Musical Theater Quotes

I grew up listening to a lot of player-piano music in my house and a lot of old Tin Pan Alley songs and American standards. My dad listened to a lot of traditional Irish music and I grew up doing musical theater. So most of the music I was exposed to as a kid was pre-rock n' roll. ~ John C. Reilly

Operating theaters are not nearly as popular as dramatic theaters, musical theaters, and movie theaters, and it is easy to see why. A dramatic theater is a large, dark room in which actors perform a play, and if you are in the audience, you can enjoy yourself by listening to the dialog and looking at the costumes. A musical theater is a large, dark room in which musicians preform a symphony, and if you are in the audience you can enjoy yourself by listening to the melodies and watching the conductor wave his little stick around. And a movie theater is a large, dark room in which a projectionist shows a film, and if you are in the audience, you can enjoy yourself by eating popcorn and gossiping about movie stars. But an operating theater is a large, dark room in which doctors preform medical procedures, and if you are in the audience, the best thing to do is to leave at once because there is never anything on display in an operating theater but pain, suffering and discomfort, and for this reason most operating theaters have been closed down or have been turned into restaurants. ~ Lemony Snicket

Singing is more of a hobby than really something I want to do for a career. But I love musical theater, so I'm hoping I can go back to it and do a role on Broadway for a few weeks. That would be a dream come true. My dream role would be Roxie in 'Chicago.' ~ Jillian Rose Reed

I'm not shutting doors on myself, in any way, within theater, musical theater, TV and film. ~ Lara Pulver

Music is my passion, singing, performing. I play piano and musical theater is my background. ~ Janel Parrish

I knew I wanted to pursue a career in the theater the minute I graduated from college having not pursued it! So I went back to school and got a degree in music and began working in musical theater. ~ Nancy Allen

That whole world of musical theater was my first love. It's where I wanted to be when I was three years old. ~ Debra Messing

I so miss musical theater. Secretly, I'm in awe of Broadway performers. ~ Brianna Brown

The musical theater is a glorious and distinctly American innovation in the history of theater. ~ Diane Paulus

I have intentionally not pursued musical theater. ~ Katharine McPhee

I love singing! I grew up in musical theater. ~ Juliette Goglia

I've always been really artistic. I went to an all-girls private Catholic school, and one of their biggest things was musical theater. ~ Daniela Bobadilla

I did a lot of musical theater when I was younger, and I really hope to get back there someday. I miss singing a lot. I listen to Broadway show tunes in my car and sing along to them. ~ Bridget Regan

I come from musical theater, and a lot of musical theater is about accepting fantasy. I think it is more about just being open and accepting. ~ Amy Adams

I went through a few phases of finding myself: I dabbled in musical theater, chess club, dance troupe, splatter-painting, school mascot (go Wildcats), babysitter, photojournalist, drill team girl, emo kid - and not one of them defined me, but every single one will always play a part in who I am. ~ Debby Ryan

At one point, I was hell-bent on being a Disney animator, and sort of got over that in college and wanted to do my own stuff. You know, towards the end of college I had actually planned to go to the Boston Conservatory of Music for musical theater. ~ Seth MacFarlane

I'm trying to bring a new generation into the musical theater and to create a new audience. ~ Jerry Herman

I wanted to focus on songs that I was inspired by growing up. I love so many of them from the last 100 years, but I really wanted, for my first step forward, to choose material that has inspired me and got me into the world of musical theater. ~ Josh Groban

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. ~ Jon Huertas

I was a 'Glee' fan before I joined the show! Since my background is musical theater, it was exciting to see a TV show that incorporated music so much and in such a genius way. ~ Becca Tobin

I got started as an actress doing musical theater, and I always loved 'Grease' and 'West Side Story,' and all those kind of movies. ~ Sara Paxton

What's missing in the musical theater is producers willing to nurture new work, raise the money and put it on. ~ Harold Prince

I've sung my whole life. I did a lot of musical theater growing up, I sing in the shower, sing in the car, sing everywhere really, on set at Chuck, all the time. I like it, and I've always felt like I've had a knack for it, or a talent for it, on some level, I don't know. ~ Zachary Levi

From a young age, I had done a lot of theater and musical theater. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with my life, but every time I was away from acting, I just felt very incomplete and a little stir crazy. ~ Alexander Koch

I've auditioned for musicals a lot, but I think my voice didn't really match what they were looking for. I went to school for musical theater for a year and dropped out. Legit musicals are not quite my forte. ~ Cristin Milioti

I love singing! I was a musical theater girl in high school. We were always singing and dancing around, and just doing little community theaters and high school musicals. Then, when I got to NYU, I focused more on drama. ~ Katie Lowes

I started off in musical theater, yeah. It was one of my first jobs; it was in Spring Awakening in London, which was amazing. ~ Jamie Blackley

In many ways, I think I'm a good person for it. I mean, I'm not a musical theater dude. Or rather, I don't watch everything, and love everything, and have every album. The ones that I love - like I've seen The Wizard of Oz a hundred times. West Side Story I love. I love Singing in the Rain, I love White Christmas. I love the Dennis Potter ones like Singing Detective and Pennies from Heaven. I love Sondheim. ~ James Ponsoldt

My whole background, my whole life was just lots and lots of theater, a lot of that being musical theater. ~ Zachary Levi

It seems to me that the American popular song, growing out of American folk music, is the basis of the American musical theater ... it is quite legitimate to use the form of the popular song and gradually fill it out with new musical content. ~ Kurt Weill

Broadway has changed tremendously from the early days when the shows were referred to as musical comedies. Musical Theater is now a more expanded art form. Back then, singer/actors were not the norm. From the 60's to now, it is necessary to do it all to be a consummate Broadway performer. ~ Betty Buckley

I love music, singing, and playing piano (though I'm not very good). And I adore musical theater. ~ Aprilynne Pike

I always wanted to make an album, but I knew that I didn't want it to be a musical theater album. It's not that I don't love them - I own every musical theater album ever made - but it just didn't seem right for me. ~ Megan Hilty

I enjoyed acting growing up; I did musical theater. I had a secret desire to be a television and movie actress, but it wasn't something I admitted to myself that I wanted to do, I guess. ~ Amanda Schull

Without a doubt, I'd love to do Broadway. I actually can't wait to get back to musical theater. ~ Zac Efron

Musical theater is one of my passions. ~ Patrick Wilson

I've always sung. I was really into musical theater when I was growing up. As a kid, I listened to Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone, actually, on cassette tapes. ~ Gugu Mbatha-Raw

I would like, if I can, to broaden the possibilities of the musical theater. I think there's a better 'Oklahoma!' someplace, a better 'West Side Story.' And I'd like to be mixed up in it. ~ Richard Rodgers

The truth is I love musical theater and always have. ~ Idina Menzel

Look, I'm 40, I'm single, and I work in musical theater - you do the math! ~ Nathan Lane

Musicals are my favorite. I'm a musical theater buff. ~ Rutina Wesley

I've found that musical theater is my passion. ~ Samantha Barks

The dream was to not only make a good-looking film that engaged, but also had the DNA of the show so the fans would love it and also as important had the opportunity to cross over out of the fans because of the price-point. You make a film that's 60 million dollars you can't just appeal to musical theater fans. ~ Eric Fellner

I was probably singing before I could talk. Musical theater is my passion. If I could afford it, I would just do dinner theater and live a simple life. ~ Bethany Joy Lenz

I think there are rock stars within every subgenre, and for people who are obsessed with musical theater Sutton Foster and Audra MacDonald are like Beyonce to them. I'm sure the a cappella world has their own version of that, and that exists in every geeky subculture. ~ Anna Kendrick

The way I see the job, my definition of it, is to create characters to the best of your ability and then fit into what's trying to be accomplished in the general framework of the film. I think that's whether you're doing this- even if you're doing musical theater. That's what I think an actors job is. I don't know. I like to think what an actors job is is to create characters. ~ Anton Yelchin

I was a ballet dancer and that kind of bled into musical theater. I was constantly in rehearsal for one thing or another. ~ Jennifer Garner

I just love performing so much, and I threw myself into every musical theater production that was going in my home town and at school. And then, I went to the National Youth Music Theatre, which was really a galvanizing experience for me when I was 17. ~ Gugu Mbatha-Raw

I don't think theater is dying, and musicals are a great American art form. We've got apple pie, jazz and musical theater. ~ Laura Benanti

I wanted to be an actor because I wanted to be onstage. I wanted to do musical theater, and from that I realized I was interested in plays. I never imagined myself on television. I was so lucky to be onstage my whole life. ~ Jesse Tyler Ferguson

I wanted to be a theater actress, and initially, I wanted to work in musical theater ~ Tavis Smiley

This was awkward to infinity. Alex living here would change my entire routine. I was sharing a bathroom with my boyfriend. How scary was that? I had tampons and pads and everything in there. He was going to be naked in the shower on the other side of my bedroom wall. And I was going to be naked in the shower with him in my house. ~ S.M. Stevens

I was never much of a musical theater guy, but I have so much more respect for the art form, the physical exertion of doing eight shows on Broadway a week, I cannot even fathom it. ~ Chris Pine

I teach musical theater three days a week at the school that my wife and I graduated from. ~ Drew Lachey

The funny thing is, because I was doing a lot of theater when I was a kid, and a lot of that was musical theater, as I got older I became more interested in acting as a separate entity and music as a separate entity, like songwriting and production and recording and playing music. ~ Guy Pearce

I love musical theater. That's what I started off to do when I was 7, and my first show was 'Peter Pan.' ~ David Hasselhoff

The first few weeks of school were always surreal, like you landed on an alien planet with strange teachers and unfamiliar classrooms, even though the lockers and cafeteria seemed familiar. ~ S.M. Stevens

I would love to have a varied career, like Hugh Jackman. He started in musical theater, then established himself in film, but he still does a lot of stage work. And he does it all beautifully. ~ Samantha Barks

While I love musical theater, it wasn't the right fit for me. It's so competitive, and I was at such a disadvantage, having started performing when I was 17. ~ Jack Falahee

I'm a musical theater guy. That's where I came from. That's where I go whenever I have the chance. It's my first love. ~ Scott Bakula

I began thinking I would do musical theater because in high school that was really the only sort of curriculum they had as far as getting onstage and doing anything that anybody would see. So that's what I did. ~ Gretchen Mol

Musical theater can save you, even if only for two or three hours at a time. ~ Michelle Knudsen

I would love to be in musical theater and be on Broadway. If someone were to offer me a position to do something like that, I wouldnt pass it down. Im a huge fan of musicals and I really want to do that. ~ Michelle Branch

I love musical theater so much. When done right, I think comedy songs can be the most efficient form of joke delivery. Songs can be the most efficient and the best forms of conveying emotion. Music is universal. It's worldwide. ~ Rachel Bloom

We've got to find a way to protect the process of making musical theater. ~ Harold Prince

I like to originate new roles and characters for musical theater. ~ Idina Menzel

If there is a Busta Rhymes of musical theater, it probably is Mandy Patinkin. ~ Lin-Manuel Miranda

Up until I started on YouTube, my first love was musical theater. ~ Sam Tsui

I've never had any feeling of disconnection between the classical theater, or the contemporary theater, or musical theater, or the thing that we call opera. ~ Trevor Nunn

I've always been singing. Since day one. I started doing musical theater and you have to sing in musical theater and so that's where I got most of my training. So singing on stage, you just inevitably, when you're around other vocal artists, you get better at singing. ~ Zac Efron

Although my other ambition was to be a musical theater star (and I would attend college on a voice scholarship), writing was never far from my mind. ~ Alex Flinn

When I first started acting, I started in opera and had a great desire to play grand, tragic characters. I got sidetracked in musical theater and ended up doing a lot of comedy. ~ Leslie Easterbrook

Sondheim is the Shakespeare of the musical theater world. ~ Mandy Patinkin

I'm somebody who grew up listening to a lot of musical theater, so getting to finally write musical theater songs and songs that sound that way - the emphasis being on the storytelling, but the arrangements and the orchestrations can be really varied - I found that to be, actually, a really joyful discovery. ~ Sara Bareilles

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. ~ Rachel Bloom

There is no such thing as hell, of course, but if there was, then the sound track to the screaming, the pitchfork action and the infernal wailing of damned souls would be a looped medley of "show tunes" drawn from the annals of musical theater. The complete oeuvre of Lloyd Webber and Rice would be performed, without breaks, on a stage inside the fiery pit, and an audience of sinners would be forced to watch - and listen - for eternity. The very worst among them, the child molesters and the murderous dictators, would have to perform them. ~ Gail Honeyman

In musical theater, if you have a song, it has to advance the plot. If you have a song in a musical and it does not advance the plot, it gets dropped. ~ Eli Roth

It's interesting - years ago, I had such bad stage fright during musical theater auditions that I just gave up. And now I'm on Broadway. ~ Tom Lenk

People don't realize that I started in musical theater. That's where my roots are. ~ Katee Sackhoff

I double majored in English education and theater with a musical theater minor. Teaching is the only thing that makes me as happy as performing. ~ Rob McClure

I was there when the quote-unquote golden age of musical theater was flourishing. I met everybody who worked in theater or was famous in theater from the '40s on. ~ Harold Prince

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. ~ B. D. Wong

I have been taking voice and singing lessons since age 10 and originally got into it because I was really interested in musical theater. After writing my first couple of songs and performing at age 14, I knew that I really wanted to be a singer. ~ Daya

I've always been interested in music. In high school, I did a lot of musical theater, and I loved it. ~ Rosanna Pansino

I've been doing musical theater since I was a kid. And look for a CD from me in the future. I want to write all the songs! ~ Zac Efron

I'm not into music - the only music I like is musical theater, but I have every Ween album. ~ Jesse Eisenberg

I got successful awfully quick, and I wanted it ... But I do think there is responsibility to move the musical theater form forward. I think you always have to be aware of the work that came before and build on that. ~ Harold Prince

Because I was a dancer, I started going to auditions for musical theater, which forced me to sing. ~ Madonna Ciccone

People who are feeling bullied and people who feel like outsiders should talk to their parents and guardians about finding a place with likeminded people where they can feel accepted. That's what I needed, and that's what I found with musical theater. ~ Nick Jonas

I do regret that when I went to college, I didn't have a liberal arts education. I got a BFA in musical theater, so it was a very directed toward what I was doing. I wish that I had expanded my horizons a little bit. ~ Heather Dubrow

I think of the Roundabout as my musical theater family here in New York City. ~ Jane Krakowski

When you're in a show, all through rehearsals Tech Week hovers out there like a magical holy grail. In reality, Tech Week is always a train wreck of missed cues, forgotten lines, malfunctioning set pieces and short tempers. ~ S.M. Stevens

I was heavily involved in musical theater. ~ Brad Goreski

I've loved musical theater ever since I was a kid. My mother's a pianist, and my grandfather was an amateur theater director and stand-up comic. And I was an only child. And I loved attention. So from an early age, my family was teaching old musical songs. ~ Rachel Bloom

I went to performing arts high school, and I took dance and acting every day. Then, I went to Marymount Manhattan College and I have a B.A. in acting, with a concentration in theater performance and a minor in musical theater. I studied there for three years. ~ Jenna Ushkowitz

When I was in high school, I was a bad singer. I mean, all my early acting was musical theater, and my first ever show was 'Jesus Christ Superstar.' Everyone's familiar with it. I played priest number 3 and sang so out of tune that it's not even funny. ~ Sam Claflin

James Brown's Live at the Apollo is not just a musical whiplash, it's a spiritual cleansing. You can just close your eyes and see him doing the splits, kicking the mic stand and doing a 360. ~ Ted Nugent

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child, leaving his bed, wander'd
alone, bare-headed, barefoot,
Down from the shower'd halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting as if they were alive,
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,
From your memories, sad brother - from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,
From under that yellow half-moon, late-risen, and swollen as if with tears,
From those beginning notes of sickness and love, there in the transparent mist,
From the thousand responses of my heart, never to cease,
From the myriad thence-arous'd words,
From the word stronger and more delicious than any,
From such, as now they start, the scene revisiting,
As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,
Borne hither - ere all eludes me, hurriedly,
A man - yet by these tears a little boy again,
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
Taking all hints to use them - but swiftly leaping beyond them,
A reminiscence sing. ~ Walt Whitman

I have learned that there lies dormant in the souls of all men a penchant for some particular musical instrument an an unsuspected yearning to play on it, which are bound to wake up an demand attention someday. Therefore you who rail at such that disturb your slumbers with unsuccessful and demoralizing attempts to subjugate a guitar, beware! For sooner or later your own time will come. ~ Mark Twain

If you do a musical, it's really thrilling and it's a lot of work, but it's very rewarding. I would say, for me, what I like best is what I do, which is, I call it vaudeville, I call it live, I call it in concert, I call it what Bette Midler does, and what Garland did for years, and Ethel Merman. ~ Debbie Reynolds