Theater Productions Quotes

Living in L.A., I was embarrassed to say that I wanted to be an actor.

I wasn't straining at the bit to become a movie star any more than I had plotted to get out of vaudeville and into Broadway musicals.

I love 'South Pacific.' It's got beautiful music. But there have been so many, you know, renditions of this in high school or college productions.

I love musicals and I'm happy they are coming back because I'd love to do more.

We made 'Shutterbugs' and 'The Illusionators' to play live at UCB.

For some reason, they always gave me a fat suit in high-school productions. If there was a character who needed to be robust, they gave me a fat suit, and I put on a silly voice.

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.

You know obviously a big TV or film break would be lovely, but I find that I’m essentially a theatre trained actor and that’s what I love doing. I love fringe theatres in London, I love theatres like the Royal Court, Soho and the National obviously and if I could work in any of those and be a jobbing actor for a while then I’m very lucky.

By some curious mischance, a couple of my plays managed to hit an area where commercial success was feasible. But it's wrong to think I'm a commercial playwright who has somehow ceased his proper function. I have always been the same thing - which is not a commercial playwright. I'm not after the brass ring.

A couple of years ago, I went to see a production of Wicked in San Francisco with a friend of mine, one that Patty Duke was in, and he said, "Do you want to meet her?" And I said, "Yeah!" And I went backstage, and she walked out of her dressing room, looked at me, and said, "I know you." And I went, "Well, uh, yeah, I was in My Sweet Charlie." And she said, "Yeah! You were the guy in the car on the road!" And I was. It was amazing.

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.

I love stage actors. The pool of world class actors that have done theater [is big], there's a higher opportunity of grabbing somebody from that pool.

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.

In productions such as 'Anna Bolena' and 'Rigoletto,' the costumes are tailored, and they're tight. In 'Moby,' it's like you're wearing pajamas, and you have more freedom. It's very comfortable on stage.

It was magical growing up in New Jersey. My sister and I would go nuts in the basement and do full theater productions. We used a humidifier as a fog machine. It was over the top.

There are no large-scale original musicals being made right now. They're all Broadway adaptations and jukebox musicals or catalog musicals, and they just don't interest me as much.

Although the 'New York Times' annually declares that Broadway is on its deathbed, news of its demise is greatly exaggerated. There's a lot of life yet in the old tart.

I went to Fountain Valley High School. I remember watching Grove Shakespeare productions here. It left a big impression on me.

Yeah, I did some small parts in high school and the first year of college and then fairly soon thereafter I settled into the backstage scenery, and then at the University of Maryland I was doing posters for their productions.

It's funny because I went to a predominantly white school, but for some reason they always picked the musicals that were supposed to be done by totally black casts.

I am a big fan of musical theater.

Normally our season is seven weeks in the Drama Theatre and four weeks in the Opera Theater.

For a few years, there were three shows running on Broadway that I had all opened: 'Chicago,' 'Wicked' and 'Anything Goes.'

I wouldn't say anything I ever did in film would be something I'd use the word proud about. I've done better work in the theater.