When I first moved to New York, all I did was musical theater. That's what I studied at Carnegie Mellon University.
I started doing repertory theatre in upstate New York when I was 15, went back when I was 16, and by that time decided that I really wanted to study drama seriously and go to an acting conservatory called Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
I went to college in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon University... studied acting there. Then I went to New York for about five years. I moved out here about 10 years ago.
My father went to college for drama in Pittsburgh, and so did my mother, and then my mother was a steadily working New York theater actress. They kind of quit when I was born. They did that for, like, 10 years before they had kids and then I was born and they were not into that lifestyle for kids.
My return to the theater in New York was so specific. I didn't want it to be about leveraging my exposure or my fame, so the first show I did in New York was an ensemble piece at an Off-Broadway theater, and I wanted to make sure that it was just about the play and about the experience.
I started working in New York City as an actor and did many plays. I did regional theater, smaller theaters, children's theater.
Carnegie was a life-long dream because I was a born New Yorker. I was born in upstate New York, and we've played Radio City, and we've played The Beacon, but Carnegie was this mystical place, you know?
I did children's theater when I was younger, and then when I was about 14 I started doing theater in New York City.
I've always wanted to do theater in Chicago. Chicago is a big theater town-and, in some ways, I think this city is savvier and smarter than New York. Sometimes, I think it's a little too chic to go to theater in New York these days.
I think this kind of bohemianism doesn't really exist in the New York city anymore - the bohemianism that I was trying to record in Carnegie Hall that completely defined our culture. The people who lived and worked in Carnegie Hall studios, they defined our culture in music, dance, theater, fashion, illustration. It wasn't so much nostalgic as a celebration of that and an acknowledgment of that and saying that it's really important. And it's actually something that is a loss for the city, I think.
When I was younger, growing up in Pittsburgh, they had a 'Golden Gloves' program through the Boys and Girls Club. In Pittsburgh, New York, Philly, Washington, those areas, I would go and spar at competitions.
I went to New York out of college, and in my day, we were told that was the way you became a good actor. You don't go to Hollywood, you go straight to New York and work in the theater. So that's what most of the people I knew did.
Pittsburgh was even more vital, more creative, more hungry for culture than New York. Pittsburgh was the birthplace of my writing.
One thing I really want to do is - I spent ten years in New York doing theater before I moved to L.A. to do TV and film. I'd really like to go to back New York and do some theater.
It seems always to have been difficult to have been a New York Philharmonic conductor because of the nature of New York. We are in direct competition with the great orchestras in the world who come to play in our hall or in Carnegie, and we are constantly compared. I think that 's a good thing.
In terms of theater, there's not a more supportive theater community than in New York. It's really kind of a real thrill to go there. I mean, don't forget, I'm a boy from the suburbs of Sydney, so getting to New York is a huge, huge thrill.