Jerry Herman Quotes

It meant the world to see kids excited about theatre. That's the great thing about 'Hamilton' for me is to see young people who wouldn't normally think theatre is cool being really excited about how it works and getting involved.

I began thinking I would do musical theater because in high school that was really the only sort of curriculum they had as far as getting onstage and doing anything that anybody would see. So that's what I did.

My mom is an avid musical theatergoer. My dad would always get a subscription to the Syracuse Stage. I was always exposed to theater. So I went to a theater conservatory at Boston University.

I am concerned about the musical theater, selfishly, because I love it.

Back when I was in theater school, trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life, 'Sweeney Todd' was a huge touchstone for me, my favorite musical for sure.

I loved theater growing up, and my mom always took us to the touring productions that would come through town. We would go to Chicago all the time and see shows. I loved it.

People come up to me all the time who saw Dad in 'Oklahoma!' or 'Pajama Game,' and they say they'll never forget it.

Any show that's bringing in a young audience is doing a good thing, because that's the only way that theater will continue to grow. All the other audience members are going to be dead soon!

Tom Stoppard, the English-speaking world's brainiest playwright, thinks that British audiences have grown too dumb to understand his plays.

So many people have told me that 'Wicked' is their first musical ever and that they're hooked for life. I'm like, 'Wow, you really got it right when you picked this show to be your first one.'

We didn't have a lot of live theater in Oklahoma. I didn't visit New York when I was growing up. I watched movie musicals, and I believed in an idealistic, idyllic version of Broadway.

I have loved 'Les Miz' for so long. It was the first Broadway show I'd ever done.

If you look at the muscularity of something like 'Wicked' and the way it has just spawned sort of generations of young people wanting to get involved in the theatre - it's brilliant.

The way a musical can make us feel is unlike anything else, in song and particularly in dance. I think people fly through plate-glass windows when they get shot because movies don't have dance scenes any more. This is what we do instead.

Musicals are my favorite. I'm a musical theater buff.

While I was in high school, I saw Sutton Foster in 'Thoroughly Modern Millie,' and she was the one that was most inspiring to me for sure. I saw 'Millie' 6 times in a span of two years or so.

It may take a while, but I think 'On the Town' has the potential for us to break down the boundaries between the traditional theatergoer who may have fond memories of the musical and those with a 'Broadway-is-not-for-me' agenda.

When 'We Will Rock You,' the musical, launched, I was amazed at how successful it was. It attracted a new generation of fans. Freddie would have loved it. He was quite into that sort of stuff.

Any musical is a major undertaking.

I love musicals, and I grew up with them, but the first time I thought I could really do this was when I saw 'In the Heights.'

I want to bring theatre to a new generation, using the tools available to us, including taking it out to them on film and with new technology, but that is just so they can discover theatre. I want them to come in and sit in a theatre. This is the way to plant seeds.

Upon graduating from my acting program at The Pacific Conservatory of Performing Arts in Santa Maria, CA, I went to my first tap audition. It was for the 1st national equity tour of '42nd Street.'

I didn't really start going to see a lot of musicals and live theater probably until I was in seventh or eighth grade, maybe my first year of high school, and by that time I'd probably seen 'Grease' twice a year every year of my life.

I'm not sure I approve of theatre as a university course. I think theatre's something you do. I mean, literature is a subject; theatre is practical.

I take musical theater seriously.