the young kid in and around New York, and I would see things like the 'Easter Bonnet' or 'Broadway Bares,' things I would sneak into.

I'm a big believer than a great bit is a great bit - if I go and see someone I love, like Robert Klein. I want to hear some classics and some new stuff. But a great stand-up bit takes a long time to really polish and perfect, and they're beautiful things when they're done.

I've been a professional actor now for 38 years. A long time. And it's wonderful to earn your living doing something that you love. To think people actually give you money for it!