Michael Arden Quotes

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.

- Michael Arden

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.

- Michael Arden

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.

- Michael Arden

If you've never heard a piece of Mozart, then Mozart could sound scary or confusing, so it's all about learning.

- Michael Arden

We don't ever realize how precious life is while we're living it.

- Michael Arden

At its core, 'Spring Awakening' is about the perils of miscommunication and what happens when people are denied a voice.

- Michael Arden

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.

- Michael Arden

Sometimes, disaster can inspire ingenuity.

- Michael Arden

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.

- Michael Arden

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.

- Michael Arden

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.

- Michael Arden

Helping to open up the conversation about inclusion and diversity in casting has been a dream come true.

- Michael Arden

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.

- Michael Arden

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.

- Michael Arden

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.

- Michael Arden

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.

- Michael Arden

I think all my favorite directors have acted. They understand how an actor thinks.

- Michael Arden

I love Disney.

- Michael Arden

I remember sitting at home in West Texas listening to my 'Songs for a New World' CD over and over.

- Michael Arden

I often think about what love can inspire in the world, not just in the eyes of the object of your affection.

- Michael Arden

I think Rafael Nadal is pretty spectacular. I have a feeling he might be part animal.

- Michael Arden

Magic in plays and musicals, I think, is more often created because of the work of an incredible company rather than a single component.

- Michael Arden

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.'

- Michael Arden

I had taken a directing class in high school. Looking back on it now, I think it was all heading that way.

- Michael Arden

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

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.

- Michael Arden

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.

- Michael Arden

I had a sort of rocky upbringing, and I think the theater was a safe place for me.

- Michael Arden

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.

- Michael Arden

My grandparents, Jim and Pat Moore, were an incredible couple. They drove me to the community theater, where I did plays as a kid.

- Michael Arden

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.

- Michael Arden

I read 'Huffington Post' as if I am a shareholder.

- Michael Arden

I was lucky enough to make my Broadway debut in 'Big River.'

- Michael Arden

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.

- Michael Arden

You can't ever go back; life is incredibly short and fragile.

- Michael Arden

I'm interested in people's relationship to objects, so I think a lot of my work is very tactile.

- Michael Arden

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.

- Michael Arden

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.

- Michael Arden

We learn the most from listening, and I don't just mean with our ears.

- Michael Arden

There is no distinction, no echelon of actors within a company. A company is only as strong as its weakest link.

- Michael Arden

Before working with Deaf West, I had never met a deaf person, and now I can't imagine life without ASL.

- Michael Arden

Every decision you make has a consequence.

- Michael Arden

A lot of times, comedy writers will go for the gay joke, and I've been vocal about saying, 'Go for the smart joke.'

- Michael Arden

Unless we build theater and performing arts, then we're not going to be creating future patrons. We need to make it accessible.

- Michael Arden