When I was a teenager, I continued to visit imaginary places by spending all my free time at our local community theater. Whether I acted in a play or worked backstage, the world of Tennessee Williams or Shakespeare always seemed more real to me than the dreary life of high school.
Now, at this point, I can wrestle, I can go out there and cut an entertaining promo, I can also do the backstage stuff... and if you can contribute more to the show, you have more staying power.
When the show opens, fans can text to a number we flash up on the screen, and then we do a meet-and-greet with 60 to 80 people every night. It's something I love doing, and I would say that's probably more fans than most artists bring backstage after a show.
Every show is a mess at its first preview. No one's had enough time to rehearse in costumes, traffic patterns backstage haven't been worked out, machinery weighing thousands of pounds is being operated for the first time. And, also, it's the first time all the material you've written is before the public.
I was going out for absolutely everything that was in Backstage.
Yeah, I did some small parts in high school and the first year of college and then fairly soon thereafter I settled into the backstage scenery, and then at the University of Maryland I was doing posters for their productions.
My dad would take me downtown, and I'd stand backstage and watch him in the vaudeville pit band. I was 6 or 7. He was a musician, a band leader, a wonderful clarinetist and saxophone player.
I had a brief theater background and loved the backstage world there's more backstage work in television, so I saw a job advertised and applied, and got it. That was back in 1977, when getting jobs was easy.
Occasionally, when I run into a great bass backstage at a festival I'll play a few notes on the low E string, just to feel the instrument vibrate against my belly.
When I was a senior in high school, I worked at a theater where they hired New York actors. And they told me about 'Backstage,' and so I got my school in Pennsylvania to subscribe. And there was an audition for a tour of 'The Sound of Music,' and I got the job. Deferred my admission to college just to go on tour.
It's quite rare that you find models taken care of backstage.
I find out as much from the guy in backstage TV as I do from my C.F.O. Anybody can e-mail me. I do town halls with employees at least once every eight weeks. I'm out there, and it makes a huge difference.
I feel best in a ragged pair of red Honda Motorcycle pants. I have taken them to Machu Picchu, to the Knob Creek Machine Gun festival, and backstage to Cirque du Soleil - just the right touch to make you untouchable. No one quite dares to throw you out, because perhaps you are a world class motocross racer.
I love that moment just before the curtain goes up, whether I'm sitting in the audience or standing backstage. It's full of expectation. It's a thrill that's unequaled anywhere.
I always say the best applause you can get is when you walk from backstage up to your microphone at a concert. It's also nice to walk up to the mike at an awards show, and that applause is great, too, but the best is when your fans are cheering for you.
It is pandemonium backstage. I straighten ties, see if their shoes are laced - and I always have to remember to check their flies just before they walk out.
I met Elvis first in Las Vegas. I think I was appearing with Tom Jones and he came backstage to say hello to Tom or we went to his dressing room to say hello.
When you feel like you've had a good show, you go backstage and you talk to yourself about it, and if you have a bad show you talk to yourself about it.
All you could do was to see them. We were backstage when the Beatles were on and you could just about hear a noise. It was just literally screaming.
At Disneyland, you never go 'backstage' - even when you're in the bathroom.
I spent 25 years clearly understanding that I'm not gonna meet Bono or the Edge. But then it happened at the Grammys when we were all backstage and I just about fell out of my shoes.
All my ego wants is to be sitting by a lake in Italy. It doesn't want to be backstage, warming up.
My former bullies pay extra to come backstage and meet me after shows, and I pretend not to know them in front of their friends. It is the most divine pleasure to exact the revenge of the brutalized child that resides within.
I grew up backstage and on movie sets, and I thought they were the most magical places on Earth.
The backstage play, in which the private lives of theater people are put onstage for the world to see, is one of the diciest of dramatic genres.
I graduated from Brown in 2001, moved to New York, and spent a year and a half just looking up 'Backstage' magazine auditions and grinding.
Whether it's standing backstage with Jennifer Lopez in a dress that I know everyone will be talking about tomorrow... or being there when incredible news breaks, and instead where people sit in front of their TVs and look at it, I'm the person who goes there to bring you the story... It's amazing. It's unbelievable.
Theater was definitely part of my roots. My father would take me to plays, and then my mother was always on the lookout for other talent and taking me to see plays. I saw Frank Langella in 'Dracula'... Great, great performances. I was a theater rat, hanging out backstage.
I always say that I was dancing and acting in the belly. I feel like it's something I was born with and inspired by my family since I grew up backstage, watching them perform. I guess it was just a natural path for me.
I was backstage at the House of Blues in L.A where I was about to perform, and Stevie Wonder and Prince turned up at my dressing room together! Stevie started beat boxing and Prince started singing one of my songs, all of a sudden it was like I was in a cypher with these incredible artists.
Both of my parents are actors, so I grew up backstage with them. I would see some of their shows 30, 40, 50 times. I would have it all memorized. I loved it.
I've been known to throw watermelons, backstage, at people who are giving me news I don't want to hear. But I never aim for the head.
Sometimes I might be sleepy, and sometimes I've literally been sleeping backstage, woken up, gone straight on stage or gone crazy. It's not like I psyche myself; I don't do any of that.
I saw a lot of operas from backstage and watched a lot of rehearsals - my parents were singers.
On the PBS recording of 'The Light in the Piazza' backstage, you get to see me doing some sweet lunges down the hallway of the Vivian Beaumont.
The movie that really 'did it for me' was 'All About Eve.' The backstage feeling, the authenticity, the passion those people had for their lives in the theater. I must say, the movie 'All About Eve,' what a great movie! 'All About Eve' had a profound effect on my life.
