Quotes from Lindsay Mendez

I think, going into a room for an audition, the best thing you can do is represent who you are specifically as an individual and what you can bring to a creative process in a room - as opposed to being worried about 'where you fit' - because that's really their job to decide where you fit. Your job is to just present the best 'you' you can.

I've always been afraid to do a solo show. When I go to see the great solo shows of Liz Callaway or Christine Ebersole, they have so many incredible stories to talk about, and their material and lives are so rich. I've always worried that my life was not rich enough.

As I became an adult, I listened to a lot of jazz, to the ladies of jazz, Ella Fitzgerald and Carmen McRae and Nina Simone. I loved that they each covered the same songs and interpreted them totally differently. I thought that was so cool. They could each paint their own picture of that moment.

I love my body. I love representing people who aren't stick figures, because people aren't.

I loved working on 'Dogfight,' but when I first read it and wrapped my head around the story, I was a little horrified.

When you are preparing for a role, you have a script to comb through and the writer's help in telling you about the character, and then you can fill in the gaps. When you are doing a cabaret show, it's very personal. You have the opportunity to share parts of yourself with an audience and figure out how you want to connect.

It's been a huge honor to collaborate and create new theatre with new writers and to create theatre that will last after my lifetime. It's been in the most truthful way possible. It's my favorite thing to do.

I have a big persona onstage sometimes, but offstage, I'm super shy. Like, I don't want to perform for people - I'd rather die than sing in a room for someone.

There was so much emotional response to 'Dogfight.' You just heard the audience: They were so horrified. They were sobbing. They were joyful at times.

I loved Judy Garland growing up, and I also loved Ella Fitzgerald.

I'm a Mexican girl from California, and I never grew up thinking I could be in a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. I didn't really see myself in that. Not that I didn't grow up loving Rodgers and Hammerstein, but I don't know - I just never put myself there.

I did 'The Sound of Music.' That was my first musical.

I was born in Southern California in a city called Norwalk. I grew up there until I moved up to New York when I was 18.

Being called ugly every day is not easy on the psyche.

When you hear you're going to audition for 'Dogfight,' the show about bringing ugly women to parties, you're like, 'Oh, great, thank you.' Then you read lines where people call you fat, and you call yourself fat or ugly, and it can wear on you. But that's also our dream as actors, to play someone else and give someone else a voice.

I knew if I were ever to leave 'Godspell,' which I loved so much, it would have to be for something really spectacular.

People learn from their mistakes and move forward.

I have a major love for musical theatre, including a lot of stuff I don't get to do very often.

I have a group of fans who pitched in and named a star after me... So. Cool.

I remember getting notified that I won an award, and I gloated up a storm to my mother, and I was so obnoxious about it, but I said to her, 'Momma, I'm going to enjoy every moment of this because tomorrow, something bad is going to happen.'

My parents were big movie-musical fans. And I thought 'Grease' was different from the usual MGM musical. I was intrigued and fell in love with it.

It's nice to be with a male energy as opposed to a female energy. It's very different.

Judy Garland, Doris Day, and Gene Kelly were all big influences growing up from all of the films. I'm also a huge folk music fan - Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan have influenced a lot of how music can inspire change in our world.

I think people feel completely stunted without an agent, but there's a lot of auditions to be had without one and a lot to be learned before you take an agent on.