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I think I just had it by osmosis: an appreciation of Duke Ellington before I really even knew who he was.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
When I was preparing 'Kiss Me, Kate,' I did go to the Museum of Broadcasting and watched an old kinescope of Alfred Drake doing the role on a television special. It was interesting, but I didn't feel any need to try to copy him.
Brian Stokes Mitchell
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I gravitate to rhythmic music, so I listen to jazz, world music, Indian music, Hawaiian music, all kinds.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
I like to sing the songs people love, like 'Impossible Dream.'
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.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
My job as an entertainer is to give a great show.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
The first role that I played as a musical - I was 14 years old, and I played Birdie in 'Bye Bye Birdie.' That was an awakening of, 'Wow, I'm good at that. People are responding.' And I hardly knew what I was doing back then, but there was something that people were seeing.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
I always like to talk about how important space is. Art is in the spaces. Anybody can sing a note; it takes an artist to sing the spaces. Anybody can paint a brushstroke; it takes an artist to know when not to put the brushstroke.
Brian Stokes Mitchell
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I think the problem is when people hear 'arts education,' they think, 'I don't want my son to be some painter that's going to be hanging in some museum after he dies. I don't want my daughter to be a struggling artist making no money.' People don't realize it's more than that. It's beautiful. It brings beauty to our lives.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
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 -
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.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
I've sung a whole lot of jazz. It's my favorite style of music to sing. People don't realize it, because they're so accustomed to hearing me sing musical theater.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
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.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
I can't remember ever not singing.
Brian Stokes Mitchell
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Left to my own devices, I would go to bed at 2:30 or 3, but I can't do that if I'm getting up at 6:50!
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
When you have a community that's strong in the arts, it brings all sorts of attention and different businesses into the community.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
Artists make our lives livable and enjoyable.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
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.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
I studied film scoring and orchestration and conducting and arranging in my twenties, and I scored a lot of television shows and other things.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
I always call myself the luckiest actor in the world because I made a living solely as a performer from the time I left home at 17 years old.
Brian Stokes Mitchell
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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.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
I kind of feel the career chose me. My motto has always been, 'Go where I'm wanted.'
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
Astaire was ballroom, basically, and Gene Kelly had such athleticism - that's always what I responded to and what just blew my head open when I watched Gene Kelly's numbers. But, Fred Astaire was just so incredibly inventive and so, so smooth - so smooth.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
I didn't really think I liked jazz all that much until I was about 18. That's when the freedom and possibilities of it began to seem appealing to me.
Brian Stokes Mitchell