I want to be back on Broadway one day. That’s a dream of mine. There’s nothing like live theater, and I think it’s so important for me to be able to be on stage with an audience that responds.
I have seen Hollywood artistes like Al Pacino, Tom Cruise and Tim Burton doing theatre and Broadway shows. Cinema actors tend to go back to theatre because it gives them an opportunity to reinvent themselves.
I was in California, and I was going to UCLA, and I knew I certainly didn’t have movie star looks. I remember seeing pictures and photos of Ethel Merman and Mary Martin, who were kind of average looking. I said, ‘Well, that’s for me, then, to go back to New York and try to be in musical comedy on Broadway.’
But I can’t wait to watch the Tonys this Sunday. I’m really glad Broadway is doing so well this year, especially with its straight plays. It’s been a wonderful year.
After I graduated, I tried Broadway, which was difficult for me. It was tough to get a part on Broadway, so I just started talking to audiences at different social gatherings, and little by little I became Don Rickles – whatever that is.
Nobody knows I sing. Even though I’ve done Broadway musicals. I would only pick it over acting because it’s such a pure form of emotional expression.
I’ve always felt embraced by the Broadway community even before I felt like I earned it.
If you’re a child, and you’re on Broadway, you automatically know every other child in a production.
The Greatest Showman’ would be an amazing Broadway hit.
I was repeatedly told that there isn’t an African American woman who can open a show on Broadway. I said, ‘Well, how do we know? How do we know if we don’t do it?’ I said, ‘I think you’re wrong.’
I know, it’s weird that I’ve never done a musical. I turned down two of them. ‘The Lion King’ and ‘The Producers.’ I turned two of the biggest Broadway musicals down, am I a mess?
The people I idolized I saw once a year on the Tony Awards. I would buy the cassette tapes of the various Broadway shows and scour the photos inside the recording package. That’s how I exposed myself to the arts – New York and professional theater felt like a very distant thing.
I would love to be on Broadway. I would love to do a three-month run, similar to how celebrities do a three-month run on ‘Chicago.’ Something like that would be awesome. So, I’m putting it out there.
The Broadway run of ‘Memphis’ has been like going to the moon. It was so great to actually open at the Shubert Theatre and then amazing to be nominated for eight Tonys and attend all the luncheons and events.
I’ve seen Hugh Jackman in a thousand Broadway shows.
I remember watching the Tony Awards as a young girl, thinking I would never get that far but, in my heart, wanting so badly to perform on Broadway and defy the expectations of my small town.
I did the Broadway album unfortunately in a year when there were no hits.
I started doing theatre, and that’s when I really fell in love with the profession; I learned a lot. It felt a bit weird to go from living in New York on Broadway to university, so I kept putting it off. Then, eventually, I had to give up the place.
After I saw ‘Annie’ on Broadway, I came out of the show crying, because I wanted to be on that stage.
Look at the shows that are really successful on Broadway. They’re musicals. They’re things that a woman will pick out the tickets for, or a man will buy the tickets with a woman in mind. It’s a date. It’s boyfriend-girlfriend, husband-wife. That’s what the theater in New York has become.
Ever since I was little, Broadway had always been my passion.
Acting, I started when I was six and a half years-old, on Broadway with Kurt Weill.
Doing Broadway was always a dream of mine since I was a little girl.
Broadway is so defeating for the most part that it doesn’t encourage people to be as tenacious as they should be.
I did a reality TV show in London called ‘I’d Do Anything,’ and when I got put in the program, they said, ‘What is your ultimate dream?’ and I said, ‘Broadway.’
I absolutely loved my stint on Broadway in ‘Hairspray.’
I love acting. I love singing. Eventually, I’d love to go on Broadway. I love New York so much.
I started auditioning, and the first job I ever got was understudying Amy Ryan in ‘The Sisters Rosensweig’ on Broadway, directed by Daniel Sullivan. I was 18 years old.
Black people, if I may, we don’t get a lot of opportunities to do a lot of different things outside the norm, outside of what is expected of us. Black women on Broadway are expected to put themselves downstage center and tear the roof off.
I am a collector of many things, but I particularly love the sterling silver mint julep cups, each engraved with the titles of the Broadway shows in which I appeared.
I want to be on the big stage. Broadway. I was there before.
I’ve done a bunch of Broadway, so I’m a theater nerd when I come to New York.
I’d love to be on scripted TV shows and movies, but not just one – I want to be in a lot of them! I’d also love to sing and possibly be on Broadway. I want to do it all.
There is a strange kind of parental pride when ‘Topdog’ ends up on Broadway, or ‘Elaine Stritch.’
I would love to do Broadway the rest of my life! Because it’s challenging, because it makes me grow as an actor, as an entertainer, as an artist, and that’s what I need; that’s what I’m hooked on.
Every actor tries to come to Broadway be it Richard Burton, Marlon Brando or Liz Taylor or Shirley McClain.
I went on a few auditions for Broadway musicals, and never stopped taking classes, but I didn’t take it seriously until I was out of college.
I wanted to write for Broadway.
I’d always wanted to be on Broadway one day, but it seemed like a dream that might be unattainable. This business has a lot of ups and downs and I learned that pretty quickly.
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’m a big Broadway fan and a big MGM fan.
The Broadway community means the world. That goes for the actors, that goes for the crew, the producers, the writers, and most importantly, that goes for the fans. The Broadway community is one that I will always hold very near and very dear to me.
I want people to be obsessed with Broadway and theatre as much as I am.
I never thought I’d be doing TV. I’ve always loved it, but I felt like I was just going to do Broadway because that was what I wanted to do the most.
The store experience must become a performance, with the energy and precision of a Broadway play.
I couldn’t be more proud to introduce Anne-Marie Duff, a phenomenal actress who is bursting on the world stage, to Broadway audiences as Lady Macbeth.
At 21, my career took a comedic turn when I was cast in a new Broadway play called ‘Brooklyn Boy,’ by Donald Margulies, which was equal parts funny and sad. I realized that the more seriously I expressed my character’s feelings, the funnier the scene became.
I would love to play, perhaps not exactly Mimi in ‘Rent,’ but someone like her. Perhaps not on Broadway, but I think I feel like a musical is in my future. I sing, although I’m not Whitney Houston up in here. I’m a little bit shy about my singing, but I did it in school at Juilliard.
Say the average arena is 20,000 people. You’re in the very center of that arena, and you’re playing to the worst seat in the house up there. So everything is very big, very large. It’s like a very violent form of Broadway in a 20×20 ring.
And what would be great numbers in a Broadway show are now on stage of the New York City Ballet.
Some filmmakers set out to re-create the theater experience they got on Broadway. They kept everything the same. They shot the original casts. We reinvent the whole thing, look at it solely as a movie. We pretend that nobody saw ‘Chicago’ or ‘Hairspray.’
I like the fact that some of your favorite Broadway musicals are not made into movies.
‘Tommy’ was my first Broadway show. Long Pause. I don’t know how you can surpass the excitement or get more excited or feel more on top of the world than when you are sitting in a room singing The Who, and Pete Townshend is sitting there tapping his foot.
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 just wanted to go to New York and be on Broadway, but then I was accepted by Juilliard, where they trained me in classical voice. It was great in the end, but at the time, I thought, ‘What am I doing here? This is not my path.’ But it was absolutely my path and where I was meant to be.
‘Broadway’ is one of the big American words. It’s exciting to be given the chance to rattle around in one of the big words.
I toured around the country and met all these Broadway producers who put me in all these Neil Simon plays like ‘Brighton Beach Memoirs’ and ‘Biloxi Blues.’
I make the energy to go out. You can’t let the Broadway schedule run you.
I lived in New York City for a while and miss it like it’s a person. Although I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, I’m a New Yorker at heart. A stroll through Central Park, a visit to the MET, a show on Broadway. There is no other city like it in the world!
