Ato Essandoh Quotes

I came up through the theater. I came out of drama college and started working in the professional theater.

Throughout school I appeared in all sorts of productions and deep in my heart of hearts I knew that was what I want to do more than anything else.

I never thought of myself as a Broadway actress. I'm not really a singer or a dancer.

While at college, I did my first lead on a network TV show, Medic.

I did 'Othello' at the Oregon Shakes - I was at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for two and a half years. That's where my training is.

In Michigan, if you want to act, it's local theater, it's high school theater and it's going to camp and putting on plays in the summer, and I always loved doing that. There was something that just drew me to it.

When I was going through school, I joined the Lyceum Youth Theatre, and that kind of cemented it. Through being in and around the building and watching shows, I realised that there was something I really loved about it, so I went into the stage management side.

The first play I did was a funny one called 'The School for Wives', by Moliere. We were wearing the ugliest wigs and the worst costumes you can ever imagine to try to recreate 17th-century France in Singapore. But I got my first real pay cheque from that. I was very happy taking that cheque to the bank.

The first thing I wrote was a one-act play that got accepted at a one-act play festival, and I was in it along with Nathan Lane and a couple of other very good actors.

I was in New York. I had been doing theater for many years, and then I got hired to a little part - they weren't calling it an extra, but I didn't have lines. It was a 'featured' part.

I knew I wanted to act since I was 10, but I didn't actually start acting until I was in high school. My favorite play was 'Lilies of the Field.'

Subliminally, I had always wanted to act. Although I had only performed in a couple of plays, I was serious about it and was subsequently trained by people like Lee Strasberg and Elia Kazan.

I went to anything that was on at the Lyceum in Edinburgh. I was quite geeky. There was a production of 'Look Back in Anger' with David Tennant and Kelly Reilly in it, and it blew me away. I still think about it and look back on it as the moment where I decided, 'I want to do that.'

My middle daughter is with the Royal Shakespeare Company and was on Broadway several years ago.

I started at Howard in the drama department. At the same time, I was a fledgling member of the Black Repertory Company in Washington, D.C. When I graduated, I had the great fortune of being in the Los Angeles production of 'For Colored Girls'... And all these years since, I've done stage work.

I was so involved in the regular joy of school that I didn't do any plays. On a dare, I auditioned for 'South Pacific' my junior year. I showed up at the last minute to the audition and ended up getting cast as the lead. I haven't turned back since then.

I was in my final year in college when I acted in 'Nanda Gokula.'

I would definitely go back to 'Kinky Boots' because that family, I think, is so wonderful and incredible, and my role and my part were just so fun to play. But I would definitely love to do other shows as well.

I was in the original cast of 'Sunset Boulevard.' I played Betty. But I wasn't on the cast album.

It changed my life, being in 'Company.' I didn't think I was going to be an actress.

I was so hungry when I started attempting acting. Not even to be a professional. Just to find out if I could act.

I want to delve into the world of performing.

I finished my university, was part of NSD, and did full length plays on stages.

I've been doing theater for a long time, so that's something I understand. I'm such a babe in the woods when it comes to TV and film. I'm still learning. It's exciting.

I mean, I did a play when I was in eighth grade, but who hasn't?