Theatre Quotes

My process is that I will read the play a couple of times and then not do anything until I've spoken with the director, because, of course, there are 500 different ways a play can look--and still honor every word that's in those stage directions. I don't want to think about how it works until I know what the director is interested in, and if the playwright is around, what they're thinking about as they've written it. Then I go away and do my research.

Don't think you're funny. It'll never work if you think you're funny.

We've put a man on the moon. If you miss a cue, no one will die.

The theatre was created to tell people the truth about life and the social situation.

Don't use your conscious past, use your creative imagination to create a past that belongs to your character. I don't want you to be stuck with your own life. It's too little.

The word theatre comes from the Greeks. It means the seeing place. It is the place people come to see the truth about life and the social situation.

People often ask me how long it takes me to write a play, and I tell them 'all of my life.'

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.

I don't make mistakes, I have unintentional improvisations.