Chita Rivera is our strongest link to the Golden Age of the American musical, ... She worked with all the great choreographers and composers and was present for the creation of such seminal masterpieces.

250

[McNally's inspiration for the play came from the Manhattan Theatre Club who asked the playwright for a new work to mark the re-opening of the Biltmore Theatre, which had been derelict for 16 years.] It was so terrible a place, ... that people shuddered as they passed it. It's a miracle that it was left standing.

218

It was a time of oppression and you spoke up -- and we won. Without you, I wouldn't be standing up here either.

181

The New York theater community is a place I know my way around in with some certainty.

181

I said if they wanted to keep the British setting in Northern England, then I will bow out, because that's not my lingo.

150

My first play was written when I was 23, and I'm 66 now, so that's 43 years of doing this where I sort of know where everything is. It doesn't mean I do everything right, but I know where everything is. Here, I'm very much a visitor. New York is my turf and I'm used to working with my actors.

140