Theater is a physical activity as much as anything. It's harder for me to learn the lines than it was 30 years ago. At the same time, I'll never quit working in the theater - until I can't memorize two lines back to back.
Actors and writers need to come back to the theater because it's a place where you can learn. You have to pay your dues, and people who haven't paid their dues in the theater, I think, have a hard time creating a whole career.
When I was a freshman, I didn't have that much time for extra-curriculars, so I didn't do any theater stuff. Actually, I didn't do it with my school. I did theater with this thing called Teen Source.
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'd love to go back to Greek times and see the birth of theater and performing, in that time. It would be so extraordinary to see the need that theater came out of, in the first place. I think we could probably all learn a bit from that.
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.
Theater in Chicago will always be my first love. It started careers for me and about 50 of my friends. We all love coming back. As soon as the TV show is over, I'll be back in Chicago, doing live theater.
I expect at some point I'll probably want to go back on stage and do some theater, because I've not done theater in 10 years.
I started out really into musical theater. So you can imagine I was super popular. I wasn't awkward looking at all.
I was doing theater in my high school, and I started writing sort of silly songs on the piano backstage in summer theater. I eventually put them online and started getting this little following.
My favorite thing to hear from people is, 'I left the theater and couldn't stop thinking about it.' You want your work to have an impact after they leave the theater. It's the equivalent of leaving a musical humming a show tune.
If you want to buy a good movie, you'll buy a good movie. If you don't want to buy a good movie, you'll buy a 'Twilight' movie.
That's one of the things about theater vs. film - with theater, actors have a little more control, and one of the disappointing things about films is that once you're done shooting, anything can happen, you know?
Talking about theater, actually, I built a little barn in upstate New York, and I call it 'the smallest theater in the world,' but it has a mini stage and a red velvet curtain.
When you play arenas you can create whatever you want. At a theater the height of the stage and the limitations of the theater can make you feel more separate from the audience.
There's a relationship in the reality with how theater is presented - you can't experience that anywhere else. When you mess up, you mess up obviously, when you sweat, you sweat obviously, when you cry, you cry obviously. There's no hiding in theater...
The way I view comedy clubs is, people are drinking, they're ordering food, they're out for the night, and there's also a person onstage talking. And with the theater, they came to the theater, and they're waiting to hear what you say. So you'd bette...
I started out with a business and psychology major, and then I started doing plays and concentrating more and more on theater. I dropped out of college and moved to New York and studied theater at The Neighborhood Playhouse. I did that for a couple o...
I've never seen a theater community to rival that of Chicago. Neither New York nor L.A. has the raw talent or integrity that Chicago theater has, and I think it's because Chicago doesn't have Broadway or the film and TV business to distract it.
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 do regret that when I went to college, I didn't have a liberal arts education. I got a BFA in musical theater, so it was a very directed toward what I was doing. I wish that I had expanded my horizons a little bit.
