Theater Performances Quotes

It was during my first trip to America in 1953 - that's when I learned to visit museums. I was then 26 years old. When I travel, the first thing I do is to visit museums. When I go to New York City, I usually go to Broadway to see the shows.

I used to watch movies - silent movies - and stock companies and theater whenever I could.

By the end of high school, I would do shows at the theater at night and then take the train home and go to school the next morning.

When children ask me what's my favorite [role], I say to them, "Imagine having ten beautiful new puppies in a basket and you had to say which one is your favorite, and you simply couldn't because you love them all for different reasons." POPPINS was such a learning experience, as was THE SOUND OF MUSIC. I tell you, every one of them just helped me grow in what I do and did and each one was such a phenomenal working experience.

And pomp, and feast, and revelry, With mask, and antique pageantry, Such sights as youthful poets dream On summer eves by haunted stream. Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Jonson's learned sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, Warble his native wood-notes wild, And ever, against eating cares, Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Married to immortal verse Such as the meeting soul may pierce, In notes with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out.

From when I was really young one of the first things I did was to perform and do shows. It was like a natural instinct.

Scripts were rather scarce in 1968. We did a lot of Amiri Baraka's plays, the agitprop stuff he was writing. It was at a time when black student organizations were active on the campuses, so we were invited to the colleges around Pittsburgh and Ohio, and even as far away as Jackson, Mississippi.

People ask, 'What's the best role you've ever played?' The next one.

People see a lot of huge stuff on Broadway, but there's always Off-Broadway energy and also shows that you can work in.

Always drawn to the theatric, Bowie also performed in stage productions of "The Elephant Man" and just recently collaborated on "Lazarus," an off-Broadway musical that's a sequel to his 1976 role in the film "The Man Who Fell To Earth."

As a kid, I would do all of the plays at my school, and I was notorious for being in five numbers in one show. I'd go onstage, run backstage for a wardrobe change, and then go back out onstage. I'm always trying to do more than I should but when I got my lucky break (or whatever it's called), I was prepared because I studied and worked really hard for it.

I watch a lot of live music, and I love the theatre, especially musicals.

But I think you could say my parts in Appointment In London and Gilbert and Sullivan were particularly interesting.

The first important role was a Broadway lead I did called 'The Royal Hunt Of The Sun' by Peter Shaffer, the guy who did 'Equus' and 'Amadeus.' Many of the important roles that I got later on were because the guy who was going to hire me was in that audience and had his mind blown. I tend to do that. I blow people's minds with my performances.

I don't see that many plays, and for me, musicals are rarely pleasing. I feel the actors are being put through a kind of nightmarish labor. They're like animals being forced to pull heavy carts of vegetables at incredible speeds.

If I have all the tears that are shed on Broadway by guys in love, I will have enough salt water to start an opposition ocean to the Atlantic and Pacific, with enough left over to run the Great Salt Lake out of business. But I wish to say I never shed any of these tears personally, because I am never in love, and furthermore, barring a bad break, I never expect to be in love, for the way I look at it love is strictly the old phedinkus, and I tell the little guy as much.

The musicals that I love on stage are generally meant for the stage.

Eat good dinners and drink good wine; read good novels if you have the leisure and see good plays; fall in love, if there is no reason why you should not fall in love; but do not pore over influenza statistics.

It was fun to be in a scene again with [my wife LaTanya Richardson]. We used to do plays together all the time. We hadn't really worked together since Losing Isaiah [1995]. That was kind of early on in both of our cinematic careers. Things have changed a little bit since then.

Occasionally, I have time to go to the theater, and I think for a minute, 'Man, I'd really love to be doing a play right now.' Because I loved doing plays when I was doing them. Then I think, 'I want to do it right now, but will I want to do that Sunday matinee in six weeks?'

Growing up, I always had two interests and two passions; one being public service and the other being the arts and acting.

My folks met at the University of Oklahoma, in the theater department in the 1940s. They were married touring the country in 'Cinderella' and 'Snow White.' My mother was married in Cinderella's costume; the dwarves were the best men.

But it's a Broadway show, so even if you're Christine in Phantom, you're still a princess. All female leads are princesses whether they're Disney princesses or not.

I was with the Jessie Bonstelle Stock Company in Detroit and Buffalo for three seasons - 10 performances and a new play every week. She was an amazing woman who did a great deal for me.

Being a theater actor, I've done a lot of plays where I've seen someone else play the same role in another production. Especially with the classics: Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams.