Theatre Quotes
For use in newsletters, season or fundraising brochures or emails, presentations--you name it.
| Category | Quote |
First |
Last | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Acting, Directing |
All action in theatre must have inner justification, be logical, coherent, and real. |
Constantin | Stanislavski | |
| Shakespeare |
Brush up your Shakespeare |
Cole | Porter | Kiss Me, Kate (musical) |
| General |
I don't see why people want new plays all the time. What would happen to concerts if people wanted new music all the time? |
Clive | Barnes | |
| Acting |
A good actor makes clear the meaning of the words. A better actor gives also the emotion of the part. The best actor adds emotion of which the character is unconscious. |
Clare | Eames | The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips |
| Playwriting |
In my plays I want to look at life -- at the commonplace of existence -- as if we had just turned a corner and run into it for the first time. |
Christopher | Fry | http://www.satheatre.com/quotes.htm |
| Set Design |
I want everyone to feel as much as possible as if they inhabit the same space. They more fluid the relationship between actor and audience, the better. |
Christine | Jones | http://www.amrep.org/articles/5_2b/creating.html |
| Set Design |
I have a large personal collection of pictures. For every project, I choose images. Usually I don't do this until I've done an extensive script breakdown and distilled the text down to poetic form. I have to plant enough seeds so that there will be vibration. |
Christine | Jones | http://www.amrep.org/articles/5_2b/creating.html |
| Set Design |
If I weren't a theatre designer, I wouldn't be any other kind of designer. Design is interesting to me as it relates to narrative: the design has to support the narrative. Storytelling is the most important thing. |
Christine | Jones | http://www.amrep.org/articles/5_2b/creating.html |
| Acting |
As an actor, you can't play the tragedy. You can only play the choices, the intentions of your character. |
Christine | Andreas | Notes for CD "The Garland Variations" |
| Costumes |
If you do a certain amount of work on your own before consulting with the director then the process starts with the script. I tend to do a certain amount of my own work before I go into a first meeting. It is important to be open minded in your first meeting with a director but I like to be well-prepared for that meeting because sometimes that time with your director can be limited. At the time of that first meeting, I will have read the play several times and from different points of view. I might read the play once to just check how many costume changes there are. I will read it again to make a prop list. I will read it again to analyse where the entrances and exits are and also to imagine where the furniture will be. It's difficult to concentrate on all of these things in one reading so I go through these processes in separate readings. Once you have that under your belt, depending on the period of the production, I guess I start to do visual research based on my response to the text. Depending on where and when I might choose to look at photography of the period or I might choose to look at painting or I might just look at history books and look for thematic influences. That's the start and having done that you team up with your director and see what their response is to those ideas you have and then you start to form a stronger direction. [Christina Poddubiuk, Set and Costume designer] |
Christina | Poddubiuk | http://www.artsalive.ca |
