There’s nothing that can match Broadway for stature and dignity.
Broadway is a main artery of New York life – the hardened artery.
When I was growing up in Pennsylvania, auditioning for Broadway was my dream.
If you get into a Broadway show and it doesn’t work, you’re a failure. And if it does work, you may be stuck for who knows how long. It just doesn’t sound great to me!
When I got out of the Army, I started writing the usual ‘Catcher in the Rye’ imitations, and then I wrote something that was done Off-Off Broadway in a theater. It was called ‘What Else Is There?’ and it was four or five people playing missiles in a silo waiting to take off.
I love being on Broadway and it’s awesome and a dream come true but also it’s about the work and making sure you’re doing what you’re doing right.
I think Broadway is waking up to the idea that rap is an incredible tool for telling a musical story.
I went to the Paradise Restaurant on 49th Street and Broadway which was where they were playing, and I sat in.
You went to your first Broadway play or musical at some point, right? Come to opera.
My long-term goal is to play a drag role or a female role in a Broadway production.
I didn’t know I’d ever write a Broadway musical.
I believe we have to bring Broadway a little Latino flair. We have to keep it alive.
I got my Equity Card with my Broadway debut when I did ‘Rent.’ I was in high school, and I came to New York to do that show.
Everybody gets to a stage when it’s time to move on. I was bored, and the band wasn’t going anywhere, so I left. I did a couple of shows on Broadway and some other things. I was busy. I just wasn’t making records.
I didn’t think it was my dream to be on Broadway; it just sort of became that, and then it just became me wanting it more and more and more.
My studio was on 9th Street between University and Broadway.
I know about lots of things that have nothing to do with being Asian, that you would never guess from looking at me. I know all about musical theater. I could go on ‘Jeopardy!’ and knock off the whole Broadway show tunes category. Also the whole Bible stories category.
I’ve taken so many kids out of Pittsburgh and onto the great white way in New York City right into a Broadway show.
I’ve been really fortunate to do several shows on Broadway; the longest run I’ve done is nine months, and that was ‘Porgy and Bess.’ The shortest run I’ve done was about a month and a half: my first Broadway lead in ‘The Scottsboro Boys.’
I’m very optimistic about the future, because… Okay, with Audra McDonald, even just on Broadway, they cast her in shows that are usually not played by African-American women, so she’s very inspiring to me just because of that, you know what I mean?
It’s interesting – years ago, I had such bad stage fright during musical theater auditions that I just gave up. And now I’m on Broadway.
I’ve done three Broadway musicals and tons of concerts and all kinds of things, but nobody knows that except the people in New York.
I grew up loving Broadway musicals. I’d put on my parents’ cast albums and stand on the stool and sing in the mirror.
Singing is more of a hobby than really something I want to do for a career. But I love musical theater, so I’m hoping I can go back to it and do a role on Broadway for a few weeks. That would be a dream come true. My dream role would be Roxie in ‘Chicago.’
I think the fact that I grew up in show business had a real effect on my personality. If you were born in New York during the golden age of television, and you grew up on Broadway, that marks you.
When I was little, I saw the play ‘Les Miserables’ on Broadway, I thought it was the most amazing thing I have ever seen.
‘Turn Me Loose’ was Off-Broadway, and now we are making a concerted effort to figure out how to get it to on Broadway.
I’m writing new songs for a Broadway version of Tarzan, which is very interesting. I think what I learned from the Brother Bear score side of things, I’ve brought into the new Tarzan songs. Thinking outside just guitar, bass, drums and keyboards.
A lot of people now don’t know I’ve been on Broadway.
Being away from home was tough, but the challenge and the thrill of being on Broadway was so fulfilling, and I’m thankful to my husband for making it possible and holding it down at home.
Obviously I love working in film and television, but I started in theater and I’d love to be on Broadway.
I was the teenage kid growing up in New Jersey watching the Tony Awards and thinking, ‘Oh, maybe if I’m lucky I’ll make it to Broadway by the time I’m 40!’
I got nominated for a Tony in my Broadway debut, which was fascinating and thrilling and sort of unbelievable all at the same time.
Broadway musicals like ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’,’ ‘Eubie’ and ‘Bubblin’ Brown Sugar’ depict blacks having a light, wonderful time and that was just not so for blacks in the ’20s and ’30s.
The first Mardi Gras I went to, I stayed at the Tulane AE Pi house on Broadway. Slept on a pool table one night, slept under it the next.
Every time somebody would ask me what I want to be when I grow up, I would always say, ‘I want to be on Broadway!’
Growing up, the dream was to be on Broadway. I always loved theater.
I’ve been able to go on and have a successful career on Broadway and certainly the last five years in Las Vegas have been amazing.
‘Bonnie and Clyde’ was the first show and the first role that I got to originate. Being part of that from the ground up and investing three years of my life into seeing that show come to Broadway was really rigorous but also so exciting.
Tolerance actually does exist on Broadway.
I always admired Hugh Jackman as an actor in movies but also in theatre because I’m a big fan of Broadway musicals.
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 was pre-med in college, and so since a lot of people take a year off before they go to med school, I decided to take the time to pursue theater – six months later, I was on Broadway.
But then all that died down and as far as casting was concerned it didn’t really matter that I had been on Broadway.
Broadway, in my opinion, is a microcosm of America. Those challenges that we have in our country, I think we still have those challenges on the Broadway stage. I think there are far too few African-American directors working on Broadway.
I wanna do Broadway one day in New York. That would be an ultimate dream of mine.
I always felt like Broadway was not for me – in terms of ticket price, in terms of what was on there. I never saw myself reflected in the mirror of the Great White Way.
It wasn’t until I saw ‘The Color Purple’ on Broadway when I was 15 that I really solidified acting is what I want to do professionally.
I don’t think that everything on Broadway relates to us, and I think that’s why we as black people don’t always go to Broadway shows, but shows like ‘What’s on the Hearts of Men’ has a lot of issues that can relate to black families, and that’s why I enjoy it.
The Songwriters Hall of fame, that’s the one all the big-time writers get into, the really great stuff, the Broadway stuff and all that. That would be something, to get your name in there.
I’m as anxious as any viewer would be to see what Temple is going to do next. All I know is that in the second half of the season, he’s going to have more sexual tension developing. And it’s a great cast – they’re all Broadway actors except for me. I aspire to that.
The dumbing down of the country reflects itself on Broadway. The shows get dumber, and the public gets used to them.
I went from off-off Broadway. I would direct plays in Baldwin Hills. Almost Tyler Perry-like, really trying to express myself in that and not really knowing how to, knowing acting in story, but not really knowing how to technically hold a camera.
Broadway is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
When I started making movies, they tried to change my name, but I had already made a name for myself in a couple of Broadway productions and in television, so I wouldn’t change it.
There are countless fantastic actors out there who are being denied the opportunity to play Broadway because they’re not a name, and I think that’s kind of wrong.
I’d love to do Broadway. It’s funny. I love it, but I’ve never actually seen an actual Broadway show, not even ‘Hairspray.’
There is only one thing I respect in so-called Broadway actors… and that is their competitive sense.
I would like there to be gender equity. I would like the Broadway season to reflect sort of the demographic of the country.
So somehow we’ve got to get back to making stuff for people that are not necessarily interested in seeing the common Broadway fare.
I don’t have regrets. I’ve never sat here and thought, ‘Gee, if only I’d done ‘The Man Who Came to Dinner’ on Broadway, I would have been happier.’
Being a kid and growing up in Cleveland, the Tonys were how you saw Broadway shows: you got to hear from each show, and that’s what inspired me to live my dream, so the fact that I am getting recognition from them, it’s mind-blowing.
