Theatre Quotes
For use in newsletters, season or fundraising brochures or emails, presentations--you name it.
| Category | Quote | First | Last |
Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Acting |
Never not dare to hang yourself. That's the only way you grow in your profession. You must continually attempt things that you think are beyond you, or you get into a complete rut. |
Charles | Laughton | Wikipedia (under Bette Davis) |
| 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 |
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 |
| Playwriting |
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 | Theatre Arts Mar 58 |
| General, Playwriting |
Good plays drive bad playgoers crazy. |
Brooks | Atkinson | Theatre Arts Aug 56 |
| Costumes, Set Design |
Be daring, be different, be impractical; be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary. Routines have their purposes, but the merely routine is the hidden enemy of high art. [Advice to theatrical designers,] |
Cecil | Beaton | The Secret of How to Startle Theatre Arts May 57 |
| Diversity & Inclusion, Playwriting |
There are so many ambiguous expectations of what a “Latino play” must do, and how it must represent its people, none of which match the reality of their lived experiences. But that’s what happens when people deal with “the Other”. They tend to want it to conform to preconceived notions, or to glamorize or exoticize it. I’m just interested in showing Latinos as people with the same capacities to succeed or fail in their lives like anyone else. |
Octavio | Solis |
The Rumpus Interview with Octavio Solis. February 1, 2013 [ https://therumpus.net/2013/02/01/the-rumpus-interview-with-octavio-solis/ ] |
| Acting, Directing |
You know what's the loudest noise in the world, man? The loudest noise in the world is silence. |
Thelonious | Monk | The Quotable Musician, from Bach to Tupac, by Sheila E. Anderson (Allworth Press) |
| General, Playwriting | All art is political in the sense that it serves someone's politics. | August | Wilson | The Paris Review (The Art of Theater No. 14) |
| Directing, Diversity & Inclusion, General, Management |
Diversity is key to creativity. Really, how much does it cost to talk and engage with people who don’t look and sound like you, or are a different age, gender or skin color, or to work with artists and organizations who operate in different spheres to the one in which you operate? |
Lyn | Gardner |
The Guardian Theatre Blog, Jan. 6, 2015 [ https://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2015/jan/06/diversity-crea... ] |
