So, did I work with Warhol? I worked with him less on that play then I did on other things. He actually did a portrait of my rabbit and some other stuff. Warhol was definitely... Warhol.
— Harvey Fierstein
Actually, I think the average voice is like 70 percent tone and 30 percent noise. My voice is 95 percent noise.
What looks absolutely fabulous in rehearsal can fall flat in front of an audience. The audience dictates what you do or don't change.
But actually just yesterday we raised the key of one of my songs two steps up, so my voice is obviously responding. It's a muscle, and the more you use it, the more you use it right, the more you should get out of it. So yes, I sing.
How time files when you's doin' all the talking.
Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself.
I'm sure there's going to be some material from This Is Not Going To Be Pretty. I usually use that song to just introduce myself to the audience, although the patter in between the song is always different.
It's through sheer will that I can sing.
You know, I always got offered other stuff. Not the romantic leads, obviously. But very often it's a role that's underwritten, where the character has no personality at all. And they need a character actor who can fill it in.
I got the regular call, that they were doing a Broadway musical of Hairspray, and would I come and audition. I was familiar with the movie, because at the time it came out my lover wrote for Premiere magazine, and we had to see everything.
If you deny yourself commitment, what can you do with your life?
The world is full of more interesting things than my voice.
But I'm not adverse to the idea of Torch Song as a musical. It would just be different. Because the play will always be there exactly as it was, and in a musical you could tell a lot of the story through songs.
It's a lot of fun to play someone you don't normally think of yourself as.
In London they don't like you if you're still alive.
The great thing about suicide is that it's not one of those things you have to do now or you lose your chance. I mean, you can always do it later.
