Sally Field, Best Actress nominee for The Glass Menagerie: Of her preparation for her role: “I was the one constantly going ‘What?!’ ‘That didn’t make sense!’ There was a whittling down, a letting-go.” On still working: “To have a longtime career as an actor, you have to want it more than you ever thought you’d want it.” On how she became an actress. It started at age 12. The stage freed her. “When I was off stage I was all things little girls had to be in the 50s. I had to put it all back in the box.”

Patti Lupone and Christine Ebersole, War Paint, each nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in Leading Role in a Musical

Laura Linney, Richard Thomas, Cynthia Nixon, The Little Foxes, respectively nominated for lead actress, featured actor, featured actress in a play.

Danny DeVito, The Price, best actor in a featured role in a play

Playwright Paula Vogel and director Rebecca Taichman of Indecent. Paula Vogel: “Per inch on stage, there’s so much love. Rebecca came to me with this amazing gift. ‘Do you know this play?’ We had both read the play in our twenties, 20 years apart… Taichman: “My idea was just 1923. Paul thought out this epic masterpiece.” Vogel: “She turned over to me boxes of her research. I did draft after draft. The woman is an extraordinary editor. .When Rebecca goes ‘Oh that’s good,’ you go back to your room and stay up all night to make it better..There are these mythic collaborations you read about in the American theater..It’s very hard to tell where one voice ends and the other begins…I don’t think it comes along very often that you share a sensibility like this. We’re starting to get to the pitch” of another collaboration.

A Doll’s House, Part 2. All four cast members have been nominated. Pictured here Chris Cooper, Laurie Metcalf and Jayne Houdyshell. Laurie Metcalf: I was thrilled at the audacity of the title of the play… There’s a balance of all four characters. They’re all right, and they’re all wrong.

Lucas Hnath, playwright of A Doll’s House, Part 2 I started by writing down the title, which made me laugh. Then I read a really bad translation online. The first draft was so much like an Ibsen play, it felt like a tribute band. The characters are not like the Helmer family. It’s a little more abstract.

Condola Rashad, Chris Cooper, A Doll’s House, Part 2. Asked when she knew she wanted to be an actress, she told the story of sneaking out on stage during a long blackout in one of her mother Phylicia Rashad’s plays. “They couldn’t see me, but I could see them.”

Jayne Houdyshell, A Doll’s House Part 2, best actress in a featured role in a play.

Josh Groban, Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, best actor in a leading role. See video below.

Denee Benton, Great Comet, best performance by an actress in a leading role in a musical. “It’s really special, but I’m always exhausted.”

Dave Malloy, Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812. “My parents forced me to take piano lessons — and thank God they did.”

Rachel Chavkin, Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, best direction of a musical. Asked if she preferred sing-through musicals — which is what Great Comet and her Off-Broadway musical Hadestown are, she said: “You don’t have to deal with strange jump from speaking to singing. Living inside that score, it’s wonderful we don’t have to break its bones.”

Brandon Uranowitz, Falsettos

Ben Platt, Dear Evan Hanse, Best Actor in a Leading Role “To see how young people connect to this is why we’re doing it.”

Rachel Bay Jones, Dear Evan Hansen, Best Performance by an Actress in a Feature Role in a Musical

Mike Faist, Dear Evan Hansen, Best Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical. “All I can ask for as an actor is to get to play complicated wonderful characters.” How he got started acting: “I didn’t have many friends. I was always acting out roles from movies. Luckily, my parents, instead of putting me on ritalin, encouraged me… Every step of the way, when I didn’t think I could do it, they proved me wrong.”

Alex Lacamoire, Dear Evan Hansen, best orchestrations. “What I learned in Hamilton, I used in Dear Evan Hansen…As an orchestrator, you work on the page. It’s a solitary art form. It’s not until the moment you hear the band play that you know whether it works.”

Randy Adams, Sue Frost, actress Jen Collela, choreographer Kelly Devine, original score and book writers Irene Sankoff and David Hein, director Christopher Ashley. Hein: We wanted to tell a 9/12 story about the people in Newfoundland we fell in love with

Eva Noblezada, Miss Saigon. Best performance by an actress in a leading role in a musical. “I still haven’t gotten over that I’m on Broadway…Lea Salonga told me to enjoy the ride.”