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.

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.

There are some projects where you have to just start doing it, and, after a while, the show starts telling you what it wants to be. You put your spirit in and, after a while, something bigger takes over, and it turns out to be much more fun and creative than what it was at the beginning.

One of the interesting things an artist does is they keep rediscovering things, whether it's a jazz piece or a role you've done for 3,000 performances or a song you're singing for the 3,000th time. My job is to find that spark that keeps it fresh and alive.

The older I get, I realize, 'Man, I'm a very rare bird,' and that's not because of necessarily my talent or ability; it so much depends on luck and just the grace of the universe.