Theatre Scene Quotes

Broadway was weird.

What's the difference in opening from scratch in Philly or opening from scratch in New York? The old out-of-town tryout circuit - taking the show pre-Broadway to cities like Boston, New Haven, Philadelphia, Washington - has sort of been replaced with the amount of workshops we do.

I appreciate good criticism and I think it's really important. I don't like it when it's consumer advocacy, like how you should spend your $60. Great criticism is a kind of literature. I've written some criticism, and I really enjoy it because I think it's important for people to know that theatre is vital. Criticism is really unevenly distributed in this town. Obviously the power of the Times is discouraging. It's killing new plays, demolishing one after another.

I had a country upbringing in a predominantly Maori community, and that contrasted with a very multi-cultured arts community in the Aro Valley in Wellington: growing up around a lot of theatre and poets and writers and stuff.

When I got to New York, all I wanted to do - or so I thought - was win a Tony award or, at least, be nominated.

Washington is no place for a good actor. The competition from bad actors is too great.

Los Angeles doesn't have as vital a theatre as New York does. And that's something that really interests me.

It's not like there's no work in Scotland, but speak to any actor, and they'll tell you it's limited. So you have to go to London or Manchester to broaden your horizons.

Tolerance actually does exist on Broadway.

The Broadway audience is made up of a greater percentage of tourists now. There's not nearly as much variety and danger and challenge in what's being offered.

I think the unemployment rate for actors is pretty much the same in Sydney, London and New York. In all three cities, there are more actors than there are jobs. But I do think that there are far more acting opportunities in London and New York than in Sydney, where there are approximately seven actors that you see over and over again in every play.

There's something so wonderful about being an actor in New York.

I hope it's always going to be a mix between theatre, film and radio. I've been very lucky living in London that you can do all that - in New York and L.A., there's more of a structure for film in L.A. and theatre in New York. In London, our industry is smaller, but it produces brilliant work all in one place.

When I was old enough to take myself into the city, in the 1970s, I really grew up on all the great Sondheim-Hal Prince shows.

I've done three Broadway musicals and tons of concerts and all kinds of things, but nobody knows that except the people in New York.

I used to say Edinburgh was a beautiful actress with no talent. I thought it was just like a shortbread tin. I think that's because I did six Festivals in a row there, and I never saw the real Edinburgh, just a lot of deeply annoying Cambridge Footlights kids wanting to be actresses.

My mother was a leading lady in a local theatre in Birmingham, Alabama, where I grew up.

Theatre is very cutthroat, especially here in New York!

From a very young age, I wanted to be an actor, but I lived in a very small town in Florida where there weren't any opportunities for that.

'Hairspray' was my first Broadway show. In the meantime, after the show was over, I would go down and do gigs at these clubs that I wasn't even old enough to get into. That continued on, and I think what ended up happening was that I just got these incredible opportunities on Broadway.

I love Chicago, but in a lot of ways it's a disappointment. You can work there for years and years, and because you're in Chicago, you don't get the recognition. It has some of the best theater in the country, but when they shoot a movie there, they bring in all their actors.

After a two-year stint at Cheek by Jowl theatre company in London, I put all my energies into breaking into New York's theatre scene. It took me eight years to build enough to play lead roles.

Modelling was not very satisfying for me. I came to London to model, and I fell in love with the theatre. I was eating yoghurt every day so that I had the money to go to the theatre. I saw everything. It's still my dream to be on stage in London.

I'd really like to come and do some theatre in the U.K.

Broadway's not what it used to be.