Theatre Quotes
For use in newsletters, season or fundraising brochures or emails, presentations--you name it.
Category | Quote | First | Last | Source |
---|---|---|---|---|
Playwriting |
Once after Barefoot In the Park had been playing for about a week I went back to see it, watching the audience, which was just falling over laughing except for one guy sitting the aisle. I was transfixed. I said to myself, there seems to be no way to get to him. No one else would I watch except this one man. My wife joined me about 20 minutes later and asked me how it was going, and I said, terrible. I really meant it. There was no way to get to this man. It destroyed me. |
Neil | Simon | Playwrights, Lyricists, Composers On Theater |
Acting |
Once in awhile, there's stuff that makes me say, That's what theatre's about. It has to be a human event on the stage, and that doesn't happen very often. |
Uta | Hagen | http://www.brainyquote.com |
Acting |
Once in awhile, there's stuff that makes me say, That's what theatre's about. It has to be a human event on the stage, and that doesn't happen very often. |
Uta | Hagen | |
Playwriting |
One begins with two people on a stage, and one of them had better say something pretty quick. |
Moss | Hart | The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips |
Acting |
One mustn't allow acting to be like stockbroker -- you must not take it just as a means of earning a living, to go down every day to do a job of work. The big thing is to combine punctuality, efficiency, good nature, obedience, intelligence, and concentration with an unawareness of what is going to happen next, thus keeping yourself available for excitement. |
John | Gielgud | |
Directing |
One of the issues peculiar to community theater is dealing with inexperienced or outright bad actors who are so unimaginative, so lacking in energy, that no matter what devices you use, you just don't seem to be helping them that much. They will improve. It is your rseponsibility that the actor should ever feel that he or she has failed. |
Ann | Jellicoe | Stage Directions Guide to Directing |
Acting |
One of the things about acting is it allows you to live other people's lives without having to pay the price. I've never been one of those actors who has touted myself as a fascinating human being. I had to decide early on whether I was to be an actor or a personality. |
Robert | De Niro | |
Acting |
Onstage, nothing is as important as truth, nothing. As soon as you lie, they know it. |
Elaine | Stritch | It Happened On Broadway |
Acting |
Onstage, you just have to tell the absolute truth about the character you are playing. You hope you communicate it, and you hope it comes back like a tennis ball. If you're listening to the sound of your own voice, nobody else is. The audience knows, and they freeze on you. |
Carol | Channing | It Happened On Broadway |
Acting, Directing, General |
Opening Night: The night before the play is ready to open. |
George Jean | Nathan | The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips |
Critics |
People have pointed out evidences of personal feeling in my notices as if they were accusing me of a misdemeanor, not knowing that criticism written without personal feeling is not worth reading. It is the capacity for making good or bad art a personal matter that makes a man a critic. |
George Bernard | Shaw | http://www.curtainup.com/quotepro.html |
Playwriting |
People often ask me how long it takes me to write a play, and I tell them 'all of my life.' |
Edward | Albee | http://www.curtainup.com/quotepro.html |
Backstage |
Perhaps, therefore, ideal stage managers not only need to be calm and meticulous professionals who know their craft, but masochists who feel pride in rising above impossible odds. |
Peter | Hall | |
Acting |
Play well, or play badly, but play truly. |
Konstantin | Stanislavsky | Friendly Advice by Jon Winokur |
Acting, Shakespeare |
Playing Shakespeare is very tiring. You never get to sit down, unless you're a king. |
Josephine | Hull | The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips |
Acting, Shakespeare |
Playing Shakespeare requires technique. You don't play a Bach toccata by getting in the mood. |
Kevin | Kline | The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips |
Playwriting |
Playwrights must be allowed to be at less than their best sometimes, without meeting an all-out critical assault. |
Peter | Hall | http://www.curtainup.com/quotepro.html |
Playwriting |
Playwriting isn't a calling so much as it is a hazing process. |
Paula | Vogel | The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips |
Acting |
Pray to God and say the lines. |
Bette | Davis | Friendly Advice by Jon Winokur |
Acting |
Preparing a character is the opposite of building--it is a demolishing, removing brick by brick everything in the actor's muscles, ideas and inhibitions that stands between him and the part, until one day, with a great rush of air, the character invades his every pore. |
Peter | Brook |