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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.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
Usually, I don't feel comfortable with a character until I've played him before an audience for several performances. It is not until after three months of performing that I learn to discover what I call 'all the nooks and crannies' of the person.
Brian Stokes Mitchell
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One of the best pieces of wisdom I ever got is you work because you work, meaning you work because you're saying yes to things, and you're connecting with people.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
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.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
It's nearly impossible to make a living in the arts.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
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.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
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.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
I don't recommend skipping college, but things have worked out for me.
Brian Stokes Mitchell
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I love rearranging and reimagining tunes, so I want my audience to enjoy hearing songs in a new way and make their own discoveries.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
I love being outside, and I love the fresh air.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
I hate those vacuous musicals, the happy-happy, 'Let's have a good time' shows.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
Through most of my life, music has been like a radio that plays and plays in my head.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
Fear is destructive. Fear and creativity don't mix. Ultimately, it doesn't do you any good.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
If you can make an audience laugh, you can make them love any character.
Brian Stokes Mitchell
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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.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
I love the theater, and I just don't love television like that.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
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.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
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.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
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.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
On Broadway, you are working with some incredible people, and they have great reasons for doing things the way they do.
Brian Stokes Mitchell
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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.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
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.'
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
At our house, we'd always open presents with our Christmas records playing. 'Little Drummer Boy' was one of my favorites when I was a kid because it was about a kid.
Brian Stokes Mitchell -
I always say it takes three weeks to know a character and three months to own it. And I think that's probably true of every theater artist. If you really want to see a performance of the show, wait three months.
Brian Stokes Mitchell