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Theatre Quotes
Theatre Quotes
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- " Shakespeare's plays are bad enough, but yours are even worse. [Tolstoy to Chekov]"
- Leo Tolstoy
Source: Partial Payments: Essays on Writers and Their Lives, by Joseph Epstein
- " The thing that makes a creative person is to be creative and that is all there is to it."
- Edward Albee
Source: wisdomquotes.com/
- " When you're a young man, Macbeth is a character part. When you're older, it's a straight part."
- Laurence Olivier
Source: Theatre Arts May 58
- " The mission of the playwright is to look in his heart and write, to write whatever concerns him at the moment; to write with passion and conviction. Of course the measure of the man will be the measure of the play."
- Robert Anderson
Source: Theatre Arts Mar 58
- " Theater is, of course, a reflection of life. Maybe we have to improve life before we can hope to improve theater."
- William Inge
Source: Saturday Review 22 Feb 64
- " God comes to us in theater [in] the way we communicate with each other, whether it be a symphony orchestra, or a wonderful ballet, or a beautiful painting, or a play. It's a way of expressing our humanity."
- Julie Harris
Source: Christian Science Monitor 15 May 79
- " A play has two authors, the playwright and the actor."
- Eric Bentley
Source: In Search of Theater
- " Acting's entertainment. It's not brain surgery."
- Anthony Hopkins
Source: Hello! Special Edition, 9.6.01.
- " I think actors have a greater responsibility when doing comedy. It's as easy as anything to get cheap laughs, but that's not the idea at all. "The slight trip syndrome," we call it. With tragedy one can get away with things a bit more because audiences don't always know how to react."
- Peter Bowles
Source: Richmond Magazine, April 2001
- " A lot of the actresses who have had most impact in musicals have been character actresses. And character is an essential ingredient of the best shows. In Merrily We Roll Along, for instance, I got to play a character with such a marvellous span - from boozy, fat, cynical 45-year-old to an 18-year-old in love with life ... I'd rather see her [Dame Judi Dench] do a musical than anyone with 10 times the voice."
- Samantha Spiro
Source: London Sunday Times Culture Magazine, 25.3.01
- " I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people the greatest asset I possess, and the way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement."
- Charles Schwab
- " I think that the first thing that I learned about lighting design was that there are no real rules involved and that as long as I remembered this then my lighting would remain fresh and interesting to me and hopefully to the audience and to the people that I collaborate with."
- Jock Munro
Source: http://www.artsalive.ca
- " Theatre is interesting because it's a very collaborative process. Typically I'm working with a director, a set designer, a costume designer and a sound designer too. That means that there are a number of perspectives that are brought into any particular script. Typically the director has the final say in where we go conceptually with a piece but we all have an opportunity to influence that direction and typically that direction is based on the script. As such, my studies in english and philosophy have enriched my ability to take a look at a text and react to it in my own way so that I can bring to the table what I consider to be an informed perspective. Then we negotiate the project's process and it's always quite enriching. Projects basically come out of a bond of trust that you have created. As I have progressed throughout my career I have gravitated to people who I feel a common bond with; who I seem to be able to communicate with. We establish a trust and then we go about our project. Very often I will work with someone for three or four years and we will have a particularly creative time and then, for whatever reasons, we will go our separate ways and new bonds will be established. It's an extremely communal approach to the arts. [Lighting designer Jock Munro]"
- Jock Munro
Source: http://www.artsalive.ca
- " You ask my advice about acting? Speak clearly, don't bump into the furniture and if you must have motivation, think of your pay packet on Friday."
- Noel Coward
Source: www.musicals101.com/noelquot.htm
- " 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
Source: www.musicals101.com/noelquot.htm
- " It's no use to go and take courses in playwriting any more than it's much use taking courses in acting. Better play to a bad matinee in Hull - it will teach you much more than a year of careful instruction. Come to think of it, I never did play to a good matinee in Hull . . ."
- Noel Coward
Source: www.musicals101.com/noelquot.htm
- " Of course, the age-old tradition that a star must appear even if he or she is practically dying is an excellent one, but it can be carried too far. I one played a performance of The Knight of the Burning Pestle with a temperature of 103 and gave sixteen members of the company mumps, thereby closing the play and throwing everybody out of work. There may be a moral lurking somewhere in this, but I cannot for the life of me discover what it is."
- Noel Coward
Source: www.musicals101.com/noelquot.htm
- " In the first act, you get the audience's attention - once you have it, they will repay you in the second. Play through the laughs if you have to. It will only make the audience believe there are so many of them that they missed a few."
- Noel Coward
Source: www.musicals101.com/noelquot.htm
- " She stopped the show--but then the show wasn't traveling very fast."
- Noel Coward
Source: www.musicals101.com/noelquot.htm
- " Many years ago I remember a famous actress explaining to me with perfect seriousness that before making an entrance she always stood aside to allow God to go on first. I can also remember that on that particular occasion He gave a singularly uninspired performance."
- Noel Coward
Source: www.musicals101.com/noelquot.htm