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Theatre Quotes
Theatre Quotes
How to Search
- To browse quotes by category, leave the Search box empty and choose a category, then click the "Search" button.
- To find a quote with a specific word, enter a single word in the Search box, then click the "Search" button.
- To find a quote by a specific person, enter their name in the Search box, then click the "Search" button. Tip: Searching by using only the person's last name usually works best.
- " Like the Bible, Stanislavsky's basic texts on acting can be quoted to any purpose."
- Lee Strasberg
Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips
- " Playing Shakespeare requires technique. You don't play a Bach toccata by getting in the mood."
- Kevin Kline
Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips
- " Playing Shakespeare is very tiring. You never get to sit down, unless you're a king."
- Josephine Hull
Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips
- " Being another character is more interesting than being yourself."
- John Gielgud
Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips
- " There are no small parts, there are only small actors."
- Konstantin Stanislavksy
Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips
- " It is widely acknowledged to be the toughest job to get any two acting teachers to agree about anything."
- Robert Lewis
Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips
- " The most important thing you can teach actors is to understand plays."
- Stella Adler
Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips
- " The sole aim of the arts of scene-designing, costuming, lighting, is to enhance the natural powers of the actor."
- Robert Edmond Jones
Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips
- " The truth is that the spectators are always in their senses, and know, from the first act to the last, that the stage is only a stage, and that the players are only players."
- Samuel Johnson
Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips
- " The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance."
- Aristotle
Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips
- " You can't make theater happen without actors. The actor is the central ingredient in making theater happen. Audiences may come to theaters to see the work of stage managers, directors and producers, but the only people who can communicate theater magic to audiences, through ideas and emotions, are the actors. They are the only ones who can communicate this by themselves, and if necessary, they can get along without you. But you can't make theater without the actor."
- Lawrence Stern
Source: Stage Management
- " The director is responsible for interpreting the playwright's work through the cast with the help of the staff. It is the director's artistic concept of the play that the cast, staff, and crew work to obtain."
- Lawrence Stern
Source: Stage Management
- " An interesting difference between new and experienced stage managers is that the new stage manager thinks of running the show as the most difficult and most demanding part of the job, whereas the experienced stage manager thinks of it as the most relaxing part. Perhaps the reason is that experienced stage managers have built up work habits that make then so thoroughly prepared for the production phase that they [can] sit back during performances to watch that preparation pay off."
- Lawrence Stern
Source: Stage Management
- " Festivals promote the improvement of theater. They give theater people the opportunity to meet, to present their dramatic skills and see what their fellow theater workers are doing (and how well). They offer opportunities for exchange of ideas, competition, and social contact. Participants get a chance to go on the road, to play in an unfamiliar environment. They have an opportunity to evaluate themselves by the reactions of judges and a new audience. Participants may also measure themselves by comparison to the other groups entered. Festivals often result in joyful, stimulating, exciting, and rewarding experiences."
- Lawrence Stern
Source: Stage Management
- " I have to act to live."
- Laurence Olivier
- " I will accept anything in the theatre . . . provided it amuses or moves me. But if it does neither, I want to go home."
- Noel Coward
- " The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means. [A take-off on Oscar Wilde's "The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means."]"
- Tom Stoppard
- " The play was a great success, but the audience was a disaster."
- Oscar Wilde
- " A novelist may lose his readers for a few pages; a playwright never dares lose his audience for a minute."
- Terence Rattigan
Source: http://theatre.usc.edu/whatistheatre
- " A talent for drama is not a talent for writing, but is an ability to articulate human relationships."
- Gore Vidal