Quotes About Theater

I thought I'd be doing theater, really. That's all I had experience with growing up. I mean, I saw movies and television, but I don't think I really connected at a young age that that was acting, that that was part of the profession.

The first seven years of my life, me, my mom and dad and my four older siblings lived in a suburb of Stockholm, and my mom was very active with directing theater. So I basically grew up at the theater on the floors of the shows, so I was really surrounded with music at a young age.

When I started acting, doing theater stuff at a young age, I was always the comic relief-type roles, so I knew I had a funny bone and could make groups of people laugh, but I didn't really take it seriously until I started getting paid on a weekly basis; then I was like, 'Oh, well, this could be a lifestyle.'

I wasn't one of those kids who get up on the table and dance at a young age, but I always wanted to be an actor.

My dad worked at a mechanical factory for 35 years. I grew up in Union City, NJ. My mother is a social worker. My sister runs a 7-Eleven, and my brother is a detox counselor. They had no predilection for the arts. But from a very young age, I really, really loved theater.

The first time I'm nominated for an Emmy and I get to share it with my dad who introduced me to theater at a very, very young age, it's a very full-circle type thing.

When I auditioned for Tim Robbins for 'Cradle Will Rock,' the young girl who read with me was very young, and I said to Tim, 'I'm sorry, but I don't have enough imagination to pretend this girl is my husband!' And he said, 'Well, I'll read it with you.' Which was very nice; he was the director. And I ended up getting the part.

My passion was to be on Broadway and to be part of this community because I saw what it was like from the outside as the young kid in and around New York, and I would see things like the 'Easter Bonnet' or 'Broadway Bares,' things I would sneak into.

I spent a lot of my time, growing up, at the Beck Center. I'd be in plays there, and I'd get there an hour or two early just so I could be there, where I felt safe and where I belonged. And that's such an important feeling to have as a young kid. The theater community, and especially the Beck Center, really embraced me and got me started.

All of a sudden, I was a young kid in my early 20s, and I had a couple of Broadway shows to my credit.

Some of the finest Shakespeare has been done recently by college theater programs. I'll tell you what these young kids have: They have a natural authority in Shakespeare. They feel a right to do it. And once they honor the humanity of it, the rhythm of the verse comes with it.

I had met a young lady who wanted to be in the theater. It was Judy Holliday. She had somehow fallen down the steps of the Village Vanguard, which still exists today.

Now that was one thing, but from an actor's point of view, this poor young man, crying from the moment I opened the door to the moment he left. Now if an actor did that they would say he's over-acting.

I've done a lot of Shakespeare as a young man; I was involved with Shakespeare and Company.

I did a lot of trapeze stuff when I did 'Pippin' and continued to do it afterward. Flying is so fun, and I was used to the harness idea, but these harnesses are like intense, full bodysuit things.

I prefer the old theaters because the audience is... trapped.

I think one of the traps of theater - what makes it so amazing is that it's not able to be mass-produced, but it also makes it hard to get work seen by people because if you're a creator, you do a cabaret or something, and maybe 100 people will see it and then it ends the night that you close it.

My dad and his brothers were involved in amateur dramatics. From an early age, I was dragged along to rehearsals when they couldn't get childcare. I was watching pensioners dance around in sweatpants, which was very traumatic for a young child.

I've never traveled to promote anything I've been in. I've only been to about two or three premieres. The way I work, I do bits, and then I'm off to something else, whether it's theater or another project.

Before we had the kids, my husband and I were traveling a lot and working and really enjoying our lives and each other. We both love the theater and books and travel and so we were really having a lot of fun.

I started traveling by myself as early as 5 to see my dad. I'd go to Toronto or Los Angeles, depending on what show he was doing, but most often New York, and we would hang out, and he'd take me to museums and Broadway plays. The ones that had the biggest impact on me were the George C. Wolfe productions.

I got the call to play Tony Manero in 'Saturday Night Fever' in Madrid, a role I'd always wanted, as it's such a well-constructed show, and my background is in musical theatre. I'd been travelling back and forth between London and Spain for auditions and had been borrowing money from friends to do it.

Yes, I'd really love to get a chance to tread the boards in the West End, that would be incredible.

We all sing about the things we're thinking; musicals are about expressing those emotions that you can't talk about. It works a real treat.