Theater Debut Quotes

My first live performance was the lead in 'Peter Pan.'

I'm very proud of my New York debut. I played Oscar Wilde in 'Gross Indecency' off Broadway in about 1997. And I was very proud of my Broadway debut in 'The Iceman Cometh.'

I played Dorothy in 'The Wizard of Oz.' That was my first role on stage.

Watching first nights, though I've seen quite a few by now, is never any better. It's a nerve-racking experience. It's not a question of whether the play goes well or badly. It's not the audience reaction, it's my reaction. I'm rather hostile toward audiences—I don't much care for large bodies of people collected together. Everyone knows that audiences vary enormously; it's a mistake to care too much about them. The thing one should be concerned with is whether the performance has expressed what one set out to express in writing the play. It sometimes does.

My first show was 'The King and I' when I was five.

The fame of Maria Foote's beauty and charm of manner had reached London, and in May 1814, she made her first appearance at Covent Garden Theatre and personated Amanthis in 'The Child of Nature' with such grace and effect that the manager complimented her with an immediate engagement.

I'm not denying that it's exciting to have a play on Broadway.

I've never done regional theater, and I'm getting to make my Broadway debut as a principal, playing a pretty cool part, so there are probably people keeping an eye on me to see if I'll trip up.

A play gets on Broadway by fluke. And you don't even start out with that ambition. When I do a play, the intention is just to put it up somewhere.

I was lucky enough to make my Broadway debut in 'Big River.'

My first audition ever was for 'Bye Bye Birdie' in fifth grade.

We were at the Schubert Theater for two years. And we were the first act.

Coming at the acting business as a technician, I really enjoy the process of working. I really enjoy being in a rehearsal room, starting a theatre piece for the first time. I really enjoy shooting in front of the crew, and I really love going on location. I think all that is just so exciting. So I've never really been drawn into the fame of being an actor, which in L.A., is part and parcel of the deal. I think for a lot of people, especially kids, it's hard to not get wrapped up in the world of the perks that the job brings.

When I first went on the stage I was 17 and under the legal age for performers.

Ivo van Hove is directing The Crucible, and rehearses in quite an unusual way. We started rehearsals last week and dived straight into the first act, like, five minutes after we all turned up. No warm-ups. We were very intensely immersed in that whole world on day one. It was quite surreal because I've never done any theater before.

Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot,' billed as 'the laugh sensation of two continents,' made its American debut at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, in Miami, Florida, in 1956. My father, Bert Lahr, was playing Estragon, one of the two bowler-hatted tramps who pass the time in a lunar landscape as they wait in vain for the arrival of a Mr. Godot.

My life has been so fortunate. I have had most extraordinary good fortune in my life. I sort of put it into three categories, the three major stepping stones. One being London Hippodrome theater stage debut when I was 12, when it started my career. The second being going to Broadway. And the third going to Hollywood. Each one of those happened under the most extraordinary circumstances.