I’ve always been really artistic. I went to an all-girls’ private Catholic school, and one of their biggest things was musical theater. I became obsessed with that.
I really wished I had done the backpacking-through-Europe thing when I was younger, but I was busy doing musical theater.
In 1987, when I was 19, I was studying musical theater at Boston’s Emerson College. My sister, Tricia Leigh, told me about a summer acting retreat in Italy. Mom paid, so off we went.
I double majored in English education and theater with a musical theater minor. Teaching is the only thing that makes me as happy as performing.
I definitely wasn’t cool in high school. I really wasn’t. I did belong to many of the clubs and was in leadership on yearbook and did the musical theater route, so I had friends in all areas. But I certainly did not know what to wear, did not know how to do my hair, all those things.
I’ve done music as a hobby, either in musical theater or just jamming with friends, pretty much for as long as I can remember.
I’m a musical theater guy. That’s where I came from. That’s where I go whenever I have the chance. It’s my first love.
I was a ballet dancer and that kind of bled into musical theater. I was constantly in rehearsal for one thing or another.
I did a lot of musical theater when I was younger, and I really hope to get back there someday. I miss singing a lot. I listen to Broadway show tunes in my car and sing along to them.
I grew up doing musical theater.
I mean, musical theater really informed so much of my life. It just so perfectly brings order to chaos, which is why we love theater.
I was really sporty and loved singing. I started off doing musical theater. I left university to go to drama school. So I was a bit of a black sheep.
Usually, in musical theater, if you sing operatically or if you sing in a legit style, you’re the heart of the show. You maybe get to be moving and do dramatic stuff, but it’s very rare to be that funny.
I did a lot of children’s theater in Miami Shores. My base musical theater training happened there.
I love theater. That’s what I did in Mexico City. I did a lot of musical theater, and it’s where my heart is.
People who are feeling bullied and people who feel like outsiders should talk to their parents and guardians about finding a place with likeminded people where they can feel accepted. That’s what I needed, and that’s what I found with musical theater.
I believe there’s no reason why we couldn’t be entering a new age of musical theater if we continue to nurture young talent, take risks, and give them a playing field.
While I love musical theater, it wasn’t the right fit for me. It’s so competitive, and I was at such a disadvantage, having started performing when I was 17.
It’s funny… musical theater is what paid my rent and kept me going for the longest time.
I started out really into musical theater. So you can imagine I was super popular. I wasn’t awkward looking at all.
YouTube came out when I was a sophomore in college, and I feel like I was one of the first people to put musical theater stuff online.
I just love performing so much, and I threw myself into every musical theater production that was going in my home town and at school. And then, I went to the National Youth Music Theatre, which was really a galvanizing experience for me when I was 17.
I got successful awfully quick, and I wanted it… But I do think there is responsibility to move the musical theater form forward. I think you always have to be aware of the work that came before and build on that.
I knew in my heart I wanted to do musical theater professionally. I just didn’t know how to go about it or how to communicate that to my parents.
I’ve been doing musical theater since I was a kid. And look for a CD from me in the future. I want to write all the songs!
Western classical music had long known syncopation. But no one had felt compelled to snap his fingers to music before American jazz and musical theater, which sent a previously undiscovered current coursing through the body, demanding outlet.
I grew up with gay family members, and I went to a performing arts high school. So I grew up in children’s theater, musical theater, and all of my life has been around the LGBT community.
I’d taken, like, maybe some African dance classes a couple of times, but I wasn’t a musical theater person at all.
Naivete is the real reason I applied to Juilliard. I wanted to study drama and not musical theater because I have a hard time dancing. I only applied there.
I wanted to be an actor because I wanted to be onstage. I wanted to do musical theater, and from that I realized I was interested in plays. I never imagined myself on television. I was so lucky to be onstage my whole life.
Sondheim is the Shakespeare of the musical theater world.
I mean, I came from musical theater.
I want to make ‘Broadway’ a word that doesn’t have pejorative connotation. I don’t want ‘musical theater’ to be a dismissive term. I want it to be something that people can be proud of, that people can say, ‘Look at the possibilities.’
The truth is I love musical theater and always have.
Zooey Deschanel loves music, loves musical theater, loves the show of it.
I’ve always loved musical theater. It’s a bit of a family tradition.
If I had to put in order what I love to do the most, it would be musical theater, movies, and then television.
Look, I’m 40, I’m single, and I work in musical theater – you do the math!
I always wanted to make an album, but I knew that I didn’t want it to be a musical theater album. It’s not that I don’t love them – I own every musical theater album ever made – but it just didn’t seem right for me.
I went to a performing arts school, and we studied musical theater, jazz vocal performance, and they kind of start you out on those things because they feel like it is a good foundation, and it was.
I was trained classically in violin and voice, which led to musical theater. Then I left the music scene to chase acting, which is when ‘Neighbours’ came along. It was a fantastic playground for actors, and the cast around me taught me a lot.
All I listened to until age 18 growing up was musical theater. I liked the escapism of it.
‘Cabaret’ was one of the first pieces of musical theater I saw that showed the possibilities of what musical theater can do.
Broadway has changed tremendously from the early days when the shows were referred to as musical comedies. Musical Theater is now a more expanded art form. Back then, singer/actors were not the norm. From the 60’s to now, it is necessary to do it all to be a consummate Broadway performer.
When I first moved to New York, all I did was musical theater. That’s what I studied at Carnegie Mellon University.
I think I always told myself I would audition for the top musical theater schools, and if I didn’t get into one of my top five schools, that would be my sign.
I was a musical theater major at the University of Arizona. And I primarily trained with Marsha Bagwell. It was a classical program, so we did Chekov and Moliere and a lot of Shakespeare.
‘If I Loved You.’ All the way. Totally intimidated by it. From the outside, it has this aura of being one of the greatest musical theater scenes ever written.
Even before Pentatonix, I always thought that I would be out here in New York doing Broadway and doing musical theater. That was what gave me the passion for music in the first place, so it’s been really, really, cool.
Musicals are my favorite. I’m a musical theater buff.
Theater, especially musical theater, is a collaborative endeavor. The success of the venture is about the team.
I’m not an advocate of true rhymes, I don’t think. I think that everyone who writes musical theater needs to know how to do true rhymes, because that’s the tradition of it, but I do think that in order for the art form to grow, it’s important to not let tradition get in the way of innovation.
I love musical theater so much. When done right, I think comedy songs can be the most efficient form of joke delivery. Songs can be the most efficient and the best forms of conveying emotion. Music is universal. It’s worldwide.
People don’t realize that I started in musical theater. That’s where my roots are.
I started acting when I was 10, doing musical theater. I was a brunette at that time. I was always cast in all the exotic parts.
I would love to have a varied career, like Hugh Jackman. He started in musical theater, then established himself in film, but he still does a lot of stage work. And he does it all beautifully.
They had a contest where they would – for some reason, someone in the past loved musical theater, and so if you wrote a musical, they would fully fund it and put it on the main stage with full costumes and a set and everything, and my roommate said we should totally do that.
I think musical theater fans – obsessive fans – are very much like Comic Con fans in our personalities. We’re very possessive, and we’re very obsessive, and we’re very critical. So don’t screw with our stuff.
When I got to high school, I was going to do sports, but I got kicked off the volleyball team because I kept missing it for musical theater.
I got started as an actress doing musical theater, and I always loved ‘Grease’ and ‘West Side Story,’ and all those kind of movies.