Broadway! Broad-way! I don’t aspire to the middle. I aspire to the tip-tip-top of it all. Billy Porter Read Quote
I’m trying to embrace social media because it gives artists a little more power than we’ve had in the past. Billy Porter Read Quote
When I had a record deal in the ’90s, that was my dream – to make an album like Barbra Streisand’s Broadway album – and they laughed me out of the room. Broadway wasn’t cool. But artists like Michael Buble and Josh Groban have brought the classic genre back to the forefront, so I’m trying to find my way inside that market. Billy Porter Read Quote
When I was younger, I did what I now call ‘extreme singing.’ I could do this thing where I would sing really high. I can’t really do that anymore, at my age. My voice has shifted. It’s changed. Billy Porter Read Quote
I was so beat down as a young person – being black, being gay, being unable to assimilate because I could never, ever pull off being butch. Billy Porter Read Quote
I grew up when one of America’s greatest black playwrights, August Wilson, was writing about life in Pittsburgh, but I never saw myself in any of his straight-male plays. And then I see ‘Angels,’ which was so honest and painful, and it had this black drag queen in it, Belize, with a big heart. I finally had a character to relate to. Billy Porter Read Quote
I took ‘Grease’ to play my trump card, my voice, and get attention that would lead to auditions for serious work like ‘Angels in America.’ But I backed myself into a corner with ‘Grease,’ and it took me 17 years to get out. Billy Porter Read Quote
I want to do work that means something to me so that when I go to work at the theater eight times a week, I want to be there. Billy Porter Read Quote
My truth is I am gay and out, and if I can’t do that in my music, then I don’t need it. Fortunately, I do feel like there is a movement against homophobia, and I hope to be part of that. Billy Porter Read Quote
When you grow up in the church, the only translation in that insular world that people understand is preaching. You’re supposed to be a minister. So I was going down that path, and then I saw the Tonys. Billy Porter Read Quote
