Top 1200 Broadway Musical Quotes & Sayings - Page 3

My last show that I did on Broadway was - I hate to say this, but - 'Cats.' There you go. So I was doing 'Cats' on Broadway, and I injured my back. It was a really tough show.

Musical theater is an American genre. It started really, in America, as a combination of jazz and operetta; most of the great musical theater writers in the golden era are American. I think that to do a musical is a very American thing to me.

I'm the journeyman actor that you saw in one scene here, two scenes there. I've been eking out a living doing theater - Broadway, Off Broadway - film supporting roles, that I'm just excited to be a part of the conversation.

I had been coming to New York, pretty much once a month, to dance on Broadway. I was offered a huge Broadway show but couldn't do it because my brother was having his huge Bar Mitzvah.

There is definitely that thing here a little where people are like 'Oh that Broadway girl has come to Nashville' and I'm like 'Listen you guys, I was singing country before I even got a Broadway show. And I'm from Kentucky.'

I think 'Hand to God' is going to change the landscape of Broadway. I think Broadway, truthfully, will never be the same.

Especially on Broadway, composers and lyricists fretted over their creations, obsessed over every rhyme, every critical chord or interval. The stakes were so high. On Broadway, people were watching and judging, especially newspaper critics who knew a thousand ways to slice and dice a songwriter for the entertainment of hundreds of thousands of faithful readers. There was no anonymity for the Broadway songwriter. Even the best could find themselves stripped naked the morning after by the tastemakers and their readers.

I can't tell you the thrill and joy of when I was cast in my first Broadway show. Granted, it was 'Starlight Express' and it was exhausting, but it was my first time on Broadway, and there was nothing like it.

It's glamorous when a movie is released, but then you feel disconnected from it. Someone asked if it wouldn't be more glamorous for me being on Broadway rather than Off Broadway, but I thought, 'What's the difference?' The Orpheum is a smaller house, that's all. And there are no mikes, so you just talk louder.

No, I've never moved on with a play. I did the original 'Closer' in London but didn't transfer to the West End or Broadway with it. The same is true of 'Iceman': I didn't go to the Old Vic or Broadway with that. I don't know; I feel an allegiance often to the play where you do it first, in the theatre that it's in; you do it for that space.

Broadway was very vital back in the '20s. There were probably close to hundreds of productions that opened up through the course of the year and through the course of a Broadway season.

I've been in this business 25 years. I've been eking out a living doing Broadway, off-Broadway... I've seen the unemployment line a lot.

I'll tell you what I think in general about people who want to make their Broadway debut that are not trained stage actors. Don't they know, Broadway ain't for sissies? It is a tough gig. You are responsible, physically, mentally, emotionally, for eight shows a week, at the top of your game. It's not easy.

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.

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.

The Broadway community is unlike any community in show business and it is unlike any community in the world. When you come into the Broadway community they open the door and they say "welcome". Not only do they do that, but when times are really tough and horrendous things have happened and really tragic things - the Broadway community shows up! And they say "how can we help?".

I would love to do stuff on camera. That's what I want to do. It took me a really long time to feel confident as an actor. I think, also, because there's a weird stigma about musical theater where we treat the men who do musical theater differently than we treat the women in musical theater.

I have mixed feelings about 'Car 54, Where Are You?' Because we shot it as a musical and whoever the studio head was at Orion, or whoever the powers that be were, cut all but, like, two musical numbers out of it. That is the same as cutting the musical numbers out of 'The Wizard Of Oz'; it wouldn't be that interesting.

When I'm writing instrumental music, I try to find musical and non-musical inspirations.

I do not like the Broadway theatre because it does not know how to say hello. The tone of voice is false, the mannerisms are false, the sex is false, ideal, the Hollywood world of perfection, the clean image, the well pressed clothes, the well scrubbed anus, odorless, inhuman, of the Hollywood actor, the Broadway star. And the terrible false dirt of Broadway, the lower depths in which the dirt is imitated, inaccurate.

The financial side of Broadway is the easy part. Plenty of people want to put money in a Broadway show. The challenging part is finding the material that excites me enough to spend a couple of years of my life devoted to it.

'Supafunkrock' is a musical gumbo. We throw all those musical influences into the pot and put it out there.

The only thing I have never done is a Broadway play. I'm not sure I have the discipline necessary to do a Broadway play. I know it holds a fascination for certain actors.

I'd love to do Broadway. It's funny. I love it, but I've never actually seen an actual Broadway show, not even 'Hairspray.'

That's always - that's been another dream of mine, to do a Broadway play. An award winning Broadway play.

I've been asked a lot why didn't 'Ruined' go to Broadway. It was the most successful play that Manhattan Theatre Club has ever had in that particular space, and yet we couldn't find a home on Broadway.

In '92, I got my first Broadway show as a performer - 'Crazy for You.' I was in the ensemble. In fact, I was in eight Broadway shows as a dancer. Seven of them were original shows. That's how I learned to create something from the ground up.

If I thought about it before I went on, I would have never went on. So, therefore, you don't think about it; you have to talk yourself then into, 'Listen, this is it. This is the gig. Broadway or no Broadway, you've got to do your job.'

To be totally honest, I thought I would have a Broadway debut in the distant, distant future, maybe in my 60s or 70s when somebody revived one of my off-Broadway plays with a star.

If I were to do a musical, I think I would rather make a film musical.

I love plays that have musical moments. I'm not a big fan of musicals per se, but I love straight plays that have musical edges to them. I don't know if I will ever be able to structure a musical, but 'Finer Noble Gases' is as close as I've gotten.

I'm always going back to New York for Broadway workshops or reading. So I always keep my foot in the door: I'm always on the lookout for the next Broadway show.

I'm definitely nervous and excited. I feel like I've been playing off-Broadway, not to say that Boston doesn't have a great theatre district or great theatre, but it's not going to Broadway; it's just a different city.

My grandmother took me to a lot of theater. I was exposed to performance quite a bit - everything from Broadway to off-Broadway and dance and music as well. I was very lucky that way. It was a very rich childhood.

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.

The Midwest is a musical melting pot and the source and birthplace of several musical genres.

I've been in leadership roles on Broadway, and it's one thing to lead a Broadway company - you're with those people for a year straight, and you're doing that same show, eight shows a week. It's quite another when you carry on the story... You go beyond that, and you ride the wave of a character.

I've always loved musical theatre. I've always been a big kind of closeted musical theatre nerd. I really have always dreamed about being able to do musical theatre.

'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.

I would love to do Broadway. I dont think theres anything more amazing than theater. OK, Supergirl is number one. Maybe I could be Supergirl on Broadway That would be perfect.

Improvising musicians are musical travelers, voyagers. There is a freedom to wander the musical landscape.

I used to watch a lot of musicals as a kid. Musical movies, not so much musical theater.

Opera is a musical scenery, a musical atmosphere in which the characters move and talk.

I've always loved Broadway, but I never thought I'd actually do it because I was never a full Broadway dancer. And I don't have a big, booming voice.

The chance to work on Broadway choreography as opposed to having to deliver Broadway choreography can be two distinct things.

Whatever is original in my writing comes from my musical apprenticeship. I look for rhythm in words. I imagine words as if they were musical chords. Often I'll write something, read it, and find it musically unsatisfactory. There is a musical imperative in my choice of words.

Broadway has a lot more razzle-dazzle than the West End. In terms of the everyday work routine, it's not different, but there's a cachet about Broadway that lends itself to more anticipation among audiences.

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.

I suppose a certain degree of adulthood has entered my life. Aiming for Broadway, I can't think that way any more. Of course, Broadway will always be important. But it's not the focus of everything that you do. You know, I'm very happy I was born when I was, so I got there in time. When it was time to get there.

I remember telling the agent, 'I don't want to do anything but Broadway.' She was like, 'That's not really possible because there is not that much Broadway. So I'll send you out on TV and stuff like that.'

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.

Yeah, I feel sort of unfinished in New York, even though I spent so many years there. I think it's because I never got a chance to do any Broadway, or even off-Broadway. I would love to do that and I haven't given up on that.

After I graduated, I tried Broadway, which was difficult for me. It was tough to get a part on Broadway, so I just started talking to audiences at different social gatherings, and little by little I became Don Rickles - whatever that is.

I always wanted to be a Broadway star. That's actually what I wanted to be when I was a kid. I wanted to be the 19-year-old sensation on Broadway. It took a little bit longer than that.

I've been really fortunate to do several shows on Broadway; the longest run I've done is nine months, and that was 'Porgy and Bess.' The shortest run I've done was about a month and a half: my first Broadway lead in 'The Scottsboro Boys.'

Louie Bellson represents the epitome of musical talent. His ability to cover the whole musical spectrum from an elite percussionist to a very gifted composer and arranger never ceases to amaze me. I consider him one of the musical giants of our age.

I would love a career on Broadway. It's always been my dream ever since I was a little girl and some of my biggest idols are on Broadway right now, like Melanie Moore and Ricky Ubeda.

There is perhaps nothing that is not musical. Perhaps there's no moment in life that's not musical... All instruments, musical or not, become instruments.

When I'm writing Broadway, it's for a character, a man, a woman, an old guy, a kid. In the band, you're talking in your own voice in the lyrics, saying what you think or feel. On Broadway, you're expressing that through a character.

I did a couple of little Off-Broadway things, but my first Broadway show was A History Of The American Film, written by Chris Durang. Swoosie Kurtz was one of the stars. It was a wonderful show. It closed in 40 performances. I think it was kind of ahead of its time.