Broadway Theater Quotes & Sayings

I was just on Broadway for four months, and the amount of fan mail that arrived at the theater was just overwhelming. I mean, I had no idea! I guess people suddenly had access to me and knew where to find me, so they got me there, and I was amazed. — Sonya Walger

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. — Naturi Naughton

I've done some TV and I've done a lot of theater, obviously, and the last character I played on Broadway was a very fast-talking broad. I'm used to learning material and words. — Sutton Foster

We all know that the theater and every play that comes to Broadway have within themselves, like the human being, the seed of self-destruction and the certainty of death. The thing is to see how long the theater, the play, and the human being can last in spite of themselves. — James Thurber

It's hard being a Broadway actor going into film where you have to tone everything down. In theater, everything you're taught is to be big and broad and make everyone feel like they are right next to you, even in the last row of seats. — Keke Palmer

Our only competition in the theater is boredom, because if I'm bored with a play, if I'm revolted by a play on stage, with the Broadway prices, especially today, I'm going to walk out and not come back and pay that price again. — Jerome Lawrence

When I was on Broadway when I was little, I remember always driving through Times Square with my dad to the theater. Now when I go back, you can't even drive on Broadway in the 40s. New Times Square is too touristy to me. — Jenna Ushkowitz

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. — Jesse Tyler Ferguson

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. — Nick Offerman

The only thing I haven't done as an actor, other than Thai puppet theater somewhere, is act on a Broadway stage. — John Larroquette

All my roots are Broadway. I got my Equity Card doing a Broadway show, and my first love is theater. — Jesse Tyler Ferguson

A new star has been born and Vera's performance brings alive the desolate life of O'Neil's young heroine in a natural talent that is so fresh and yet so ageless. — Rajiv Kapoor

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

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

People wear shorts to the Broadway theater. There should be a law against that. — Stanley Tucci

The biggest audience for Off Broadway is mostly coming in on a train - either Upper East Siders or Metro-North. I go to the theater, and everyone around me is over 50. How interested will they be in my kind of work? — Adam Rapp

There is a problem on the so-called commercial stage in New York. The price of a ticket is exorbitant, and there are no longer original productions possible, apparently, on the commercial stage. They are all plays that were taken from either England or smaller theaters, off-Broadway theaters, and so on. The one justification there used to be for the commercial theater was that it originated everything we had, and now it originates nothing. But the powers that be seem perfectly content to have it that way. They don't risk anything anymore, and they simply pick off the cream. — Arthur Miller

I've studied theater since high school. Of course, it's a different story altogether being on Broadway, but it's still theater, and you have to be in front of a live audience, and that's very exciting. It's something I've definitely wanted to do, but I got involved in movies and television, and then it became a luxury to get back on the stage. — Dennis Haysbert

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

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

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

Broadway has the most savvy audience anywhere. They see everything and they know their theater. As sophisticated and subtle as you think you can be, the houses you get here will want something finer. — Richard Griffiths

I had to get used to the theater atmosphere because I haven't had a role on Broadway since Aida. It was a different process from day one because I was learning my parts by myself. — Heather Headley

And I don't consider Broadway the acropolis of theatrical art. I mean Broadway is commercial - that's what it is. It's expensive seats and a lot of them that have to be filled every night. Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway, as far as I'm concerned, is in New York the pride of New York theater. — Tony Kushner

I'm a kid that went to theater school. I thought I was going to be making my living doing plays regionally or in New York or on Broadway, and maybe if I got lucky I would do a movie here or there. — Matt Bomer

As she won fame playing Ethel Mertz, she perceived all of her theater work not as an end in itself, let alone the fulfillment of a childhood dream, but solely as preparation for I Love Lucy. She never really could savor the fact that, while no Broadway legend, she had become a respected and regularly employed working actress. — Rob Edelman

When I was on Broadway, people would really just recognize me around the theater. When you're showing up on commercials and posters, the scope of people recognizing you gets a little wider. — Dan Fogler

The Thirties had seen the first generation of American industrial designers; until the Thirties, all pencil sharpeners looked like pencil sharpeners - your basic Victorian mechanism, perhaps with a curlicue of decorative trim. After the advent of the designers, some pencil sharpeners looked as though they'd been put together in wind tunnels. For the most part, the change was only skin-deep; under the streamlined chrome shell, you'd find the same Victorian mechanism. Which made a certain kind of sense, because the most successful American designers had been recruited from the ranks of Broadway theater designers. It was all a stage set, a series of elaborate props for playing at living in the future. — William Gibson

I was in New York doing musicals in the theater and on Broadway before 'Orange,' so people always ask, 'Are you ever going to get to sing? Does she even sing?' But people who know me know I actually do sing. — Uzo Aduba

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

I want to be a recording artist for my whole entire life. But Broadway is something I would come back to at any given moment. I love, love, love doing theater. — Ariana Grande

I am still so proud to have been a part of something that introduced theater to so many people who weren't exposed to it before. We took Broadway and put it in peoples' living rooms once a week for two seasons. People still come up to me in the street and say, 'I never went to theater before I saw "Smash.'" That's the greatest compliment. — Megan Hilty

I used to do lots of independent films and for a while I was very content living in New York City and doing independent movies and off-Broadway theater. I loved it, I had a really good time doing that, and I worked on a lot of projects that are very dear to my heart, both plays and films. — Jared Harris

Live theater is my favorite of all the mediums that I have worked in, so I have every intention on coming back to Broadway. — Taye Diggs

The greatly anticipated 2009 Masters was like going to a Broadway hit and finding out that the star, Sir Tiger Woods, was off that night, and his replacement was the cab driver who dropped you off at the theater. — Dan Jenkins

I was the illegitimate child of the legitimate theater. I had no training. I came from downtown rock and roll, and when I came in and auditioned for the Broadway revival of 'Hair,' I had no eyebrows - kind of a Bowie-esque glimmer kid. And it was hard representing the flower power era when we were stone cold punks. — Annie Golden

Obviously I love working in film and television, but I started in theater and I'd love to be on Broadway. — Adrianne Palicki

If you don't go to Broadway, you're a fool. On Broadway, off Broadway, above Broadway, below Broadway, go! Don't tell me there isn't something wonderful playing. If I'm home in New York at night, I'm either at a Broadway or an Off Broadway show. We're in the theater capital of the world, and if you don't get it, you're an idiot. — Joan Rivers

Rarely offstage, rarely on hiatus, Fiddler on the Roof has already been back on Broadway for four revivals, played London's West End four times, and remains among Broadway's longest-running shows ever. — Barbara Isenberg

Growing up, the dream was to be on Broadway. I always loved theater. — Lauren Worsham

I love the theater community and theater life, and would love to figure out the distinctive differences between Broadway and the West End. — Chiwetel Ejiofor

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

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

I had a hard-scrabble childhood with my parents. I have a lot of baggage. To come down to the footlights and accept the audience's affection inside a Broadway theater - that didn't come easily to me. — Bette Midler

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

Pretty much from 1979 through 1988, the backbone of my career was the theater. Working on Broadway a couple of times, working off-Broadway, and also doing a lot of regional theater. Make no mistake, I lived very frugally. I had an apartment that was real cheap. I would get two or three jobs per season, and in between I'd be on unemployment. — Delroy Lindo

I have this huge, huge fan base of people who've never seen a Broadway show, but I think it's a great introduction to what Broadway is because my shows are not that. I think that if you're getting people to go to theater then somebody should be celebrating that. — Tyler Perry

If you want to be a theater actor, where do you live now? Young actors struggle on a Broadway salary. A lot of them live in shoe boxes; some of them are literally three to a shoebox. New York has gotten prohibitively expensive. — Stephen Spinella

Secretly, I'm in awe of Broadway performers. I would love to perform at that level. I love the exchange with the audience. I love being able to sing and dance to express your emotions and the community and friendships that are formed when working on a theater piece. — Brianna Brown

By 1949, there was no more work for me out there, and I went to New York in 1950 and just did whatever I could. Mainly television. Some Broadway. A lot of dinner theater work, which is not a very satisfactory medium. — Don Ameche

Theater in New York is nearer to the street. In London, you have to go deep into the building, usually, to reach the place where theater happens. On Broadway, only the fire doors separate you from the sidewalk, and you're lucky if the sound of a police car doesn't rip the envelope twice a night. — Tom Stoppard

After that, I started going downtown and doing a lot of theater shows in Chicago. When you go downtown there, it's like you're in New York, it's like going to Broadway. — Kel Mitchell

In '75, the year both A Chorus Line and Chicago hit Broadway, my head spun around and I became the ultimate theater queen for life. — Michael Musto

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

I did always want to write. And then, when I left New York, where I was working very steadily in the theater - I had done three Broadway shows in a row and was a bit burnt out - I moved out to L.A. and I was not working very much. I came in cold and I'd work for a week, but then I'd have a month or two off. I thought, "I'm going to go crazy unless I actually do write." Like a lot of things in life, it was a situation that came about by circumstances. — Jim Piddock

I was at the Apollo Theater all the time, skipping school, and I worked in a barbershop. That's how I started with doo-wop. Now I've come full circle. I did all kinds of music. I used to work on Broadway and Tin Pan Alley. — George Clinton

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

As I've gotten older and I've watched people in productions, I go to the theater when I go back to London and see friends in Broadway, I think maybe there might come a time here to get back up there and prove oneself. It's just an itch; it's a nagging itch to go back there. — Pierce Brosnan

We didn't have a lot of live theater in Oklahoma. I didn't visit New York when I was growing up. I watched movie musicals, and I believed in an idealistic, idyllic version of Broadway. — Kelli O'Hara

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'm lucky to have worked in theater all over the world, but there's something magical about Broadway. The audiences are smart, they're educated. They go in ready and they're up for it, they're up for the party. It's a whole different atmosphere. — Hugh Jackman

I think I can work anywhere, but you don't get the same kind of inspiration everywhere. New York theater has become a big inspiration for me. I only started writing for the stage myself because I like to see the good, mostly off-Broadway plays in New York. — Daniel Kehlmann