Quotes & Sayings About Broadway

Christopher Walken was probably the most experienced dancing partner I've had in movies, because he has the same background as I do. He's from theatre, Broadway and off-Broadway, and we both shared that. — John Travolta

Broadway has been very good to me. But then, I've been very good to broadway. — Ethel Merman

Oh, I am such a nerd when it comes to music - I only listen to Broadway! — Laura Osnes

It's a good thing we don't know when we start out that when we arrive we haven't gone anyplace."
"What's wrong with success?" Kelly asked, exasperated. "You just walked out on the biggest hit show on Broadway, something you'd always wanted. Why did you leave?"
"Because, Kelly," I said slowly, "nothing, but nothing is half as good as you expect it to be. — Dean Jones

I found an agent midway through my year-long run at 'Grease' and just started to audition. I fortunately booked 'South Pacific' six months after 'Grease' was over, and I feel like that was a huge turning point in legitimizing myself in the Broadway community, and getting to do that was absolutely amazing. — Laura Osnes

The Beatles first appeared on our show on February 9, 1964, and I have never seen any scenes to compare with the bedlam that was occasioned by their debut. Broadway was jammed with people for almost eight blocks. They screamed, yelled, and stopped traffic. It was indescribable ... There has never been anything like it in show business, and the New York City police were very happy it didn't - and wouldn't - happen again. — Ed Sullivan

Broadway is amazing because you're performing for such an intimate group of people. You're living in the moment and whatever happens happens, and you go on. You can't say cut and redo it, you have to be on the whole time. — Ariana Grande

I would not like to live in the past because you don't get anesthetic when you go to the dentist. You don't get antibiotics. You don't get the things that you are used to now, cell phones and televisions and things that are very convenient. You don't want that. But, it would be fun if you could, every now and then, just meet a friend for lunch at Maxim's in Paris in 1900, or go back to 1870 just for a couple of hours, take a walk in the park, and then come right back to Broadway. — Woody Allen

Broadway! Broad-way! I don't aspire to the middle. I aspire to the tip-tip-top of it all. — Billy Porter

Shakespeare is God, of course. I have studied his plays for the vast majority of my sentient life. When I was a kid, my parents found an old copy of the LP recording of Richard Burton in John Gielgud's Broadway production of Hamlet and they gave it to me for my birthday. I listened to it till the grooves wore thin and I was off and running. — Ken Ludwig

I've heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led to those who help us most to grow
If we let them and we help them in return. — Stephen Schwartz

He's in his circle, and I'm in mine, and we just go around and around. — Jen Calonita

If Broadway shows charge preview prices while the cast is in dress rehearsal, why should restaurants charge full price when their dining room and kitchen staffs are still practicing? — Marian Burros

What to one person is common courtesy is to another tender words of life - and by the same token, what one person intends to show as great affection may be to his beloved an irrelevant show of frivolousness compared to the kindness of simply doing the laundry sometimes. — Anna Broadway

Some three or four years before this Dr. Sloper had moved his household gods up town, as they say in New York. He had been living ever since his marriage in an edifice of red brick, with granite copings and an enormous fanlight over the door, standing in a street within five minutes' walk of the City Hall, which saw its best days (from the social point of view) about 1820. After this, the tide of fashion began to set steadily northward, as, indeed, in New York, thanks to the narrow channel in which it flows, it is obliged to do, and the great hum of traffic rolled farther to the right and left of Broadway. — Henry James

You know, they wanted to do a Broadway album and every show was kind of a bomb. There was no music at all. — Les Baxter

'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 have loved 'Les Miz' for so long. It was the first Broadway show I'd ever done. — Lea Michele

The magic of landing my first role on Broadway went 'poof' in a matter of a few weeks. — Uzo Aduba

I think Broadway is good for sharpening your skills. It's the best for really reaching the zenith of your talent. You go so far and reach the peak of it and you say, "Maybe this is the best performance I can do." — Michael Jackson

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

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

Broadway is the actor's Mt. Everest - but with more flattering frocks. — Lydia Leonard

Michael has never cried during a Broadway show. Except in that scene where Tarzan's ape father is brutally murdered.
And that was only because he was laughing so hard. — Meg Cabot

They say for every light on Broadway there is a broken heart, an unrealized dream. And that's the same in any profession. So you have to want it more than anyone else, and you have to be your own champion, be your own superstar, blaze your own path, say yes to opportunity, follow your instincts, be eager, and passionate, keep learning, nurture your real, lasting relationships, don't be a jerk, and free your imagination so you can become all that you want to be. — Sutton Foster

I know, for me, you know, my generation - I never would have known anything about Robert Preston's performance in 'The Music Man' if there hadn't been a film where he played the part. I just heard how great he was on Broadway way before my time. — John Lloyd Young

Any chance I had to get in front of people - amateur talent contests at movie houses like the Broadway, the president - I took. — Frankie Avalon

I did The Seagull, the Chekhov play, on Broadway, a couple of years ago, and I had done it in London, and I became completely obsessed with the character, Nina, that I played in that. She's an actress. I couldn't find a play after that, that I wanted to do, because I couldn't think of doing anything else. Every part is a disappointment, once you've done that part. — Carey Mulligan

When I made my Broadway debut, I was still cleaning houses, something I'd done since I went out on my own at 15. — Aida Turturro

I was pretty new to the Broadway world once I began working in it. I hadn't really grown up being too aware of that many shows or that many actors in shows. I was always obsessed with Judy Garland, though. — Jennifer Damiano

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. — Bryan Batt

Duke Ellington's career traces the entire history of jazz. The repertoire associated with him contains the most important elements in the music and provides concrete examples of some of the best ways to present the music in the widest variety of settings-radio, TV, recordings, movies, concert halls, festivals, solo, small ensemble, big band, symphony orchestra, opera, Broadway shows ... You name it, he did it! — Billy Taylor

I knew when I was a kid that I had a Broadway voice. I wanted to be a rocker, because I grew up in that era of transistor radios at the beach. — Patti LuPone

The strange thing about adulthood, when you're single, is that it's possible to go for fairly extended periods without facing blatant sin against. Sure there was plenty of sin against God but with such infrequent consequence - it was easy to self-congratulate on how much our relationship owed to my 'righteousness,' generosity, and enlightened theological views. Though for the past twenty months or so I'd been hearing a pastor who's constant theme was grace, it didn't hit home until I faced this proof of what the Bible says God considers depravity. — Anna Broadway

I've just been more interested in doing film right now and I don't want to go away from my family for six months, which was what I would have had to have done if I did the play on Broadway. — Mark Ruffalo

But it is rather derogatory that your dwelling-place should be only a neighborhood to a great city,
to live on an inclined plane.I do not like their cities and forts, with their morning and evening guns, and sails flapping in one's eye. I want a whole continent to breathe in, and a good deal of solitude and silence, such as all Wall Street cannot buy,
nor Broadway with its wooden pavement. I must live along the beach, on the southern shore, which looks directly out to sea,
and see what that great parade of water means, that dashes and roars, and has not yet wet me, as long as I have lived. — Henry David Thoreau

Give my regards to Broadway,
Remember me to Herald Square,
Tell all the gang at 42nd Street,
That I will soon be there;
Whisper of how I'm yearning
To mingle with the old time throng,
Give my regards to old Broadway,
And say that I'll be there e'er long. — George M. Cohan

I think the thing's that perhaps sad really is that younger people haven't come in and I think it must have been absolutely fantastic to have worked in the 50's when you had all of the great Broadway composers and when West Side Story didn't win the Tony Award. — Andrew Lloyd Webber

Broadway has been my dream since I was 5 years old. — Laura Osnes

When I was on Broadway, my most recent Broadway show was 'Spring Awakening,' and every night I did a topless scene. — Lea Michele

Producers on Broadway approached us with an original script after relaunching ourselves as 'A Great Big World,' and wanted us to write the music. They asked us to make the music we would sing if we could, and so we can go a little crazier. We refer to it as 'our music on steroids.' — Ian Axel

I did a thing called 24 Hour Plays, a thing they do every year on Broadway. A bunch of playwrights and actors get together, you write a play and you act it out in 24 hours, literally. People pay and the money goes to charity. So I did one - I was horrible. I was bad. I was terrified. And I was like, "Oh, I gotta do this again." Because I know I can do it. — Scott Raab

When you're starting out as an actor, you keep raising the stakes. First, you just want to be a character who comes on stage and gets a laugh or two and exits. Just five minutes on a stage, not even Broadway. But every time you say your little prayer at night, you place more demands. — Charles Kimbrough

My studio was on 9th Street between University and Broadway. — Lee Krasner

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

I am who I am and that's it! — Jen Calonita

When I had a look at the lights of Broadway by night, I said to my American friends : What a glorious garden of wonders this would be, to any who was lucky enough to be unable to read — G.K. Chesterton

Very well, Broadway, you may whip some, but not me. I'm going to force you to give up. — Napoleon Hill

The secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting. For some, it's a Broadway spotlight; for others, a lamplit desk. Use your natural powers
of persistence, concentration, and insight
to do work you love and work that matters. Solve problems. make art, think deeply. — Susan Cain

The most wonderful street in the universe is Broadway. It is a world within itself. High and low, rich and poor, pass along at a rate peculiar to New York, and positively bewildering to a stranger. — Frank Rich

It might be odd for people to hear this, but honestly, you know, when you're on stage, I don't think people realize how grueling eight shows a week is. And as far as jobs go, being a Broadway actor, it's hard. It's fun, but it's hard. — Will Chase

All those days of waiting on tables until I could get a role on Broadway, all that time going to school taking lessons, and all those years of being a nobody following a dream-and now here it is. — Marcia Gay Harden

I represent where them killers at 145th and Broadway you get your head cracked — Cam'ron

When I saw 'Legally Blonde' on Broadway, I rang my agent and said 'I want to be seen for this,' but the rest weren't big choices, really. 'Hedda Gabler' was a phone call offering it to me, and as I've said before quite embarrassingly, I didn't know the play, so I didn't sit there thinking 'I would now like to tackle Ibsen.' — Sheridan Smith

And what would be great numbers in a Broadway show are now on stage of the New York City Ballet. — John Guare

I love Jane [Krakowski]. Jane's been a dear friend for maybe a dozen years. We've worked together on many shows and concerts and readings. We did Damn Yankees together and then we did Xanadu. Jane did all the workshops of Xanadu before it moved to Broadway. She's hysterical and our voices blended. We had a similar sensibility. — Cheyenne Jackson

I get psyched about coming onto a Broadway stage every night. it's very exciting. You develop a kind of gratefulness for it when you spend months trying to get a job. — Sebastian Stan

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

My favorite Broadway show day-to-day, just for the experience, was 'The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.' The people were so much fun. It was a great show. — Barrett Foa

It's nowhere near as intense as what I imagine an actor experiences backstage, but I feel a fluttering nervousness before a curtain goes up on a play. I mean, any play, anywhere - on Broadway or the Bowery or in a church basement. — Ben Brantley

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

I've always felt embraced by the Broadway community even before I felt like I earned it. — Hugh Jackman

I made my drama teacher cry. I only took drama to get out of writing papers in English and the teacher was this thespian Broadway geek and here I was this Italian guy from Staten Island and I would put her in tears. — Vinny Guadagnino

I would like to play Broadway! — Elena Roger

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

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. — Gregory Harrison

There's no better feeling than being on a Broadway stage for me. — Jennifer Damiano

I was in 'Jacques Brel' Off-Broadway for many years, so I've always been a singing actress, but the songwriting was a complete surprise. I had never written a song in my life. We were on the road with 'Jacques Brel' doing the national tour, and I picked up a guitar one day and I wrote a song. — Amanda McBroom

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

I definitely want my career to continue to branch out. I've had the pleasure of working in different areas of entertainment, from being in the music business as a teenager in a girl group to doing Broadway. — Naturi Naughton

New York was the glamorous town that you only see now in old movies and on Broadway stages. The sky was lit up with dancing neon signs. It was safe to walk out in the streets. — Art Buchwald

Baldwin told the story again and again of standing on Broadway and being told by Delaney to look down. Delaney asked him what he saw, and Baldwin said a puddle. Delaney said, 'Look again,' and then Baldwin saw the reflections of the buildings, distorted and radiant in the oil on the puddle. He taught me to see, Baldwin said, and that 'what one cannot or will not see, says something about you. — Rachel Cohen

Even if you're lucky to have a play on Broadway like 'Chinglish,' you don't necessarily earn enough off it to support the years it takes to get there. — David Henry Hwang

In Glendale, where I live, there's a street called Broadway. The bottoms of the light posts have swastikas on them. — Daron Malakian

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

Broadway has some very tight expectations as to what a show is. — Twyla Tharp

My plays aren't stylistically the same. Just being an African-American woman playwright on Broadway is experimental. — Suzan-Lori Parks

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

I'm inordinately proud of Smash, on so many levels. The complexity of producing that show, every week, is just incredible. As a television producer and as a Broadway producer, which I once was, I am in awe of what we can do on that show, every week. — Robert Greenblatt

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

Burlesque thrived during the Great Depression, and by extension, so, too, did Gypsy [Rose Lee]. Men could no longer afford to pay $5.50 to see a show on Broadway, but they could scrape together $1.00 for a matinee at a burlesque house. — Karen Abbott

I really hope for more Broadway. I didn't think I was going to love it this much. I would love to stay here. — Drew Seeley

I grew up with 'Cinderella.' So that was my go-to Disney film, definitely. It was princess-related, and coming from a smaller area in Illinois and wanting to do something greater than myself in Broadway, that was a film that I could really relate to. — Jodi Benson

The store experience must become a performance, with the energy and precision of a Broadway play. — Richard Hayne

My daughter just graduated college and she's a dance major. She's done a couple of dance videos already and won Miss Massachusetts a couple of weeks ago. She's going out for Miss United States the second week of July, out in Las Vegas. She will probably wind up going to New York and trying the Broadway thing. — Doug Flutie

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

I have to say, speaking from experience, just because an actor starts out in a role in the workshop, they won't necessarily play it when it goes to Broadway. — Megan Hilty

Every night, half an hour before curtain up, the bells of St. Malachy's, the Actors' Chapel on New York's 49th Street, peal the tune of 'There's No Business Like Show Business.' If you walk the streets of the theatre district before a show and see the vast, enthusiastic lines it sounds like a calling: there is certainly no place like Broadway. — Dan Stevens

I want to get the point across that you may not have money to give to a charity, whether that is Ronald McDonald House or Broadway Cares or DIFFA, but you can help RAISE money or give your time and talents. — Douglas Wilson

When I still lived in Manhattan, people-watching was my hobby, and I spent many Sunday afternoons eating up the scene from a window seat at a Starbucks on Broadway. — Susan Orlean

I don't want to start the rest of my life having regrets. — Jen Calonita

I don't think that everything on Broadway relates to us, and I think that's why we as black people don't always go to Broadway shows, but shows like 'What's on the Hearts of Men' has a lot of issues that can relate to black families, and that's why I enjoy it. — Stephanie Mills

'Broadway Bound' is near and dear to my heart, as it was one of my happiest times on Broadway. — Jason Alexander

I'm kind of happy to know there may be some kid or teenager now who might never have had the chance to see my Broadway performance, but gets a taste for what it might have been like now, because they can see Clint Eastwood's film. — John Lloyd Young

Broadway musicals, where you sing the whole time, I really don't like; I like alternating dialogue and music. — Pedro Almodovar

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

And you find some way to survive
And you find out you don't have to be happy at all..
To be happy you're alive. — Brian Yorkey

I am almost famous in China, because I have that Broadway cachet. — David Henry Hwang

'Hairspray' was my first Broadway show. In the meantime, after the show was over, I would go down and do gigs at these clubs that I wasn't even old enough to get into. That continued on, and I think what ended up happening was that I just got these incredible opportunities on Broadway. — Laura Bell Bundy

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! — Zoe McLellan