Quotes from Michael Arden

I found that the same things I loved about performing were the things I liked about directing and creating a piece - striking a chord that was in tune with the world and was reflecting back what I saw, just from a different angle.

Say you have a young black kid, and you come to see a Sondheim show. You love the material, but you look on stage, and you don't see anyone who looks like you. That puts a barrier between the audience and what they're trying to absorb.

As someone who lives with an animal, I think it's important to learn how to responsibly care for souls who don't have their own voice. They can't advocate for themselves.

So many gay men are mothers to so many young people, me included. I've had gay men who were more mother to me than my own mother ever was.

I think Rafael Nadal is pretty spectacular. I have a feeling he might be part animal.

If you've never heard a piece of Mozart, then Mozart could sound scary or confusing, so it's all about learning.

Magic in plays and musicals, I think, is more often created because of the work of an incredible company rather than a single component.

It's exciting to share an art form that I would never have imagined sharing with the deaf community. Doing musicals, it's not like, 'Oh, I'll do a musical with a deaf person.'

I would want everyone to love someone in the purest sense of the word - an unconditional love in which you don't expect anything in return.

At its core, 'Spring Awakening' is about the perils of miscommunication and what happens when people are denied a voice.

The love I have for my husband is intertwined with his, and we are two individuals looking in the same direction - as opposed to staring in each other's eyes all the time.

I would love to create a piece of theater that is devised by a company of actors and creators that I'd put together, and I'd love for it to be nonverbal so it's something that someone with any communication ability can enjoy.

I often think about what love can inspire in the world, not just in the eyes of the object of your affection.

I had a sort of rocky upbringing, and I think the theater was a safe place for me.

I've played gay, and I've played straight... I'm proud to be a gay man myself, and I'm thrilled to get the opportunity to play a variety of different gay men.

I think all my favorite directors have acted. They understand how an actor thinks.

The most exciting thing I've seen is directors not only being open to actors coming in the room with different abilities but actively looking at ways that the story can be enlarged with disabled actors.

We learn the most from listening, and I don't just mean with our ears.