Dancing was a big part of my life, but I would never consider myself a dancer. I adore singing, and music has always been a huge part of my life, but I also enjoy acting.
When I was a freshman, I didn't have that much time for extra-curriculars, so I didn't do any theater stuff. Actually, I didn't do it with my school. I did theater with this thing called Teen Source.
When I was 12, I was in Oliver! at a theater in Glasgow.
I was heavily involved in musical theater.
I'm from Mt. Clemens, Michigan. It's right outside Detroit. The suburbs. I was always very heavily involved in theater back then. I was always in drama club or forensics. Anything that you could do that had some performing, I was doing it.
I mean I was very shy but I was also very extroverted because I was doing plays. I'd been doing plays since I was a little kid. But, I did feel like an outsider because I went to like a 'college-prep' kind of high school that had a really big football team and was known for its program so I was like this weird boy that did plays.
I'm always reading plays, and when I find something that I really want to do, then I'll make the time to do it.
I would advise young aspiring theater artists to do as many shows as possible. It doesn't matter if it's in the basement of a church, in school, or in community theater. Do them wherever you can; big parts or small, it doesn't matter.
I was a total education geek. I loved school. I loved learning. I loved doing homework. All of my books and notebooks from high school are underlined and highlighted and there are notes all over the margins. And you know, I was a theater kid too. I was all over the place.
Growing up I was involved in children's theater, so I was definitely on the path to be an actor and a singer.
I always wanted to be an actor. It sort of prevented that whole - I never had any of that kind of angsty period old and doing musicals at camp and community theater and plays at school; it was just always what I most enjoyed and always what I intended to pursue.
The old guys like me started in the theatre. I was in the theatre for nine years.
I had a teacher senior year in high school. He was a theater teacher, and he basically was a little bit like 'High School Musical.' He kind of encouraged the jocks to get involved with the plays. I did it as kind of a senior year lark.
I was acting since I was a kid, going to drama classes and being involved in every school play and musical that I could get my hands on, so it was something that was a part of me from a very early age.
I love theatre - it's where I started - and I've directed a play myself. I'm not sure if I want to direct a film, but certainly, as an actress, I'm always thinking, 'Surely this must be my last film.'
When I was a teenager, I began to settle into school because I'd discovered the extracurricular activities that interested me: music and theater.
I did a couple of plays in junior high school, maybe high school, and then I did a play in college.
My father was released from jail, after more than three years of imprisonment, in 1971. Without wasting any time, he wanted to get engaged in theatre. He asked me to join and also enquired if any of my friends were interested.
I've been involved with 'Hamilton' for about two and a half years. I've learned so much. I came into it a young man. Now I've dropped the 'young.'
I decided to have a regular childhood and not pursue [acting] until I left school, although I wrote plays, directed plays, and got involved in theatre at school. When I left school I decided that's that I was going to pursue and gave it a crack.
I was a really good student. I was nerdy and ambitious. I was involved with every large theater production at my school.
I've got to give my brother a lot of credit because he's always introduced me to a lot of things and those films spiked an interest of, "Wow, this is an incredible world, how do you be a part of that?" That definitely helped me through my school years of doing theater.
I was chubby and awkward, and the only way I could really meet girls was to join children's theater, so that's what I did.
My grandparents, Jim and Pat Moore, were an incredible couple. They drove me to the community theater, where I did plays as a kid.
I was taking electives, and that branched into theater. Theater led to me taking a break during the summer between my junior and senior year. After I graduated, I ended up moving out to L.A. But in my senior year, I made it a part of my major.
