Harvey Fierstein
Harvey Fierstein
Harvey Forbes Fierstein is an American actor, playwright, and voice actor. Fierstein has won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his own play Torch Song Trilogyand the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for playing Edna Turnblad in Hairspray. He also wrote the book for the musical La Cage aux Folles, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical, and wrote the book for the Tony Award-winning Kinky Boots...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionStage Actor
Date of Birth6 June 1954
CityBrooklyn, NY
CountryUnited States of America
My play Safe Sex was picked apart because critics thought it was untrue. It was a play in which no one had AIDS, but the characters talked about how it was going to change their lives.
But actually just yesterday we raised the key of one of my songs two steps up, so my voice is obviously responding. It's a muscle, and the more you use it, the more you use it right, the more you should get out of it. So yes, I sing.
I actually may do a musical next year... not one that I've written; one that I may star in. Plus my concert and other people's work and all of a sudden you've got a very full life.
I got the regular call, that they were doing a Broadway musical of Hairspray, and would I come and audition. I was familiar with the movie, because at the time it came out my lover wrote for Premiere magazine, and we had to see everything.
I have a lot of faith in President Obama. The thing that seems to be true of him is that he doesn't speak when you would expect him to speak. He's very measured in his response to things. He likes to get all the facts first before he shoots his mouth off. It makes me crazy; it makes a lot of people crazy.
I have the world's worst taste in men, so now I simply have wonderful relationships of the friend kind, but trying to settle down with somebody? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm beyond that.
I have to work really hard, eight shows a week, to get a nice check as an actor. But when I write a play, and it's a - knock wood - hit, the checks come in for many years.
I often say that if you want to really want to understand the contract of marriage, just ask anyone who has been divorced. The marriage contract is one of property rights. Or maybe you can look in the Bible to see what Adam had to say about divorce, since Eve was his second wife.
I was exposed to a mix of cultures, lots of different religions and beliefs. I was a spiritual kid and went to Indian powwows and Buddhist temples. But over a period of time, with reading and thinking, I started to feel it was all so absurd: The whole idea of life after death is ridiculous.
I'm sure there's going to be some material from This Is Not Going To Be Pretty. I usually use that song to just introduce myself to the audience, although the patter in between the song is always different.
But I'm not adverse to the idea of Torch Song as a musical. It would just be different. Because the play will always be there exactly as it was, and in a musical you could tell a lot of the story through songs.
When I write stuff and I help cast it, I turn away good people all the time. I may turn them down because this one's too tall and that one doesn't have a high enough voice or this one looks to old to match up with that one - there's a billion reasons not to hire somebody.
It's a wonderful world. You can't go backwards. You're always moving forward. It's the wonderful part about life. And that's terrific.
Political movements always belong to the young.