Broadway Musical Quotes & Sayings

I would like to win the Pulitzer Prize. I would like to win the Nobel Prize. I would like to win a Tony award for the Broadway musical I'm now working on. Aside from these, my aspirations are modest ones. — Evan Hunter

The most interesting of the classic movie genres to me are the indigenous ones: the Western, which was born on the Frontier, the Gangster Film, which originated in the East Coast cities, and the Musical, which was spawned by Broadway. They remind me of jazz: they allowed for endless, increasingly complex, sometimes perverse variations. When these variations were played by the masters, they reflected the changing times; they gave you fascinating insights into American culture and the American psyche. — Martin Scorsese

When 'Catch Me If You Can' was published back in 1980, I never dreamed that it would become a bestseller, much less a major motion picture and now a big Broadway musical. What's amazing about the book is that it has never gone out of print. — Frank Abagnale

But if you get a kick out of "The Jerry Springer Show," you're going to love it! The idea of hearing these lyrics and profanities - like the chorus at the top of the show - the idea that we're going to hear it in Carnegie Hall is just genius. It's been written with real care! It's not some crappy little musical that somehow found its way off-Broadway with vulgar-intentions. This is really beautiful, operatic music. It has a place in Carnegie Hall. — Max Von Essen

I do an act, and I've been doing an act for 50 years. I do a variety show, which is a musical comedy show. I do comedy, and I do singing, Broadway show tunes and different songs that I like. Been doing it for many, many years. — Debbie Reynolds

'Story of My Life' was essentially a two-man musical play. In hindsight, I don't know if there was room for a two-man musical on Broadway. — Will Chase

I came from somewhat of a musical family. I had an uncle on Broadway. My dad kind of knows how to play instruments. Although, I always find it annoying when he does play an instrument. — Nate Ruess

We did get out and walk around on the Strip. Jep, Miss Kay, and I posed for a picture with one of those big, painted picture with face cutouts--Jep was Elvis in the middle, and Miss Kay and I were the showgirls in bikinis with tropical fruit hats.
We also splurged and went to see Phantom of the Opera. It was my first time going to a Broadway-style musical, and I loved it. I could relate to struggling to find true love. We did a little bit of gambling and card playing, and I remember visiting a Wild West town, right outside the city.
Mostly, though, Jep and I were kind of boring our first year of marriage. All we wanted to do was stay home and spend time together. — Jessica Robertson

I was a Hollywood musical fan as a kid, and I know how rare it is for someone who originates the Broadway role to get to then do it on screen. — John Lloyd Young

I would love to be in musical theater and be on Broadway. If someone were to offer me a position to do something like that, I wouldnt pass it down. Im a huge fan of musicals and I really want to do that. — Michelle Branch

...the history of the Broadway musical is the history of short Jewish men yelling at each other. — Jack Viertel

It's a very tough time for the playwright. Broadway has become almost a musical comedy theme park with all these long-running shows. — John Lithgow

I was never much of a musical theater guy, but I have so much more respect for the art form, the physical exertion of doing eight shows on Broadway a week, I cannot even fathom it. — Chris Pine

I was in a Broadway musical called Big Time Buck Wright.The play didn't make it but I was a success. It lasted six days but I sung four songs and there were critics, seriously, in New York who said that my part was perfect. So I can beat Joe Frazier singing. — Muhammad Ali

I know, I should've just shut him down like a Broadway Musical, but that's just not the way I'm wired. — Lynne Spears

I so miss musical theater. Secretly, I'm in awe of Broadway performers. — Brianna Brown

I think I could beat Joe Frazier singing. I was in a Broadway musical called Big Time Buck Wright. — Muhammad Ali

Every year I go to Broadway to see a musical - I like the music. I saw 'Mamma Mia;' I saw 'Les Miserables;' I saw 'Phantom of the Opera' like six, seven times. — Rafael Nadal

One common thread ran through the comments: everybody loathes Ticketmaster, for assorted reasons, with the wonderful diversity that makes our country so vibrant. If James Bond movies and other international thrillers weary of their casts of modern stock villains - drug dealers, terrorists, polluting corporations - Ticketmaster is waiting in the wings, universally despised. And if such a movie proved incredibly popular and were then transmuted into a hit Broadway musical, Ticketmaster itself could scalp - sorry, resell - tickets to it. — Randy Cohen

a leading copyright commentator concludes - with good reason - that if Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet were protected by copyright today, the Broadway musical West Side Story might well be found to infringe. — Neil Weinstock Netanel

I'm doing a new musical on Broadway, which opens in October called 'The Boy from Oz,' where I play Peter Allen. For those of you who don't know, he became first famous in America for marrying Liza Minelli. — Hugh Jackman

There's just nothing funnier or crazier than that - doing your Broadway debut as Spider-Man in 'Spider-Man' the musical. It was, like, the last thing I could have ever possibly imagined happening. I mean, I would tell people I was playing Spider-Man, and people would just break out laughing because it was so ridiculous! — Jake Epstein

I really feel confident about my dancing now, so I hope there could be a place for me in the West End or on Broadway - maybe a musical, maybe my own show. — Katherine Jenkins

I want to do a big Broadway musical, at some point. I would love to do that. To do something there would be super-cool. — Lara Pulver

I've been reading scripts where they've been doing a lot of singing now, but within the dark, realistic story line. I would love, love, love, love to do that. But not a musical on Broadway, I don't have that kind of energy or stamina. — Alia Shawkat

For your first musical in New York, to go to Broadway and be nominated for a Tony is a dream come true. — Jason Moore

I absolutely miss dancing. Don't want to do it for a living, I'm getting old, I can't move like I used to. If I had the opportunity to do something on Broadway or a musical, I would jump at the opportunity. — Michael K. Williams

I can go out raw with nothing, and my fans would still be happy, but I feel that I owe it to them to give them almost like a Broadway musical at this point in my life. I have to give them something more, so I do have to think of different ways to do it. — Mary J. Blige

You went to your first Broadway play or musical at some point, right? Come to opera. — Sondra Radvanovsky

I wanted to be on Broadway, but in musical comedy. — Carol Burnett

I've had albums out since the 1970s. I was in a musical, 'The Boy Friend,' directed by Ken Russell, and I was on Broadway in 'My One And Only' with Tommy Tune, so I've always been a singer, but I suppose people think of my modelling more. — Twiggy

There is indeed a level of improvisation where we can distort and shuffle the music patterns, samples, and loops in each phase of the show within fixed cue points, but at the same time there is a constant result that we are trying to achieve each night while performing and operating our system - quite similar in spirit to a broadway show for example: If you go see a musical two nights in a row, the performances are different yet similar. — Thomas Bangalter

I'm hoping to do a Broadway musical on the life of Rasputin. He's someone I can definitely identify with. — Ozzy Osbourne

Frances McDormand is my favorite actor. I don't know if that's relevant. But she's a person who plays people. In other words, not everything has to be an over-the-top Broadway musical to get my attention, but it certainly helps. — Julie Klausner

What about Broadway? Yes, I'm involved with a new musical based on 'The Adams Family.' — Nathan Lane

I have ambitions to do a Broadway record one of these days and get in the studio with like, a real orchestra. I'm a big musical theatre geek. — Mandy Moore

No one expects a Broadway musical comedy to be in the vanguard of what is bohemian, raunchy, folkloric, academic or aggressively experimental. That is not its job. Its job is to synthesize musical and social traditions with high-styled vivacity, especially those that dwell on different sides of the tracks in real life. The highbrow meets the lowbrow; sweet meets hot; uptown, downtown, all around the town. — Margo Jefferson

Look around, look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now. — Lin-Manuel Miranda

I went to School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, and we had a bunch of singing classes. My first job in New York was an Off-Broadway musical. — Anna Camp

It reminded him of the Sound of Music. Myron liked the ole Julie Andrews musical well enough. who didn't? but he always found one song particularly dumb. One of the classics, actually. My Favorite Things. The song made no sense. Ask a zillion people to list their absolute favorite things, and how many of them are going to list doorbells for crying out loud.
You know what, Milly, I love doorbells. To hell with strolling on a quiet beach, or reading a great book, or making love or seeing a broadway musical. Doorbells, Milly, doorbells really punch my ticket. Sometimes I just run up to people's houses and press their doorbells and, well, I think i am man enough to admit I shutter. — Harlan Coben

There is nothing wrong with loving musical theatre, but I think that it's naive to hold it superior any other musical classification, especially since these other genres have been influencing Broadway more and more in recent decades. — Stephanie D'Abruzzo

A good analogy [Charlie Hebdo] in lots of ways is "South Park" - the hugely popular American cartoon show - and the things that the "South Park" creators have created, like "The Book Of Mormon," the Broadway musical. If I were a devout Mormon, I would be offended by a lot of things that go on in "The Book Of Mormon," right? It mocks mercilessly the pretensions to truth of Mormonism and the pretensions to virtue of Mormon missionaries. — Adam Gopnik

I would love to be an amazing singer. I take voice lessons. It's good to have as a dancer - to be able to sing and act, too, because for a Broadway show or musical, you have to be able to do everything. — Maddie Ziegler

It's always been a dream of mine to do a voice for a Disney movie. I think Disney movies and theater are very closely related. That would be amazing. I don't know about doing a Broadway musical, just because I don't really know how people do it. You just work all the time. That's something that I would definitely have to work up to. — Alexa Ray Joel

The producers and I first talked about the Big Fish musical, right before we did the first test screening of the movie. I said, "I think there's a Broadway musical here." And really, from that day, we started figuring out how we would do it. — John August

I was doing a Broadway musical called 'Smile' with Howard Ashman and Marvin Hamlisch in 1984/5 when it abruptly closed. Howard was in the middle of pre-production for 'The Little Mermaid,' so he kindly invited all the girls in our cast to audition for the film. — Jodi Benson

I'm a weird dichotomy of nerd, sports fan, and musical theater, so I'd love to do a superhero musical on Broadway. But all the good superheroes are claimed. — Taran Killam

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. — Tom Lenk

Life doesn't discriminate
Between the sinners and the saints
It takes and it takes and it takes
And we keep living anyway
We rise and we fall and we break
And we make our mistakes — Lin-Manuel Miranda

'Hairspray' was a movie turned Broadway musical turned Hollywood remake, and that is the 'Lion King' circle of life as we know it in Times Square, the creative loop that swings for the stars and sometimes crashes into the upper deck. — James Wolcott

Always drawn to the theatric, Bowie also performed in stage productions of "The Elephant Man" and just recently collaborated on "Lazarus," an off-Broadway musical that's a sequel to his 1976 role in the film "The Man Who Fell To Earth." — David Bowie

I got the regular call, that they were doing a Broadway musical of Hairspray, and would I come and audition. I was familiar with the movie, because at the time it came out my lover wrote for Premiere magazine, and we had to see everything. — Harvey Fierstein

I played Tina Denmark in Ruthless the Musical when I was 9 at the Theatre on Broadway in Denver. — Annaleigh Ashford

You have two kinds of shows on Broadway - revivals and the same kind of musicals over and over again, all spectacles. You get your tickets for 'The Lion King' a year in advance, and essentially a family comes as if to a picnic, and they pass on to their children the idea that that's what the theater is - a spectacular musical you see once a year, a stage version of a movie. It has nothing to do with theater at all. It has to do with seeing what is familiar. We live in a recycled culture. — Stephen Sondheim

Hit songs did not come out of musicals. Pop-rock was creating the hits. There were very few songs that made the charts out of any Broadway musical. — Stephen Sondheim

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.' — Jillian Rose Reed

There are values on Broadway that are dangerous: it's got to be Best Musical, it's got to make money, it's got to run a certain amount of time. Nowhere in this, of course, is there any mention of quality. — Denis O'Hare

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. — Bridget Regan

The comparison might strike you as farfetched. What (you might be asking) can a Broadway musical possibly add to the legacy of a Founding Father--a giant of our national life, a war hero, a scholar, a statesman? What's one little play, or even one very big play, next to all that?
But there is more than one way to change the world . To secure their freedom, the polyglot American colonists had to come together, and stick together, in the face of enormous adversity. To live in a new way, they first had to think and feel in a new way. It took guns and ships to win the American Revolution, but it also required pamphlets and speeches--and at least one play. — Jeremy McCarter

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. — Betty Buckley

I saw my first Broadway show when I was 10 years old. I saw 'Big: The Musical' and I remember going out to dinner with my mom afterward and reading the souvenir program like crazy! — Erich Bergen

Don't know about a cabaret act right now, would actually prefer a role in a broadway musical. — Julia Barr

(Questlove) Is this the most revolutionary thing to happen to Broadway, or the most revolutionary thing to happen to hip-hop? — Lin-Manuel Miranda

Regarding the current Broadway revival of The Music Man, Jay Nordlinger wrote: There will always be those who sniff that the show is "feel good"-but, oh, it feels good to feel good. And the main reason The Music Man feels so good is that it is good-a great American musical. — Meredith Willson

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? — Mario Cantone

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. — B. D. Wong

Without a doubt, I'd love to do Broadway. I actually can't wait to get back to musical theater. — Zac Efron

I love music. I'd love to go on Broadway and do a musical there. I just like to kind of go with whatever's inspiring at the moment, and kind of follow that as far as I can. — Emmy Rossum