It dawned on me that theatre is a powerful weapon for change.
In theatre, previews are the first draft of a show. I strongly believe that. The only way we can truly tell whether that draft works is by having an audience present.
All of a sudden Kevin told me that the movie got bought and was gonna be shown in a movie theatre. I was shocked. I was psyched. It was just weird.
I knew very early what I wanted to do, and I considered myself lucky to know that's what I wanted, even in a place like Saint Lucia where there was no publishing house and no theatre.
When I was eight, I bought my first puppet. It was a monkey, and I paid five cents for it. I collected some scrap wood and built myself a puppet theatre. I made 32 cents with my first show, which I thought was pretty good, and that's when I knew I would be a puppeteer when I grew up.
I studied as an actor at the theatre conservatoire in Quebec, but by the time I got to my third year, I was more interested in directing. There's more to it than helping actors get round a stage: it's a wonderful way of telling stories.
There are lots of rats. It's a dirty little secret at the Delacorte Theatre.
When elections are not democratic, even the most populist discussions become superficial, disconnected from real power; they are theatre.
'Grease' was my Broadway debut. That was eye-opening. At the same time, it was very familiar. It was a Broadway show, but it's kind of the same as doing a show in Minnesota. It's the same type of rehearsal process. You are doing 8 shows a week, but I worked at a theatre in Minnesota that did 11 shows a week.
My grandparents - both of my mother's parents - were actors, and they ran the Reading Repertory Theatre Company, through the town of Reading, where I come from.
I come out of repertory theatre so I've been working under pressure my whole career.
I respect the system out there in Hollywood, I really do, but I'm very intent on art versus commerce. I want to do it all - film, TV and theatre - if it's the right job.
I started doing amateur theatre and played Rosa Parks at the age of 12 or 13. At 16, I decided it was what I wanted to do.
In the theatre, once you've gone about eight rows back, everybody else is just listening to you. You're very small, and nobody can really see what you're doing.
As a kid, the theatre always felt a bit like running away to join the circus.
Writing, and its theatre of operation, is better than working shifts packing frozen sausages; that's all I need to think about if I'm having difficulties.
It's a scary thing going into the workforce with a $50,000 debt and you've been trained as a classical theatre actor. There's always a depression in the theatre.
I was never a hugely successful theatre designer. I painted a lot of scenery and did the lighting, and my lighting business grew out of that.
The bits I most remember about my school days are those that took place outside the classroom, as we were taken on countless theatre visits and trips to places of interest.
I saw a production of 'The Seagull' at Dallas Theatre Center when I was in high school, and it really did a number on me.
