I know it's hard for people to imagine a time when 'Hamilton' wasn't 'Hamilton,' but for years, it was just this little thing that I was telling people about that didn't make any sense to anybody as I was describing it. But I loved it.
I was one of those people who watched and videotaped the Tonys every year and kept a highlight reel every year. I saw every Broadway show as a kid.
I like New York.
I love 'Some Enchanted Evening', and 'If I Loved You'. And as I sing them more and more, I find new favorites.
Broadway was weird.
People don't come to New York to ski. They cone for the arts.
I danced in a company of 'West Side Story' when I was very young. It was most of the original cast - Larry Kert, Chita Rivera - and Jerry Robbins directed. It was tough, a wonderful initiation for me.
I was in California, and I was going to UCLA, and I knew I certainly didn't have movie star looks. I remember seeing pictures and photos of Ethel Merman and Mary Martin, who were kind of average looking. I said, 'Well, that's for me, then, to go back to New York and try to be in musical comedy on Broadway.'
Michael has never cried during a Broadway show. Except in that scene where Tarzan's ape father is brutally murdered. And that was only because he was laughing so hard.
'Cabaret' was the most commercial success that I've been involved in.
Every actor tries to come to Broadway be it Richard Burton, Marlon Brando or Liz Taylor or Shirley McClain.
Nobody knows I sing. Even though I've done Broadway musicals. I would only pick it over acting because it's such a pure form of emotional expression.
When I wasn't working on Broadway, I worked in a Bat Mitzvah dress shop and was the Cinderella of the shop - always cleaning and vacuuming!
I love working in New York theater.
polychromatic visual clamour
People go to musicals because they want to hear some really good songs.
I didn't know a single musical soundtrack, really, growing up. Nobody listened to musicals. That wasn't a thing I did.
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.
The most rewarding thing is being on Broadway. I went into Cabaret as a replacement and was really challenged beyond anything I could have imagined.
In the Thirties, when I was in New York, I did the first surrealistic ballet in a show of mine.
When I first walked into 54 Below, I had this kind of deja vu experience and tried to imagine what this was like back in the day when I would come here at night after doing 'A Chorus Line.'
I'm convinced whenever something opens on Broadway, it's a miracle. It's a miracle that people survived.
What's the difference in opening from scratch in Philly or opening from scratch in New York? The old out-of-town tryout circuit - taking the show pre-Broadway to cities like Boston, New Haven, Philadelphia, Washington - has sort of been replaced with the amount of workshops we do.
Even before Pentatonix, I always thought that I would be out here in New York doing Broadway and doing musical theater. That was what gave me the passion for music in the first place, so it's been really, really, cool.
To play Cleopatra on Broadway would just be incredible.
