Quotes About Theater

I did this play, 'Expedition 6,' that I worked on for three years in between other things. It was a good, interesting time for me because I trained as a theater director, and I went back, and we toured it around.

I was trained in classic theater, so I love me some good old crying.

I am not a very trained actor.

I was the illegitimate child of the legitimate theater. I had no training. I came from downtown rock and roll, and when I came in and auditioned for the Broadway revival of 'Hair,' I had no eyebrows - kind of a Bowie-esque glimmer kid. And it was hard representing the flower power era when we were stone cold punks.

I did 'Othello' at the Oregon Shakes - I was at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for two and a half years. That's where my training is.

The first time I saw Dr. Shriram Lagoo was way back in school. I did not interact with him. It was only after I completed my training at the National School of Drama in Delhi and came back to Pune that we had our first exchange. I participated in a play, and he sent me a message to call him.

I don't think actors get good training today. I put my training to use in everything I do.

I think there is no better training than being onstage because here's the thing: the theater requires you to act with your whole body. I think acting with your whole body gives you a root, and you can build from there.

I didn't know I was going to go into musical theater necessarily. It was never planned. I just kind of fell into it because I knew I wanted to act, and yet I had this opera training... I knew I had a voice.

Most of my career up until the last couple of years has basically been a training ground for me. Actors that came up in the '50s and '60s, they had the theater, and television was in its infancy.

See, all actors pretend. I enjoy that pretence. I don't wear heels in real life, but if it is for a character, I love to get into the traits of the person I am playing.

I've gone from a kid who was sneaking out of my childhood house and lying to my parents to do shows in a community theatre in Reading, PA, to now having two shows on Broadway opening within two months of each other. That's sort of crazy, that trajectory.

I like to ground plays in reality so they can jump higher. So we can account for the trampoline, so we can account for the leap.

I knew there was something special about the theater for me something beyond the regular reality, something that I could get into and transcend and become something other than myself.

I've seen the greatest actors in the world, transcendent talents, who can't find a home.

I learned from master teachers at the University of Evansville, at Juilliard, at Shakespeare festivals all over the country, eventually landing at Shakespeare in the Park in N.Y.C. That show transferred, so I got to make my Broadway debut doing 'The Tempest' with Patrick Stewart.

I'm trying to show I'm a trained actress - I can transform myself into different characters. I'm not just an ingenue.

All of my experiences modeling, acting, doing theater, it's all in the work now. And the work freed me to transform myself.

Acting, when it is good, can be transformative.

When people come into the theater, whether it's the screen or the stage, they've gotta be transported and transformed.

It's a tough transition really for theater actors to adjust to television or film, and all of these years later, I still have a tendency to play it too big.

I did nothing but theater until, I guess, '99. I was all the way through college the first time that I had stepped in front of a camera. And it's weird; it's definitely a transition.

The world of the stage and the performance on the stage usually does not tend to translate very well - it doesn't tend to hold very well - once cameras are on it; it's not like it's terrible or embarrassing or bad anything, but, I, as an actor, would perform a role differently for an audience than I would for just cameras.

Film and television is just a different technique in terms of how to approach the camera but basically the job is the same; but what you learn as a craft in theater, you can then learn to translate that into any mediums.