Theatre Quotes
For use in newsletters, season or fundraising brochures or emails, presentations--you name it.
Category |
Quote![]() |
First | Last | Source |
---|---|---|---|---|
Acting, Playwriting |
A play has two authors, the playwright and the actor. |
Eric | Bentley | In Search of Theater |
Costumes, Lighting, Set Design |
A play is a painting that moves. Instead of it holding still, and you are looking at it, you hold still and it scrolls by. |
Patricia | Zipprodt | The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips |
A play is a series of actions. A play is not about action, nor does it describe action. Is a fire about flames? Does it describe flames? No, a fire is flames. A play is action. Why do you think actors are called actors? And action in a play occurs when something happens that makes or permits something else to happen. |
David | Ball | Backwards & Forwards: A Technical Manual for Reading Plays | |
Playwriting |
A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage. |
Edward | Albee | http://www.curtainup.com/quotepro.html |
Playwriting |
A playwright is the litmus paper of the arts. He's got to be, because if he isn't working on the same wave length as the audience, no one would know what in hell he was talking about. He is a kind of psychic journalist, even when he's great. |
Arthur | Miller | |
Set Design |
A stage set should not make a pretty picture of its own. The empty stage should look formal and pleasing, but should seem to be waiting for the action to complete it; it should not hold definite significance in itself. |
G. Wilson | Knight | The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips |
Management |
A statement of vision is the overarching purpose, the big dream, the visionary concept--something presently out of reach--so stated that it excites the imagination and chlalenges people to work for something they do not yet know how to do. |
Robert | Greenleaf | Servant Leadership |
Playwriting |
A talent for drama is not a talent for writing, but is an ability to articulate human relationships. |
Gore | Vidal | http://theatre.usc.edu/whatistheatre |
Acting |
Act in your pauses. |
Ellen | Terry | Friendly Advice by Jon Winokur |
Acting |
Act well your part; there all the honor lies. |
Alexander | Pope | Essay on Man, Epistle iv, line 193 |