Onstage Quotations

It's not a natural translation, transition, to take something from stage to screen. Onstage your action is communicated through the spoken word primarily, and on screen it's communicated through pictures. So it's always been kind of unnatural to take something that lives on the stage and turn it into moving pictures.

My dad tells me that he took us to a pantomime when I was very, very small - panto being a sort of English phenomenon. There's traditionally a part of the show where they'll invite kids up on the stage to interact with the show. I was too young to remember this, but my dad says that I was running up onstage before they even asked us.

When you start performing, you realize that you have to separate yourself from the pack. So I would never wear bell-bottoms, which everybody else was wearing. I had short hair - and to see a 21-year-old guy walk onstage without longish hair was, in itself, weird. Every entertainer needs a shtick.

I was terrified, terrified in 'Songwriter,' because there I was, New York Jewish girl, singing country-western onstage with Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson. I mean, forget it. I was so terrified.

I was a crazy Pee-wee Herman fan when I was in my early teens. Before he had the kids' TV show, he had a nightclub show in L.A., and I had gotten a VHS copy of it. It was a kids' show, but onstage in a bar, so it's sort of poking fun at the kids' show. And I was obsessed with that, and then 'Pee-wee's Big Adventure.'

Jay-Z called me onstage during my song that I produced for 'Watch the Throne?' That was surreal, man. One of those situations I'll never forget. I'll be able to show my kids the footage of when Jay-Z brought me onstage.

Look at Greg Jbara! I've watched him work for years, always switching. He's literally a different human being when he's onstage in 'Billy Elliot.' That's the fun of what we do.

I walked onstage in a play at prep school, and with childish naivete, told myself, 'Wow, I'm an actor!'

There is a cliche that probably has some anecdotal evidence on the side that comedians are very depressed people, but that's because no one is ever going to seem as funny in a normal conversation as compared to when they're up there onstage in the spotlight making a huge audience keel over with laughter.

I was standing onstage last year, and I felt like I wanted to be somewhere else. No matter how many people were out there, it all just felt like a blank sheet of paper.

I specifically remember doing the musical 'Sweet Charity' at Stagedoor. I was playing Vittorio Vidal, which is a very funny part, and some other small roles. I couldn't really sing that well, but there were so many fun bits, and I just remember the tremendous adrenaline rush I felt from being onstage and hearing the audience enjoying it.

Me in my music and onstage - that's me without any fears of judgement; that's me when I'm shining.

I'm always curious about anyone who has enough passion to go onstage and say, 'This is what I'm really passionate about.' It's always worth listening to.

I don't laugh so much at jokes and premises as I do at a guy who goes onstage and starts twitching and acting funny.

Part of the reason I fell in love with dance so early was because of people like Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson, and Britney Spears. When they would dance onstage and in their videos, that was huge for me. I lived for that.

I just enjoy being onstage and relating to the audience.

Music is very similar to comedy: It's all about texture, timing, context, vocabulary, performance. When someone's onstage doing a solo, essentially it's the same thing as what a comedian does. They're in the moment. They're listening.

I really enjoy theater. Performing live onstage is helping me to grow as an actress.

I think my perception of my own life is different and the fact that Lauren and myself are together. I've never felt this free or happy and so that permeates onto my onstage persona and to my working environment.

I suddenly got used to that feeling of being in control, which I never, ever feel when I'm not onstage - a feeling that you're the master of your own universe.

I don't have a gym membership. I usually do a bit of basic yoga or stretches at home or in my dressing room before the show. I've done plank for 60 seconds almost every day since 2009, when I had to wear a bikini onstage in 'South Pacific.'

I'm just a Chicago actor who's a playwright. Even with the success of 'August,' the people in town who come to our theater know me by sight, because they've seen me onstage so much.

In 2004, I went onstage for the first time. They put a mike in my hand and pushed me out the door into the crowd. I did the three songs I had recorded and got out. It was the worst day of my life.

People ask, like, 'How are you going to incorporate what you do onstage into everything else?' I'm not too worried about that. Whether it's theater or a TV show idea, or an animated thing or, I don't know, an animated screensaver. I really just want to keep creating things. And I've always been able to do that.

More live recording. I have missed the boat over my career by not doing every second or third CD live because things happen onstage that don't happen in the studio.

I couldn't be touring unless my husband was on the road with me, taking care of our son while I'm onstage and doing interviews.

I wasn't trying to be a role model with 'The Dutchess,' but suddenly, seeing little girls in the audience with their moms made me think about what I do onstage a little bit more. I had to watch my mouth, because it can be filthy. It changed things for me.

I don't enjoy writing newspaper articles any more than people like reading them. I'm a standup comic, not a journalist, although sometimes onstage I will say: 'What else is in the news?' Writing is work, which I'm not comfortable with.

I always say, when you're onstage you can't please everybody. I'm sure there are people who may not take to what I do, but that's okay. Thank God the majority are in my corner.

I've felt emotions onstage that I never felt before; it has strengthened me as a person and as an artist.

All the satisfaction I need... comes when I step out onstage and see the people. That's awesome. I love that.

There's always been an element of 'right time, right place' to Nine Inch Nails. When we stepped onstage at Woodstock '94, I could sense it. I get goosebumps thinking about it now. Like, 'I don't know how we did this, but somehow we've touched a nerve.'

I wish I had a really cool, esoteric answer, but what the process is to me is going onstage night after night after night after night until I get a new hour. And then once that hour is solidified and recorded, I move on.

Even though I was very shy, I found I could get onstage if I had a new identity.

You're standing onstage in a sold-out arena with people singing your music, and you feel like the loneliest person in the world. Because here's a party that, essentially, it's for you. And you still somehow feel like you don't belong there. Those people all have their lives and go back home.

My wife and I got to go onstage at a Flaming Lips concert at Webster Hall once. We dressed up like Scientology aliens and danced around. We had a shootout onstage with Santa Claus.

We stopped being able to talk to each other. And we found ourselves onstage all playing a different song at the same time. It was pretty pathetic and felt like it was just symbolic of where we were at. We ended up getting into this terrible violent fight and our tour manager had to put us in different corners just to break it up.

When you walk out onstage in front of 65,000 people, it can bring you to tears.

One of the most important times in my life was the first time that I remember seeing my daddy get onstage and play music with a bunch of guys. All of them playing something different at the same time and all becoming one, and me soaking that in at 5 years old and going, 'That's my daddy up there, and he's a part of something.'

I was five years old, onstage singing 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' - a rock version - and I was always wanting to entertain. But the biggest thing for me is just country music has helped me get through the worst times of my life and the best times of my life. I want to give that back to people.

I would get ill before going onstage - something about getting in front of people, and if they don't laugh, I'm a bomb. I got over it when somebody laughed.

I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia and as far as my exposure to theatre, my mom is a ballet director, and she has her own ballet company down there. I started, I think, when I was four when I went onstage for the first time as Fritz in The Nutcracker. That's how it started with me.

I did 'State Trooper' as a solo with all of my effects, and Bruce himself showed up and came onstage and shook my hand twice in front of thousands of people and said how great it was.

I have so much fun with Matt LeBlanc that whether I love it or not really makes no difference to me because I just really have that much fun with him and playing with him. Being onstage with him is great.

I felt like onstage I have to have a certain amount of anonymity, like, personal anonymity, to feel loose and free. When you're up there with people who've known you for a decade, and you make a bad joke and you hear the cackling behind the drums, it's hard to get lost in the moment.

I find a similarity between performing music onstage and acting - a reality of emotion.

I don't think of myself as a singer. The only reason I ever got onstage was to meet girls.

He loved it over there, and they loved him. When we went onstage in Japan, there were people holding up 'Vassar Clements' placards.

He's a lovable old codger. But he has such showmanship and presence. Here's this 73-year-old man, onstage with us when we're opening for Cheap Trick and Cake, and no one knew who he was. But he got up there and won everybody over.

I was in 'Seussical,' and I was in a cage onstage in a purple yarn suit singing backup, and I was like: 'I've had it. I can't do this anymore.' I will say for the record that I did love the show, but I was like: 'I want to do something else. I need a little more.'

I was in one of the touristy country bars downtown, and I asked a guy onstage who was playing for tips to play a Hank Williams song.

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?

I think the inception of my interest in arts was when I was around 9 or 10 and I started dancing. I was really convinced that I was going to go to New York and be onstage in 'A Chorus Line.'

L.A. is always great. There's something special about L.A. And New York, for me, because it's home. There's nothing quite like walking onstage at Madison Square Garden.

it is not the one I wore onstage during the 'Baby One More Time' performance.'

I was just proud to be onstage with her. It's just proper old-school theatrical heart.

Plays are frequently infected with ideas that came from actors or even sound engineers. Some Shakespeare scholars wonder whether some of the Bard's lines came from onstage improvisations by actors.

It is completely improvised. We have had no meetings backstage, we have not written anything, and everything you see onstage tonight is being made up on the spot,

I was onstage one night and was singing. I hit one note, and I just doubled over. It was like being punched hard in the back. I couldn't put my back up on the plane seat because of the pain. I got massages, thinking it was muscle spasms. The doctor told me at the time that it was my pancreas. I didn't even know.

I was onstage and I was shocked; it hurt so badly. I thought: Why am I doing this? Why do I sing about needing to get better so she'll come back? That's a real problem I have. I don't need to get better - I need to find someone who likes me the way I am, someone who finds Chris desirable.

I wasn't onstage projecting to the back row. I was acting for the lens, which was right in front of me. I learnt a lot from that job.

We're blessed to be at a level in my career where I can afford to take out a bus of my own and bring my whole family with me, so that's great, too. The boys are out with us all the time, and it's just great to be able to turn around onstage and see my wife back there behind me.

To be completely stripped bare of any image power or my hair, ... To step onstage and get the response that I got blew any problems I had about self-image out the door.

When you're onstage with an electric band going through a massive P.A. system, it's very artificial. You can't really hear your own voice as it comes out of your mouth.

When I got a part in 'All American Girl,' in 1994, I remember thinking, 'Now I have a series, I'm not going to need to do standup,' but every night I'd go out afterward and get onstage somewhere.

The only thing I remember going up onstage was my feet started sweating. I'm a runner. And my feet sweat.

When she got onstage she was just a different kid. She was so confident and she looked so happy, and we were like, 'Who is that?' After that, there was no stopping her -- she was obsessed.

Turing was always a legend among computer/geeky kids. He was such an outsider in his own time, and because of that, he was able to see things differently. It was a story that had been well told in books, onstage and on TV, but never on film.

Those ranchers in Marfa showed up in their cowboy hats and boots, their wives with their Lady Bird hairdos, and they just loved it. There's an incredible intensity that Angelica has. She's onstage when the house opens, and in those 20 minutes she gets into character in a way that's frightening. The audience gets to watch her become Sylvia, one of the most intense women on the face of the earth.

To have this full story unfold onstage at the Keith-Albee by the Tchaikovsky Ballet Company is going to be a great spectacle for those who are dance lovers, from kids to adults. The really amazing part is that this group traveling with a 50-piece orchestra, and seeing the show with this great music will really be a treat.

Every time I hear his voice coming in on that song, I get goose bumps. I still can't believe Merle Haggard is on my record. But I still haven't met him face to face. I've talked with him a lot on the phone, especially in the last few weeks, when we've been editing the video. It's strange to work with somebody without having ever met them. But hopefully, one of these days, I'll talk him into coming out to a show and perhaps jumping onstage to sing the song with me.

And watching Ed, he's really coming into his own doing some new things onstage I've never seen him do. He's really getting into it, putting 120 percent into the show. We feel comfortable and excited.

There was a guy onstage filming the whole bloody thing. Who's this guy? Where did he come from? We tracked him down. He was a student. His parents had given him some money to buy an open reel video recorder, ... It shows some wonderful moments that were not captured by the other cameras.

There's nothing I'd never wear, really. I've worn pink spotty pajamas from a Goodwill store onstage before. This only happens when I'm having a small breakdown!

The way I view comedy clubs is, people are drinking, they're ordering food, they're out for the night, and there's also a person onstage talking. And with the theater, they came to the theater, and they're waiting to hear what you say. So you'd better have something to say.

It was very important to me, because I learned how to play onstage at an early age.

The silent thing onstage allows for a kind of intimacy that no conversation can have. If I just shut up, we're forced to look at each other and really confront that moment.

Sometimes, occasionally, people will make out in the audience, completely not aware that there's a human being onstage just yards away from them, who can see them. Sometimes people think that you're on television while you're onstage, so you're not even a person.

'Saturday Night Live' is a very particular beast. What it celebrates are individuals who can stand out. I did good work there, but going onstage and saying, 'Hey! Hey! Look at me! Aren't I funny?' - that just wasn't my instinct.

(Performing live) invigorates you, but life on the road wears you down. The frequencies hitting your ears and the volume can tire you, but you're so elated onstage you don't notice it. The next morning you implode. You do five gigs in a row, have a day off, then seven in a row, day off -- it's a strange kind of torture. You love it, but it destroys you.

Rap is simply more compelling in a club or on disc or video. I don't want to be too harsh on them, but how exciting is it to see a guy with a microphone onstage with video behind him and a few guys walking around? It's not like having a band up there with guitars and drums.

Some people love being onstage and really open up, and I'm sort of the opposite of that. I don't crave the spotlight. I'm still not comfortable even talking onstage.

Sometimes I find myself in this super-raw place onstage where I'm like, 'Maybe that's not the best thing. Maybe I need to shut down a little.'

The Moodies is a responsibility to deliver the goods every night onstage and to do it sincerely; otherwise, it doesn't work. You've got the three guys left in the Moodies that really want to do it onstage, so I think we're truer to the old records now than we ever were.

A life being enacted onstage is a thing of utter fascination for me. And acting, it may begin out of vanity, but you hope that it's taken over by something else. I hope I've climbed over the vanity hurdle.

You study all your life, you work really hard to do your best work onstage and onscreen, and then you make your best money playing an ant.

This is so important to us because it gives these students such a great opportunity. It also allows us to have an expanded cast size, especially a cast that has been trained classically. This is the students' 'professional debut' and gives Kansas City a chance to see them onstage outside of UMKC, which sometimes has greater exposure.

It was definitely nerves. I started thinking about my lyrics way, way, way too much when I got onstage and it threw me off.

It's a big Vegas-style finale, with the entire orchestra onstage and the lights going into the house. We want energy washed over the house.

It's good to be playing one and a half hour again. In the States we played like an hour and when you got onstage it felt like all of a sudden you are already done your set. But now, it feels like we are touring again.

It's funny, I used to do a character that was just a baby - just an adult baby. I would get up onstage and complain about adult stuff, but as a baby. I was in a diaper, and I would require hugs from the audience and reassurance and stuff.

Do I show up onstage late sometimes? That's something I could definitely work on. I'm human.

That just makes the show exciting and more passionate. We tend to vent our energy onstage when we have an argument. It's a lot easier and more natural. We've learned to keep our anger in until the show.

The band is redefining the concert experience - there is nothing even comparable to the thrill of being onstage with the Rolling Stones and seeing a stadium show from the band's perspective,

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've heard New York actors say Chicago actors intimidate them because apparently we're the real nitty-gritty actors who're in a town where being onstage doesn't necessarily get you anything except your craft.

Once, right before a show, I realized I'd forgotten shoes. I didn't want to wear my flip-flops onstage because I could trip. I ended up going barefoot, which actually worked out because it became my 'thing.'

I keep saying I am an auto-didact, but I have a lot of outside influences. One I could cite is juggler Francis Brunn, who was the first man to throw ten rings in the air; he was really an amazing juggler who showed onstage the quest for perfection.

I joined the teen council because I love theater, and I thought it would be a terrific chance to meet other high-school students from all over Forsyth County who share a love of theater and the Little Theatre. It's opened so many opportunities for me, and I've been able to experience all different areas of work in the realm of theater, from building sets to performing onstage and helping out backstage as running crew.

I never aspired to be in a band, but being onstage is a very cool feeling. It's like you're the lord of the room. It's hard to croon and run around doing big scissor kicks while also trying to play, though. I'm still mastering that.