Laura Osnes Quotes

In a play, a man comes out and says something. Another man comes out and says something. And by the end of the night, we've learned something we didn't know, In a musical, there is singing and dancing for two hours, but you've got to know everything in 5 minutes. Do it in those 5 minutes or you'll lose them.

Musicals are, by nature, theatrical, meaning poetic, meaning having to move the audience's imagination and create a suspension of disbelief, by which I mean there's no fourth wall.

I love characters songs and I love to fit into a story. I love singing through a character's journey.

I don't have a favorite genre. I love to work and live vicariously through every character. It's all about trying to bring the character to life and get the story across in a way that resonates with the audience. It's always interesting and challenging in a gratifying and unique way.

The play is a marvelous form, but it demands less than a novel.

While many of my musicals deal with big themes and ideas, I don't intentionally go looking to write shows like that. A story will interest me, and then somewhere along the way, I discover that hidden inside are these epic themes.

Actors sure have stories. We always have stories. At the end of our careers, all we have to take with us is our stories, and we have many of them.

I want to do a character in a one-woman show who's a yoga teacher from the Bronx. I could do the best accent: 'Raise yaw ahms up! Reach faw da sky!'

When you're trying to do a traditional book musical like 'Book of Mormon,' it's always nice to have characters that could very naturally break into song, and its good to pick a subject matter that allows that to happen in a way that doesn't disarm the audience.

The point of songs in theater is that you're supposed to end up in a different place than where you started.

Monologues are fun.

I always have something big enough to say as a playwright. It's storytelling.

Whether a film is breaking into song and dance or if it's something like 'Whiplash,' I find it incredibly rewarding, and I'm drawn to those stories with a musical component.

It's much easier to write a song for a musical than just writing a song because, writing for a musical, you know what the story is about, so you know what the songs have got to say.

I now do my own cabaret act, singing and telling stories about my life.

'Cabaret' was one of the first pieces of musical theater I saw that showed the possibilities of what musical theater can do.

Fans watching need to be able to connect the dots in your match and the story that you're trying to tell.

I've directed 'Raisin in the Sun' five times. You keep discovering things. You keep on seeing things in the script that you never saw before. That's what great pieces of art do.

I love wrestling, and I love telling a story to the audience.

When I saw 'Chess' in London, I thought it was horrible. It was so static. People were coming down front and just facing the audience, singing.

Every step is basically a word, especially with musical theatre, because you're not doing it for dance's sake, you're promoting a story - and, more than that, a moral. You're propelling a story.

Before 'Memphis,' I had never considered working on a musical. But when Joe DiPietro sent me the script, I heard the entire score in my head.

Some directors ask for a hero introduction number, a duet and a fast number towards the climax. Most of the times, these songs only hinder the story.

Musicals aren't two-dimensional froth.

Good musicals, a strange world, seem so easy. People say, 'Ohhh, it's magic.' Nothing's magic. A thing doesn't jell. Adapt. Change the rhythm. Shorten the scene. Rewrite the character. Maneuver the waters. Seeming easy is why so many shows aren't good.