I auditioned for 'West Side Story' just like everybody else, and I nearly had a heart attack, because I hadn't danced in about - oh, I don't know, about 15 years.
'Bonnie and Clyde' was the first show and the first role that I got to originate. Being part of that from the ground up and investing three years of my life into seeing that show come to Broadway was really rigorous but also so exciting.
On a TV show, for instance, dancers have to be paid for a week and a half rehearsal time. So unless they're vital to a production, they're just not used.
For me the rehearsal period is the part I most enjoy. It's the creating of the story.
When I audition for something, I don't even want to think about who the other actors are in it, who's directing it.
But it was not possible to do this movie, in this matter of time, without a solid rehearsal period.
The magic of landing my first role on Broadway went 'poof' in a matter of a few weeks.
I auditioned 5-6 times for 'Dangal.' I was just waiting for the final call, as there were about 15-16 girls who auditioned for the role.
We're doing a workshop over the first two weeks of December, I believe, with Graciella Daniele directing it.
'Breaking In' shows what it's really like backstage at New York Fringe Theatre.
It's a lot of a workload doing an hour dramatic show. It's just incredible what little time off you get.
Great actors help. Every project is different. Sometimes it's completely open, and I've been able to cast who I've wanted. And then sometimes people want a certain kind of actor.
I met my wife in 1990 when I was on the national tour of 'Bye, Bye Birdie.'
I did this play, 'Expedition 6,' that I worked on for three years in between other things. It was a good, interesting time for me because I trained as a theater director, and I went back, and we toured it around.
The regular season, it's kind of like a rehearsal. That's the way I look at it.
It was the fashion of the time, still is, to feel that all actors are neurotic, or they would not be actors.
The percentage of people that go to drama college in the U.K. is probably just like anywhere in the world. It's a very hard business to work in. They say that, at any one time, there's only 5% of actors in the world that are actually working and getting paid, which is a shocking percentage, really.
The birth of any show is always a rough one.
I've never seen a schedule where you just go in two hours almost every day of the week and then all day on one day. Then you shoot it at night with an audience and you're out of there.
Working with a new style of choreography is always a period of adaptation.
Chorus Line' opened things up a bit. Any show that's successful does that. But 'Chorus Line' was about dancers.
I don't get nervous when I'm directing a play. It's not like acting.
The only time I've ever danced every day was during 'Dancing with the Stars' and in the two-week rehearsal for 'Dirty Dancing,' and that was only to do a particular dance.
I feel like I go through cycles as an actress.
Nobody could dissapear to their trailer once it was up and running, you were all there on the same stage. It was 10 days of rehearsal and 10 days of shooting, which was very tiring.
