I was trained in the repertory theater. You would do Moliere one night and Sam Shepard the next.
I would absolutely recommend for actors to start in the theater because it establishes a foundation in your craft that you can build off of.
For me, I've always wanted to do theater, so I gravitate toward it.
It's like being a gym rat, but you're a theater rat, and then that becomes your fraternity house. That becomes your extended family.
I knew I wanted to be involved with theater or film in any way I could, either as a writer or director or actress.
The English playwrights of the '50s and '60s didn't really keep writing or getting produced, while the Irish did. There's encouragement for the younger ones also in the fact that Ireland is exceptional in its ability to make theater part of the national dialogue, and it reaches to all four corners of the country.
My limited theater experience was when I was a kid starting out: two or three plays. I was good in one and mediocre in the other. My problem is that I have other interests.
I did community theater in Georgia and called myself a ballet dancer.
'The Wire' was a combination of great TV and great theater.
I think one of the things that attracted me about theater and the stage was the ability to escape reality. And that is what I do in my work as a writer, but in a different way. And the freedom to put your own existence on ice and become another person.
I grew up doing theater and music, and in fact, I spent more time doing theater, and I'd do music when I could.
Even if it's a wonderful life, you wanna go somewhere and see the way other people reflect on the world and the lives that we're all living... I think regional theater is the life blood of our cultural lives.
Obviously I love working in film and television, but I started in theater and I'd love to be on Broadway.
I'm lucky enough to say my day job is acting. I cut my teeth as a theater actor and playwright in New York.
I first got into acting when I was 14, coming back from a junior high school basketball game. My mom picked me up and she had been mentioning, prior to that, this community production of 'Godspell', a couple towns over. I was reluctant, at first, and she bribed me with some great dinner that was in that town, neighboring the theater.
I started a theater company when I was 17.
I'll always be an actor first. I grew up doing musical theater, so music and acting, to me, have always gone hand in hand. I'm going to be an actor first because it's my career, but music will always be a part of me.
I started off at the Second City in Chicago... It's an improvisational theater that ostensibly does social and political satire, but when I was there, we generally didn't. We did character work, and we did just the silliest things we could think of. We weren't all that concerned with, you know, changing the world through mime.
My favorite audience is everybody. I worked in a drive-in theater from the time I was 8 years old until I went to college, and I'm accustomed to everybody can buy a ticket and everybody should be taken into account.
I wish it was possible to do the work and not have to talk about it, but it is traditional in the theater to go into the village square and bang the drum and say, 'Come see this show, come see this show.'
If you're a woman doing classic theater, the big roles are often destroyers. I've played Hedda Gabler, Lady Macbeth, some of the Chekhovian heroines, Electra, Phaedra - they're all powerful women, but they're forces of negativity.
There's a way in which 'The Illusion' is a play about the theater.
When I was younger, I always liked acting. You know, like, acting locally, or community theater at school. But it's not an especially insured career choice, so I was like, 'It's a hobby. Whatever.'
Obviously, doing TV and doing theater are completely different because they're two totally different mediums. On stage, you worry about your voice and how you move physically. On TV, something like an eye twitch is what they could be looking for from you because it's so contained.
The theater is so big and dark and private. Nobody knows that I am there. I am relaxed. I forget completely I am an actress. I laugh, I applaud, I cry.
The theater, for me, has always been a place where I'm free to be more creative, a place to sharpen my tools.
Movies, I don't really get the bad guys. In theater, I get more bad guys. Both audiences and directors are more willing... to allow people to stretch. In movies, you do one thing, and then that's their reference.
Well, I'm... first and foremost I'm a theater guy and everything that I know comes from the theater.
I teach musical theater three days a week at the school that my wife and I graduated from.
My dad is a big extrovert - he's a doctor - but he always loved Shakespeare, and he took us to tons of theater.
In a place like the Greek Theater in L.A., to try and create a close connection with the audience seems almost antithetical to the architecture of the building.
It's a tough transition really for theater actors to adjust to television or film, and all of these years later, I still have a tendency to play it too big.
Whenever I open a movie, I go secretly to the theater and stand in the back and enjoy the moment. I laugh when people laugh, and when people cry, I laugh.
I'm conflicted with theater in the city because you want to reach a diverse audience, and that audience doesn't typically go to the theater.
I love doing both theater and television.
The first movie I can remember seeing in the theater was 'Return of the Jedi.' I can remember seeing Darth Vader's helmet come off. The shock of that moment.
