Gustavo Dudamel Quotes

As rewarding as a good film role can be, there is just nothing like getting up on a stage and taking an audience for a ride.

I love storytelling and I love just relating directly to an audience. That's why we do theatre, it's because we love contact with the audience. We love the fact that the audience will change us. The way the audience responds makes us change our performance.

When I finished performing 'I Won't Give Up' for the first time, I opened my eyes, and I think there was maybe six people in there when I started, and when I finished there was about 30 people, all standing around with their jaws dropped in complete silence. I said, 'Okay, I think this song has some power to it.' So coffee shops work for me.

I saw a play in a black box theatre, and it changed my life.

Those minutes that I'm on stage are the best! Being there and looking at the crowd and seeing their faces, hearing them sing the positive words from the songs.

You have to pay attention to the moments when you've felt on top on the world. I remember the first time I was on stage, I was doing 'West Side Story,' I was 17 and this woman was crying because she liked what I was doing so much.

I definitely believe in the energy of the set and the energy of the actor, way more than your written word.

I think the atmosphere of a Prom concert can change your life, in the best way. It's so deep, the feeling you have there. The audience is so close, and there are so many of them, that you feel they are almost embracing you.

If you're not doing something right, you can feel it on stage, and if it isn't going well, the audience will tell you. A teacher can teach you sense memory and this and that, but until you get in front of an audience, you don't really feel it.

There's a romance and power to live theater.

I love being in a small club where everybody has a good seat, and we don't look like ants. And you can feel the audience, which makes it kind of magical, and I miss that. I guess I have the best of both worlds.

Theater is such its own living, breathing animal. You do a show every night, but it's different every night. Being on stage, you're experiencing a journey.

There's nothing like performing for a live audience.

When the audience resonates with my music and sings every single word from the song, the high of performing live is unmatched.

Until I started performing in public, when at the end of the concert people would come to me with teary eyes and say that my performance took them to a trance zone, I had no idea that I can create an impact with my singing.

I love Broadway. I love live performing. It's really spiritual when you can get to interact with people, and they actually affect how your show goes.

Every time I go out on a stage I consider myself very lucky. Because, in a time where people are economically thinking about what to go and see - so, when I am on a stage, and it doesn't matter where I am, that's my favorite show. I come home after and say "That was my favorite show".

I enjoy going on stage knowing that there's going to be that vulnerability and that transparency and hopefully things will be realized or accomplished or that confidence will be revealed. I think that's another element that people like about shows: in addition to hearing the songs that they love, I think there are some people who really get off on connecting with what's happening right now.

What I love about the theater is that you know who you're acting for: your audience. And the thing I find really hard in film is, you don't. The audience is invisible. And we're sitting there, hoping there's other people out there.

I know that my job is to perform, it wouldn't be a very interesting show if I just came out one day and said, "I'm going to sit here in a ball and rock back and forth. And won't you join me for a half hour of sadness."

When you are on stage you are having an affair with three thousand people.

That's the thing about stage: It's something you can't find anywhere else. It's a two-and-a-half, three-hour experience, and it's a real relationship. You're sending out energy from the stage, but the audience is giving you back so much also, so that's also lifting you and pushing you forward as you're performing and giving you so much energy. You can't find it anywhere else, and that's why people get addicted to being on stage, and when they're not on stage are kind of looking for that and constantly searching for it.

If you're doing a musical, you should be out to give the audience something special, emotional, an uplifting feeling, something that stays with them.

Being in front of the audience, letting my audience see me in person - it is real intimate, you get to make them laugh and cry, they get to feel you. And then afterward, we go out and do a meet-and-greet session with the fans. It was just a wonderful experience. I really, really enjoyed it.

I love creating moments that feel bigger than just like an artist on stage.