I moved to LA and decided to do films and television, mainly because the theater in New York is totally dead.
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.
Variety is very, very good. Going from medium to medium, if you get the chance to do it, from theater to television to film, which are all distinctly different, keeps me sharp.
I always wanted to be an actor. It sort of prevented that whole - I never had any of that kind of angsty period old and doing musicals at camp and community theater and plays at school; it was just always what I most enjoyed and always what I intended to pursue.
When you end a successful sitcom, the most sensible thing to do is go back to the theater.
Politics with me isn't theater. It's performance art. Sometimes, for its own sake.
Moving out to L.A. for me was a leap of faith. I was very secure in my dinner theater world; I loved it, and I was just like, 'I think there's something else out there for me and I just have to go for it.'
Miramax can buy a small independent movie that isn't very good, but because it has great relationships with different theaters, it can get into a big theater.
I used to buy into a former Supreme Court justice's argument that you can't scream fire in a crowded theater. Well, I think you can.
Getting work in theater has always been sort of cyclical.
Theater to me is acting but it's more real on film.
Work in the theater sharpened my verse and my cinema.
I had no training in the theater. I did not study it but just did it.
I imagine I was supposed to become a lawyer or something. But this was the Depression; the lawyers I saw were all driving cabs. So I thought, 'Well, if I'm going to be badly off anyway, I might as well be badly off in the theater, where you get used to it.'
I've been doing theater for a long time, so that's something I understand. I'm such a babe in the woods when it comes to TV and film. I'm still learning. It's exciting.
Encouragement from my high school teacher Patty Hart said 'you need to focus and theater might be your route out of here.' I created the program, went to college and graduate school and now here I am.
I was a theater geek, and I was a surly cheerleader, and that's really kind of a contradiction.
Combining music, theater and comedy is a new and broader form of expression. In certain combinations you can make people laugh one moment, cry the next, and then be astounded by the beauty of the music.
I taught a class about the Tony Awards at a summer theater camp the year after I graduated from high school. So, the first time I was nominated for 'Spring Awakening,' it felt like a surreal dream: it was every childhood dream I had come true. It felt like a fairy tale.
There are so many people that say they are actors and they don't spend for 5 minutes a day working on their craft. You need to train and need to take classes to keep your tools sharp. I'm always in class, whether it's theater or drama workshops.
When I lived in Chicago, it often felt like the same people who were going to all the little theater companies were the people who were working in them.
My first love was singing. It was the first thing that really felt like it was a part of me. It's just in my blood. And acting came sort of out of singing because I did a lot of musical theater.
When I worked in theater, I was always writing things on Post-it Notes and sticking them on screens or desks. Twitter has given me a way of continuing to post those notes, only a lot of other people see them, too.
I had a hard-scrabble childhood with my parents. I have a lot of baggage. To come down to the footlights and accept the audience's affection inside a Broadway theater - that didn't come easily to me.
I've always done theater. I've never thought of myself as a comedic actress in any way. 'Anchorman' kind of cracked that open. When I got a small part in 'Anchorman,' I didn't know it was possible on camera to improvise. So I was like, 'What's happening?'
I came to America to become an architect. And somewhere along the line while I was still in school, I was lured into theater, and that's how I became interested in theater. My first play was something called 'A Banquet for the Moon.' It was a weird play.
'The Master,' it was really important to me to go see that in the theater, but that's a very rare occurrence for me. I typically enjoy things on my laptop. I'm in bed; I can be able to pause them.
This is my theater. This is where I can sing and act out a play and do sit-ups at the same time.
I grew up in Queens and New Jersey. I started doing children's theater when I was seven to get out of school because I didn't fit in.
We used to play in a theater club in London called The King's Head. When the theater let nut, around 10:00 P.M., we'd be ready to go and really get it on for about an hour or so.
But theater, because of its nature, both text, images, multimedia effects, has a wider base of communication with an audience. That's why I call it the most social of the various art forms.
I did a lot of theater, so especially as an on-camera camera actor, there are so many things that aren't in your toolbox. They're somebody else's job. You think about editors and rhythm. Volume isn't even in your control.
In my sort of young, idealistic mind, I was just like, 'Well, it's either theater or film for me, and that will be that!'
The heart of the theater is the play itself, how it dramatizes life to make it meaningful entertainment. To achieve depth and universality, the playwright must subject himself to intense critique, to know human character and behavior, and finally to construct art from the most mundane of human experience.
You have to take away some of tax breaks for the wealthy, and you have to cut back on some entitlements. Because, unless we do all of these things, it just doesn't work. And what's good theater and what's good politics isn't necessarily good economic policy.
I love TV now, and 'Modern Family,' but what draws me back to theater is that initial instinct of wanting to be a theater actor. I love the challenge of starting a play and not stopping until you finish. I love the immediacy of trusting your instincts.
