So many gay men are mothers to so many young people, me included. I've had gay men who were more mother to me than my own mother ever was.
— Michael Arden
Every decision you make has a consequence.
The deaf community has shaped me as an artist and a person, and I am very grateful that I have been able to share and create so much art with a group of people I would have never imagined sharing and creating with. It's a true testament to the power of theater. There are no walls.
We learn the most from listening, and I don't just mean with our ears.
I tend to ask more questions than I should as an actor.
My dream would be to have 50 people in a show with each person from a different country.
I love Disney.
There is no distinction, no echelon of actors within a company. A company is only as strong as its weakest link.
Sometimes, disaster can inspire ingenuity.
Say you have a young black kid, and you come to see a Sondheim show. You love the material, but you look on stage, and you don't see anyone who looks like you. That puts a barrier between the audience and what they're trying to absorb.
Haiti is a proud nation, rich in heritage and spirituality. How they have been able to not only survive but thrive is a testament to how the Haitian people have come together to rebuild, create new families, and care for one another.
Kelli O'Hara is incredible.
As someone who lives with an animal, I think it's important to learn how to responsibly care for souls who don't have their own voice. They can't advocate for themselves.
I found that the same things I loved about performing were the things I liked about directing and creating a piece - striking a chord that was in tune with the world and was reflecting back what I saw, just from a different angle.
I often think about what love can inspire in the world, not just in the eyes of the object of your affection.
Helping to open up the conversation about inclusion and diversity in casting has been a dream come true.
My grandparents, Jim and Pat Moore, were an incredible couple. They drove me to the community theater, where I did plays as a kid.
When you step off a plane into a place like Haiti, you're just surrounded by overwhelming stimulus: the people selling you things, asking you to engage.
You can't ever go back; life is incredibly short and fragile.
Before working with Deaf West, I had never met a deaf person, and now I can't imagine life without ASL.
The most exciting thing I've seen is directors not only being open to actors coming in the room with different abilities but actively looking at ways that the story can be enlarged with disabled actors.
I would love to create a piece of theater that is devised by a company of actors and creators that I'd put together, and I'd love for it to be nonverbal so it's something that someone with any communication ability can enjoy.
My favorite collaborator is Dane Laffrey, who designed the set for 'Once on This Island,' but we've worked together since high school, when he was my roommate.
It's exciting to share an art form that I would never have imagined sharing with the deaf community. Doing musicals, it's not like, 'Oh, I'll do a musical with a deaf person.'
Magic in plays and musicals, I think, is more often created because of the work of an incredible company rather than a single component.
I'm interested in people's relationship to objects, so I think a lot of my work is very tactile.
I created my family with the people I met in the theater and escaped in the stories I told and the characters I got a chance to play. It's just always felt like home.
I think Rafael Nadal is pretty spectacular. I have a feeling he might be part animal.
I really enjoy 'The Beauty Is' from 'Light in the Piazza.'
A lot of times, comedy writers will go for the gay joke, and I've been vocal about saying, 'Go for the smart joke.'
I refuse to go onstage without looking into the eyes and touching everyone I'm working with... we're all in it together, and everyone's an equal part when we're onstage.
The love I have for my husband is intertwined with his, and we are two individuals looking in the same direction - as opposed to staring in each other's eyes all the time.
I remember sitting at home in West Texas listening to my 'Songs for a New World' CD over and over.
If you've never heard a piece of Mozart, then Mozart could sound scary or confusing, so it's all about learning.
I think all my favorite directors have acted. They understand how an actor thinks.
I was lucky enough to make my Broadway debut in 'Big River.'
It's my goal to help actors achieve their best work, and I think I speak the same language as actors, so I understand how they do it, and I just love being able to create the playground in which they build their beautiful sandcastle.
The protest that we go to or the time that we stand up for someone or do the right thing - despite its difficulty... We might not see the return of it, but who knows whose lives we can change by doing those things.
Growing up as a gay boy in West Texas, I definitely felt like a bit of an outcast sometimes - that there was a world that I would never be a part of.
I had taken a directing class in high school. Looking back on it now, I think it was all heading that way.
I want to create an environment that actors can be really free in.
I had a sort of rocky upbringing, and I think the theater was a safe place for me.
Unless we build theater and performing arts, then we're not going to be creating future patrons. We need to make it accessible.
I read 'Huffington Post' as if I am a shareholder.
At its core, 'Spring Awakening' is about the perils of miscommunication and what happens when people are denied a voice.
I've played gay, and I've played straight... I'm proud to be a gay man myself, and I'm thrilled to get the opportunity to play a variety of different gay men.
I would want everyone to love someone in the purest sense of the word - an unconditional love in which you don't expect anything in return.
At the end of the day, we need to realize that segregation is not the human condition at its best. Which isn't to say we need to all be the same. It simply means we need to embrace each other's differences to help tell our stories together.
We don't ever realize how precious life is while we're living it.
