Performance Readiness Quotes

We talk in coaching about "winners" - kids, and I've had a lot of them, who just will not allow themselves or their team to lose. Coaches call that a will to win. I don't. I think that puts the emphasis in the wrong place. Everybody has a will to win. What's far more important is having the will to prepare to win.

The best practice you can get is on the bandstand, but in between gigs I feel I have to stay in shape.

You have to be ready to sing and perform at any time.

Usually, I fly in the day before a concert so your voice can acclimate to the new environment.

I think every singer should be able to jump in for a singer who has been sick, for instance, and learn an opera in two days. I know people who can do it.

One of the first speaking roles I had was in a film called 'Svengali', with Peter O'Toole and Elizabeth Ashley. I was a waiter, and I had about three lines. And I was ready! I had been around people like that, and I knew they were just actors. All the work I had done, it was all there, and I felt like I knew all the mechanics.

You just can't take a crash course to be a tango dancer in a movie.

I just like to play and I'm always ready to be back onstage.

But it was not possible to do this movie, in this matter of time, without a solid rehearsal period.

You can't take it for granted. Even if we have two, three days off I still have to blow that horn a few hours to keep up the chops. I mean I've been playing 50 years, and that's what I've been doing in order to keep in that groove there.

I like to keep at my craft. I like to keep reading scripts, whether I'm in it or not because of the fact that what would I do in a certain case? How would this happen or how would that go? I like to keep working with my mind, so when I do perform I have something to perform with, and it's not just like trying on new clothes. You're trying on a suit, but you know where the heck the pants go.

I needed an opportunity to get back in the studio and get my recording chops back together.

My sense of myself is that I'm a character actor, and character actors are ready, willing, and able to do anything, to be totally different from themselves. That's my job, to be ready. I'm some kind of first responder.

The 3 key components for success are as follows: Psychological Preparedness Physical Conditioning Mental Toughness

I was so grateful to work on 'Bunheads.' We had so much material, and everything was so rapid-fire, and I developed - through theater too, I developed a really great work ethic. I think preparing for both of them is just that - you come to set ready to go, ready to play. You know your lines. You're ready to work.

When we're ready to do the dress rehearsal, we'll rehearse in the dark. No lights. The reason why I do that is because I don't want the band to rely on me for anything. 'Cause anything can happen - I might stop singing or unplug the mic, just so everybody knows: Keep going, no matter what.

I memorize my lines and I show up. I think it's just instinctual, and sometimes it's wrong and the director says, "No, do it this way." And then I can change, because I didn't spend all night practicing it this one way. All I do to get ready for the day is the night before, I read my lines once or twice, memorize them, and then I show up.

As a young performer, what you need to be doing is building your technique and musicality, not promoting your abilities - unless you're ready to take on all that will result from such an approach.

When I was starting, I was working with actors who came up through the rep system, and they understood the discipline required: you were never late for rehearsal, you were never not ready to go on, you were always prepared; it was about showing respect to the rest of the company.

Being a backup singer means being able to sing on a dime. Music is oozing out of their every pore.

I'm in the gym every day, Monday through Friday. And I train really hard to go out and do a tour. So that, basically, what I'm doing with my trainer is that I train harder in the gym than the amount of energy that I expend on the stage. So by the time I'm ready to go out on the road, doing a show is a whole lot easier.

I don't really rehearse, because I don't really step into action until I'm forced to. The only way I prepare is just by memorizing it backward and forward so that when I get in the room, I can become the character and not think about the lines so much.

If it takes 30 days of rehearsal, you better ace all 30 of those days. When it's game time, you're ready to play ball.

Before the (Olympic) trials I was doing a lot of relaxing exercises and visualization. And I think that that helped me to get a feel of what it was gonna be like when I got there. I knew that I had done everything that I could to get ready for that meet, both physically and mentally

I always practice as I intend to play.