Quotes About Theater

I'm just a Chicago actor who's a playwright. Even with the success of 'August,' the people in town who come to our theater know me by sight, because they've seen me onstage so much.

I got all the schooling any actress needs. That is, I learned to write enough to sign contract.

That was the bat signal for me - 'Rent' changed my life. It took me years before I got beyond that show.

I've been performing my whole life. My mom signed me up for a theater program when I was five - I was the evil queen in 'Once Upon a Mattress.'

I was into opera as a kid - I'd play 'Carmen' and sing and dance. My mom signed me up for a theater group before preschool, and I never looked back.

Growing up in Canada, none of my family were performers or anything like that, but I was terrible at hockey, so they needed something for me to do on Saturdays for me to get out of the house. I signed up for theater school on Saturdays, and I'd go for four-and-a-half hours every Saturday morning and learn about theater.

In theater, what I loved were wordless plays and working in silence.

I know miming means to act without words, but the audience isn t supposed to be silent as well!

I know it sounds silly, but in auditions for film or TV, the words aren't as important - you need to get into the character and have the gist of the scene. But in theater, if you don't do it word for word, then you throw off your scene partner.

Acting can be a really silly thing. It's like playing dress-up.

I hesitate to say because it sounds silly, but the first play I did was 'The Caucasian Chalk Circle' by Brecht.

I played Joseph in 'Joseph & The Technicolor Dreamcoat,' which was a bit silly because I am a girl. I wanted to be the narrator, but I had fun with it anyway.

I was doing this children's theater play, and it was non-Equity. We were out of town to do it at the Kennedy Center, and it was always kind of, 'Well, the producers may have to turn this into Equity,' and that's what happened. It was kind of a silly children's theater play, but that's how I got my card.

I was always putting on plays for my family. Usually silly ones. I used my imagination a lot, and it was something that came naturally to me.

A lot of the stuff I do is broad, physical, quite silly.

Directing an opera is similar to directing a play. The singing must not get in the way of the drama.

I have, indeed, lived most of my life overseas, but I've returned repeatedly to work in film, special television productions, and the New York theater. There have also been tributes and similar occasions that have called me back to Hollywood. I've returned so often, I almost feel that I've never left.

Sometimes the best parts are the leading men. But the little parts can be similarly gratifying.

I told Simon, 'I don't want to play Oscar. I want to play Felix because Oscar is too easy. He gets all the laughs. Felix is a hard part; that's the part I want to play.'

I liked 'Brighton Beach Memoirs,' which I did with Neil Simon. I kind of was playing him, as Eugene Morris Jerome, and I played that a few times at the very beginning of my career.

I have been working up until recently with Neil Simon, who has been adapting the character to me.

I love live theater. I get my rocks off by doing stand-up, and I am the only actor. But to show up eight times a week and not have that time for myself; to do someone else's lines? When I work for Wendy Wasserstein or Terrence McNally, Neil Simon or even Shakespeare, I do not have the right to change the lines.

I've really enjoyed doing 'Annie Get Your Gun' and loved Neil Simon stuff like 'Chapter Two.'

Neil Simon didn't like it too much when we came out in clown makeup. We stopped doing that.