Quotes About Theater

When I got the job on 'Cursed Child,' I was doing another show in the West End, and I was playing a part that Marlon Brando had played.

I really feel confident about my dancing now, so I hope there could be a place for me in the West End or on Broadway - maybe a musical, maybe my own show.

I've always liked the idea of regularly doing a play but I was offered things which I felt were too 'celebie' and West Endy.

In 2004, I was on the West End stage in The Woman In White, and for every show I had to climb into a fat suit to play the obese Count Fosco. It was hard work, and unbearably hot, but I sailed through because I'd always kept myself fit.

In the evening, since I have a lot of friends in theater, we might take in a Deaf West production in North Hollywood, or, since I'm a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, they have screenings that are really great.

Do I think the West End relies too heavily on star names? Yes, I do, and it can result in miscasting and sub-standard stuff. Not always, but occasionally.

'The Last Five Years,' we sang almost everything live. When we're in a convertible on the West Side Highway, there was no point - it's not going to be usable sound. But any time we were indoors, we were singing live.

I got started as an actress doing musical theater, and I always loved 'Grease' and 'West Side Story,' and all those kind of movies.

My first big role was when I was 17 and I got the part playing Maria in 'West Side Story' in my school production.

I would like, if I can, to broaden the possibilities of the musical theater. I think there's a better 'Oklahoma!' someplace, a better 'West Side Story.' And I'd like to be mixed up in it.

'West Side Story' is one of the greatest theatrical experiences I've had.

Gary Sinise and I go the furthest back of the Steppenwolf people; we were both saved from academic mediocrity as sophomores by being cast in 'West Side Story' by this transformationally beautiful teacher named Barbara Patterson.

When I first went to college, I went to Western Michigan. I had been rejected by a bunch of schools for theater. I was like, 'I'm obviously not cut out for this, so I might as well just go into film.'

I didn't take theater or anything. We didn't have a very good theater program. It was in western Utah - was a really small school. It wasn't developed. We didn't have the funds to do anything like that, but I did act all through high school in films because Disney Channel would shoot movies out there.

When you're doing a play, you don't always have a practical world that you're working off of. You have to create it for yourself.

There are always practical decisions to be made about any character you're playing.

There's nothing like the energy in a small comedy club room or a small theater when it's going really well. I can see everybody's face practically in the whole room. There's no cameras in the way, and it's just me.

You cannot study acting in books. Do it, do it, do it. And watch good actors. See what they are doing and how they are doing it. You have to practically participate, I think, in order to develop yourself.

It was a better time to be a young actor when I started out. There was a repertory system where you could go and practise.

It's disgusting that a Broadway show can't try out anymore, that no matter where they are in the world, there is this massive dialogue going on between people damning or praising it.

I ended up doing a lot of prank shows in my life or prank theater, but I always got fairly nervous about doing 'em.

I pray to be of service to the playwright, the audience, the other actors and my character.

I had just gotten a job on 'Preacher' on AMC and was in New Orleans starting work on that. My agent called and said 'Are you sitting down?' and I said 'No' and he said 'Scott Rudin wants you to do 'Hello, Dolly!' and all I could say was 'Oh my God, I'll have to call you back.'

One of the great things I learned from how cooperative theater is, you can't be too precious about your ideas.