My family aren't performers. They're just normal people. They don't understand this entertainment world. They just think it's mental. They have no idea what I'm doing in America.
Sometimes, there's a preconceived notion of how a scene or how a work should be delivered. And I see young performers sometimes try and deliver that, and it's not really true to their voice or who they are.
One of our books has been made into a musical, 'The Great American Mousical,' which I directed at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut. And another, 'Simeon's Gift,' has been adapted for a symphony orchestra and five performers. I'm also a very proud member of the board of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
We shouldn't feel restricted by our sexuality, and our sexuality doesn't have to be a cultural choice. That's an amazing variety of music within those five main performers.
I'm one of those performers who has done just about everything except juggle, and I'm working on that.
I still insist that American performers are the best performers in the world.
Honestly, I just love great performers and people who love what they do.
That is the godawful thing about television today. Performers don't have any place to hit and miss. You're either in or you're out; you don't have a chance to become good at your craft. If you make three pictures in a row and they don't go over, you're out of the business.
Jodi Melnick is hotly self-absorbed. Her onstage musicians are much too loud, and like so many narcissistic performers, she goes on much too long: She's interested in herself; why wouldn't we be?
Nowadays, performers worry too much about how they look. They're not concerned about what they're really saying to their audience.
There's a great deal of disturbance in this country and how black feel about what happened in Katrina, and, you know, many of the comics, many of performers are in Las Vegas and New Orleans trying to raise money for what happened there.
Performers like Tommy Cooper, who are always getting things wrong, are much more endearing than comedians who are sassy and smart.
We have all, at one time or another, been performers, and many of us still are - politicians, playboys, cardinals and kings.
I got to sit down with people who I admired, and have conversations with some of the greatest thinkers and artists and performers. It's a huge privilege for me to be a journalist.
I have been trying to find out exactly when listeners and performers decided that applause between movements would not be allowed, but nobody seems to have been willing to admit that they were the culprit.
All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theatre live. That's why it persists.
Teachers are performers, just like I am.
All of them - my father, mother, step-mother, and grandmother - were all wonderful actors and performers and they are an inspiration to me, both in their craft and in their humanity.
There are performers who have built their whole career doing magic on TV and can't really perform live at all - don't really have jobs and skills.
The scene we shot with Charlie Rose was actually the last piece that was ever shot for 'Breaking Bad.' My daughter and I flew to New York; we got to shoot in the 'Charlie Rose' studio. Adam Godley and Jessica Hecht are such expert performers that we were able to get it very beautifully and very quickly.
As performers grow older, I reckon there are two ways they can go. They can either be up there, playing more deeply from their guts than ever, or they can be phoning it in so crassly that it leaves a lump in your throat as you leave the venue at the end of the show.
Originally a record producer more or less hired a bunch of professionals to participate in a recording session, the performers and the technicians, and a music director was put in charge. That directly related to a film producer's job.
A lot of performers don't want to leave the circuit, the European opera house circuit, partly because most singers don't sing many concerts, or at least not while they are in their prime.
I've always loved acting, even from when I was a child. But when I got on stage, I realised I couldn't act my way out of a paper bag. I was wild and full of unharnessed energy, but I was around all these seasoned performers like Rita Cullis. It was as if they were all in slow motion.
It takes stamina to get up like an athlete every single night, seven to eight performances a week, 20 weeks in a row. And there are many young performers who only learn their craft in the two minute bits it takes to film a scene. You never learn the arc of storytelling, the arc of a character that way.
The audience plays a huge part in how a piece will actually form. They really allow the performers to walk a tightrope in a way that never seems to happen in the privacy of your own four walls. I'm listening to the audience, and they're listening to me.
You have to remember we're just performers, that we seldom have any kind of grasp on real life.
Radio continues to be the very best advertising music performers have. No one who ever grabbed a Grammy got there without radio.
I was always obsessed with other performers doing their thing, and Britney 'Live in Las Vegas' from 2001 is my absolute favorite tour DVD of all time.
When I went on to write my next book, Working With Emotional Intelligence, I wanted to make a business case that the best performers were those people strong in these skills.
I'm honored to be in a position to have young girls or performers look up to me.
Music is at once the product of feeling and knowledge, for it requires from its disciples, composers and performers alike, not only talent and enthusiasm, but also that knowledge and perception which are the result of protracted study and reflection.
I was very young at the time, and I mainly appreciated their vocal qualities, even though I was already living as they did - as black performers in a white world.
I feel that the work that I have done in the comedy arena, is priceless in terms of what I learned, timing, everything that these incredibly talented performers were generous enough in teaching me.
Actors and magicians are both performers, and they represent things that are not necessarily who they are.
Whitney Houston and Ella Fitzgerald are my musical mothers. I learned everything I know about true R&B, pop and jazz singing from these stunning performers and unparalleled musicians.