Performing in the theater is a very ethereal profession because you do it once and it goes out into the ether and it goes into people's minds and that's the only place that it ever exists. And it never exists truly; it only exists in the way that people think they remember it. But it's a really powerful way to tell a story and to pass something on.
— Brian Stokes Mitchell
Something is guiding my career; I don't know what it is. When I look back at my career, I call myself the most lucky actor in the world. It is all I have ever done. I do master classes, and I tell people not to use me as an example. I do not know anyone like me - not to brag - it is just very unusual.
Cabaret presents different challenges, as it is all on me. I love having the freedom to say anything you want - do anything you want. It is a lot of responsibility, and if it works, you get all the kudos, and if not - all the blame.
When you have a community that's strong in the arts, it brings all sorts of attention and different businesses into the community.
I can count on one hand the number of conductors-composers-arrangers that I enjoy working with, and at the top of that list is Mack Wilberg. I feel like I've known Mack forever. I'm just nuts for him.
I love doing theater. It's what I grew up in and is my roots. I get a huge fulfillment from it. But if my path is to go someplace else, hey, I'm there.
My family's very, very mixed. I am, I guess, a kind of melting pot in a person.
My job as an entertainer is to give a great show.
The first audition I did was for 'Trapper John, M.D.' I was surprised to get the part, and then to have it last for seven years was a bonus.
The thing about doing concerts is that it's doing a live show. It's on my schedule. It's songs I want to sing. It's saying what I want to say. It's working with the people I want to work with. I don't have to worry about pleasing other people - I can do what I want, and people come along and go for the ride.
I'm fortunate that I've been able to work on Broadway, but it doesn't give me an outside life. So I decided to go into the concert world. I do 40 to 50 shows. That takes one to three days a week, and I'm home the rest of the time.
I gravitate to rhythmic music, so I listen to jazz, world music, Indian music, Hawaiian music, all kinds.
Fear is destructive. Fear and creativity don't mix. Ultimately, it doesn't do you any good.
I hate those vacuous musicals, the happy-happy, 'Let's have a good time' shows.
I'd been playing the piano since I was 6 and wanted to be a composer, but I also wanted to be an actor. I decided to just pursue both and see which won out.
I think I just had it by osmosis: an appreciation of Duke Ellington before I really even knew who he was.
When I was 6 years old, I asked my parents for an organ. I don't have any idea why I wanted an organ.
People who are artists professionally are not artists because they want to be artists; they have to be artists. They're compelled to get that creativity out and to share that with others.
My mother was the first African-American policewoman in Seattle - recruited, actually - and she did it for only 2 years, as she did not want to carry a gun. She worked mostly on domestic disturbances. The NAACP wanted her to do it. She did not actually have the temperament to be a cop - she was very sweet. She had a Masters in social work.
It's nearly impossible to make a living in the arts.
The Actors Fund is a human services organization, so our focus has been on caring for the entire human as opposed to dealing with the disease.
There is a built-in appreciation for music that is so much a part of the LDS culture. Utahns know that music can be divine and can touch a person's spirit in a unique way.
I've always felt that my career was in wiser hands than mine. Whatever, in its good time, is supposed to happen will happen.
I studied arranging and orchestration a number of years ago, so I have a home studio and arrange about three-fourths of my songs on the computer. Since writing orchestration is tedious, I often put an arrangement on the keyboard and let someone better-qualified finish it.
Variety is the key to not being bored.
I kind of feel the career chose me. My motto has always been, 'Go where I'm wanted.'
That's the magic of art and the magic of theatre: it has the power to transform an audience, an individual, or en masse, to transform them and give them an epiphanal experience that changes their life, opens their hearts and their minds and the way they think.
Years ago, I couldn't get arrested in commercials because of my look: 'Is he Jewish, Hispanic, or African-American?' I ended up doing voiceover work, which has been great. Honestly, I can't complain.
My father was a huge jazz fan, so I remember him playing Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughn, and Count Basie.
I wouldn't call what I do 'dance.'
That's what I love about New York. So many people crowded together, pushing against one another. And that's what I hate about New York. So many people crowded together, pushing against one another.
Music is liquid. It's meant to be messed with and played with and stretched and pulled and pushed, I think.
For a while, I couldn't get arrested in television because everybody thought of me as that guy on 'Trapper John.' So I thought, 'Great, I'll come out here to New York and do some theater, and when they get tired of me, I'll do something else.'
I love the theater, and I just don't love television like that.
You need raw talent to be successful.
On Broadway, you are working with some incredible people, and they have great reasons for doing things the way they do.
People in the performing arts have a lot of other skills they don't realize they can utilize, and part of what the Actors Fund program is there to do is wake their head up to realize there are other things they can do.
Music, for me, is the most sacred of the arts. I say that because music communicates in a way that no other art form can. All great art has a spirit that we recognize and appreciate, but music goes directly to your heart.
Each time I have performed in Utah, I had a great time, and the audiences seem to enjoy what I do. The audiences are very warm and very appreciative.
When I moved to Los Angeles, I thought, 'Whatever hits, I'll go that direction. If it's music, fine; if it's acting, fine.'
I love rearranging and reimagining tunes, so I want my audience to enjoy hearing songs in a new way and make their own discoveries.
You lose more than you win in life, and that's OK. That's the nature of life.
I can't remember ever not singing.
Doing eight shows a week is hard.
Oddly enough, I almost never listen to show tunes. But there are some shows I love, like Adam Guettel's 'Floyd Collins.'
My favorite music is jazz, actually. It's what I listen to, it's what I was raised on, and it's what I prefer to sing.
I like being different people.
To me, a theater is a kind of a sacred space. It needs a kind of ceremony, like what happens when you consecrate a church.
People comment on the way that I phrase. And in my 20s, I realized, my phrasing is jazz phrasing. I don't comply strictly with musical theater phrasing. Musical theater tends to be very one and three, and jazz is definitely two and four.
I'm not a pop singer; I'm not a jazz singer. And I know I sing like not a whole lot of people do; I also know that a lot of other people act like I do. And better than I do. But what informs the singing is the acting. They're not separate from each other.
