I was probably never going to get to do the kind of things dramatically that I really wanted to do, so I returned to theater from time to time, and to write, and produce. It's by no means sour grapes.
It was the money from 'Star Wars' and 'Jaws' that allowed the theaters to build their multiplexes, which allowed an opening up of screens.
The success of 'Scrubs' allowed me to pursue anything I felt passionately about without having to worry about money. It allowed me to spend my summer work shopping my show at a nonprofit theater.
There's a kind of dynamic quality about theater and that dynamic quality expresses itself in relation to, first of all, the environment in which it's being staged; then the audience, the nature of the audience, the quality of the audience.
We are being entertained all the time - in the bathroom, on the train, in our beds. Sure, there is a smaller audience for theater. But we know from radio that entertainment never goes away, it just changes. And more power to it.
For conservative leaders, making candidates pay them court, publicly and ostentatiously, is a colossal source of their symbolic power before their followers. It's kabuki theater, mostly.
I'm just a Chicago actor who's a playwright. Even with the success of 'August,' the people in town who come to our theater know me by sight, because they've seen me onstage so much.
I was one of those kids who liked a lot of attention. I was always the kid in class who'd be telling jokes and getting in trouble. Theater was a natural way for me to channel that and also become a productive member of society.
I have taught some master classes and things at my alma mater and sometimes at my kids' school. I will go in and talk to the theater students. I wouldn't really call myself a teacher.
I went to a college in New York called New Paltz. I studied theater there for four years. I also studied privately in NYC with a teacher named Robert X. Modica.
When I was in junior high, a foreign-history teacher started a theater class. So I got my feet wet there and through high school, so I was very fascinated with acting as a means of expression.
I know I have this kind of teaching element in me, but I don't want to become a 'teacher of theater' because that would formalize something that I'd much rather keep casual.
I am really not of the school of naturalism. I like style, and you can use more style in theater than in film roles. I love to sink my teeth into a part.
As I told you, from the time I was fifteen, I thought the theater was too much involved with actors trying to make the audience love them, being over emotional.
I love the theater as much as music, and the whole idea of getting across to an audience and making them laugh, making them cry - just making them feel - is paramount to me.
I think theater will always be my first love. I've been doing it since I was nine, and there's nothing quite like being on stage, having the immediate intake of energy and exchange of ideas.
I've been very fortunate. I've been in theater, films, television, radio, tragedy, comedy, farce - I've been in a musical and in music halls, in pantomime. I was once ringmaster in a circus.
I've always been drawn to stories and telling them; whether it was through being a part of theater when I was a little kid, or film, or with music, there's just been an innate desire to feel that connection.
I'm preparing for a multimedia theater piece, Airport Music, that's coming up in New York City.
During a trip to Iraq last fall, I visited our theater hospital at Balad Air Force Base and witnessed these skilled medical professionals in action and met the brave soldiers whose lives they saved.
I actually got started in acting when I was in pre-school. I was really into dance and performing, so my mom had me in dance classes, and then I got involved in a local theater company.
