Theatre Quotes
For use in newsletters, season or fundraising brochures or emails, presentations--you name it.
Category | Quote | First | Last | Source |
---|---|---|---|---|
Acting, Directing |
The whole point about laughter is it's like mercury: you can't catch it, you can't catch what motivates it - that's why it's funny. |
Mike | Nichols | |
Fundraising |
You cannot expect people to give to you on an annual basis if they have never heard of your organization or are unaware of what you do in the community and why it is so important. As part of this annual giving plan, your board of directors (with staff help) needs to have a time of brainstorming so you can identify all your “target markets” i.e. those people with whom you need to establish a relationship. |
NonprofitExpert.com | http://www.nonprofitexpert.com/annualgiving.htm | |
General, Playwriting |
Theater is so critical because it has always been able to release people from their isolation... The theater is a communal event, church. The playwright constructs a mass to be performed for a lot of people. She writes a prayer, which is just the longings of one heart. |
Marsha | Norman | |
Acting |
Acting expresses a part of the self otherwise hidden to the conscious mind. |
Lisa M. | O'Neill | |
Acting |
I have no intention of uttering my last words on the stage. Room service and a couple of depraved young women will do me quite nicely for an exit. |
Peter | O'Toole | |
Acting |
Have a very good reason for everything you do. |
Laurence | Olivier | Friendly Advice by Jon Winokur |
Acting |
Use your weaknesses; aspire to the strength. |
Laurence | Olivier | Friendly Advice by Jon Winokur |
Acting |
Lead the audience by the nose to the thought. |
Laurence | Olivier | Friendly Advice by Jon Winokur |
Acting |
I have to act to live. |
Laurence | Olivier | http://theatre.usc.edu/whatistheatre |
Acting |
What is the main problem of the actor? It is to keep the audience awake, and not let them go to sleep, then wake up and go home feeling they've wasted their money. |
Laurence | Olivier | |
Acting |
When you're a young man, Macbeth is a character part. When you're older, it's a straight part. |
Laurence | Olivier | Theatre Arts May 58 |
Acting |
Acting is an everlasting search for truth. |
Laurence | Olivier | http://www.curtainup.com/quotepro.html |
Critics |
Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs. |
John | Osborne | Time, 31 October 1977 |
Acting |
My playground was the theatre. I'd sit and watch my mother pretend for a living. As a young girl, that's pretty seductive. |
Gwyneth | Paltrow | http://www.worldofquotes.com |
General |
Although one may fail to find happiness in theatrical life, one never wishes to give it up after having once tasted its fruits. |
Anna | Pavlova | |
Set Design |
I've always tended to work with the set as another character in the play. |
George | Pinney | http://www.iu.edu/~rcapub/v29n1/sets.shtml |
Playwriting |
The more acute the experience, the less articulate its expression. |
Harold | Pinter | The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips |
Playwriting |
As a writer you're holding a dog. You let the dog run about. But you finally can pull him back. Finally, I'm in control. But the great excitement is to see what happens if you let the whole thing go. And the dog or the character really runs about, bites everyone in sight, jumps up trees, falls into lakes, gets wet, and you let that happen. That's the excitement of writing plays--to allow the thing to be free but still hold the final leash. |
Harold | Pinter | http://www.curtainup.com/quotepro.html |
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 |
Costumes, Set Design |
I think the best shows are always the ones where the elements come together very well and where the intention is realized. These are the shows in which what you set out do is what you end up with. Through very fortunate circumstances, like the combination of a good director, a good cast, and other people designing, you all manage to end up at the point that you intended when you started out. Nothing is ever perfect and there are always things that you'd perhaps do differently but I think that as long as you get a sense of fulfillment from a show then it is going to be a good experiences. [Christina Poddubiuk, Set and Costume designer] |
Christina | Poddubiuk | http://www.artsalive.ca |
Acting |
Act well your part; there all the honor lies. |
Alexander | Pope | Essay on Man, Epistle iv, line 193 |
Shakespeare |
Brush up your Shakespeare |
Cole | Porter | Kiss Me, Kate (musical) |
General |
It hath evermore been the notorious badge of prostituted Strumpets and the lewdest Harlots, to ramble abroad to Plays, to Playhouses; whither no honest, chaste or sober Girls or Women, but only branded Whores and infamous Adulteresses, did usually resort in ancient times. |
William | Prynne | http://izquotes.com/ |
Acting |
Having talent is like having blue eyes. You don't admire a man for the colour of his eyes. I admire a man for what he does with his talent. |
Anthony | Quinn | Sunday Express, 1960 |
Playwriting |
A novelist may lose his readers for a few pages; a playwright never dares lose his audience for a minute. |
Terence | Rattigan | |
Acting |
A lot of what acting is paying attention. |
Robert | Redford | |
Acting |
Acting is not being emotional, but being able to express emotion. |
Kate | Reid | http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/acting |
Musical Theatre |
In musical theater you have to be very big and very animated, while film and television are more toned down. |
Kevin | Richardson | http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/k/kevinricha292397.html |
Acting |
The most precious things in speech are pauses. |
Ralph | Richardson | The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips |
Acting |
Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing. |
Ralph | Richardson | http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/acting |
Acting |
Acting is mostly about listening. If you just focus in on what the other person is saying, acting takes care of itself to quite a large extent. |
Alan | Rickman | http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alanrickma251358.html |
Acting |
Acting touches nerves you have absolutely no control over. |
Alan | Rickman | http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alanrickma251360.html |
Directing |
Directing takes such a big lump out of your life. |
Alan | Rickman | http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alanrickma251372.html |
Management |
What constitutes a good manager in this field? He must be knowledgeable in the art with which he is concerned, an impresario, labor negotiator, diplomat, educator, publicity and public relations expert, politician, skilled businessman, a social sophisticate, a servant of the community, a tireless leader -- becomingly humble before authority -- a teacher, a tyrant, and a continuing student of the arts. |
Rockefeller Panel Report | Rockefeller Panel Report: The Performing Arts | |
Acting |
When actors go onstage, you know immediately if they can do their job. You can be a lawyer or an accountant for years and not find out. |
Patsy | Rodenburg | The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips |
General, Musical Theatre |
There is a traditional trick that theatre people have played as long as I can remember. A veteran member of a company will order a gullible newcomer to find the key to the curtain. Naturally, the joke is there is no such thing. I have been in the theatre over fifty years, and I don't think anyone would consider me naive, but all my life I've been searching for that key. And I'm still looking. . . . |
Richard | Rodgers | Musical Stages |
General |
The theatre, like the fresco, is art fitted to its place. And therefore it is above all else the human art, the living art. |
Roman | Rolland | http://www.wisdomportal.com/Quotes |
General |
The world is a complicated place, and there's a lot of division between people. The performing arts tend to unify people in a way nothing else does. |
David | Rubenstein | |
Acting |
Acting is standing up naked and turning around very slowly. |
Rosalind | Russell | The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips |
Fundraising |
Fundraising is the gentle art of teaching the joy of giving. |
Hank | Russo |