Stage Performances Quotes

Both my sisters and I were in Stage Door plays, and we did that together, just in, like, little small plays together. And we did that, and it was really fun, and we kinda did commercials, and it kinda took off from there. It was great; it's what I love.

The beauty of Broadway is that if I'm 60 or 70 years old, if they'll accept me back, I can go back. So I think for right now I'm going to focus on the music--it's the new baby--and see how it's going to work out, and then maybe in a few years maybe I'll go back.

I had been in 760 performances of 10 different Shakespeare plays by the time I was 17.

I'd love to tackle a classic Shakespeare play or take on Nora Helmer in 'A Doll's House.' Musical theater, it's the classics like Rodgers and Hammerstein and Cole Porter's 'Kiss Me Kate.' I'm much more a Julie Andrews-type soprano than an Idina Menzel.

After that, I started going downtown and doing a lot of theater shows in Chicago. When you go downtown there, it's like you're in New York, it's like going to Broadway.

I did 500 shows of 'Chaula Devi' and 700 shows of 'Anarkali'. I never mixed the filmy style with classical arts and kept my stage performances pure and it was appreciated.

I very rarely go back to do shows again. I'm done once I've learned the lessons I need to learn.

I remember telling the agent, 'I don't want to do anything but Broadway.' She was like, 'That's not really possible because there is not that much Broadway. So I'll send you out on TV and stuff like that.'

Well, I've been acting for 50 years now, professionally. I've been acting a lot longer. My mother reckons I was acting when I got out of the womb. But because I've been working in the theater, I've probably only done about 25 movies but I've done more than 100 plays.

I cannot stand Hollywood child performances. It just reeks of artifice, and it's weird that, for some reason, Hollywood feels they have to make their child characters smarter than adults, and suddenly kids have the vocabulary of a college grad.

I danced in choruses from about 1959 to 1967, in 'Take Me Along,' 'Wildcat,' and 'Subways Are for Sleeping.'

I remember when I was in 'Hairspray' - my first Broadway show - I truly was in awe of the voices I got to hear on a nightly basis around me. I'm thinking, 'Wow! Why aren't these people selling millions of records?' They're the ones that are out there, you know, belting their faces off!

I got into gambling when I was playing a casino. I was a hermit in those days. I would go onstage, go to my room, or if we had to travel, I'd get in a car or a plane, whatever. But I didn't do anything. One day, this friend of mine said, 'Do you want to play some blackjack?'

I love Jane [Krakowski]. Jane's been a dear friend for maybe a dozen years. We've worked together on many shows and concerts and readings. We did 'Damn Yankees' together and then we did 'Xanadu.' Jane did all the workshops of 'Xanadu' before it moved to Broadway. She's hysterical and our voices blended. We had a similar sensibility.

That's what I think musicals will come to. No backstage stories, nothing of that sort.

I was always acting. I was doing after-school plays and stuff like that. But I wasn't doing well in any of the schools, so by ninth or tenth grade, I ended up going to a boarding school.

One thing is a fairly simple and straightforward thing. I don't long to direct. I really want to get some good parts.

So I've done my fair share of theater. I have also been very fortunate in that I've been able to come to New York two or three times a year just to see as many shows as possible. I think the live theater culture here is incredible.

I am very much looking forward to new adventures - including, I hope, Broadway - sooner rather than later.

I am a Broadway theatre guy... so it was kind of my goal this year to come out to LA for pilot season and expand my horizons

Generally speaking people that come to an amphitheater show, they're not coming to see the opening band.

In a way, you normalize your own childhood to yourself, so I never thought about how much I wrote as a kid. So I was there, confronted with it - so many notebooks, so many tiny plays. Every week we put on a play. We had a big futon, so my sister and I would use the futon as our stage, and I wrote little skits and made her faint because I found it so funny.

With my family as my audience, I used to sing, dance, and reenact every scene from 'Grease,' 'Newsies' and 'Les Miserables' as many times as they would let me.

I love musicals and I love Broadway.

I'd love to be able to play all different roles, whether it's Maureen in Rent or Maria in West Side Story. I would just love to be involved in this business forever.