Theatre Quotes

Acting touches nerves you have absolutely no control over.

Coughing in the theater is not a respiratory ailment. It is a criticism.

Much of the day I have busied myself making notes on the small parts in Shakespeare, often nameless, which are rewarding to the actor if only he'll not dismiss them as beneath his dignity. If I can work it up into a talk I might call it, 'Only a cough and a spit ' ---the phrase so often used by actors to explain away a lack of opportunity.

Act well your part; there all the honor lies.

The virtue of dress rehearsals is that they are a free show for a select group of artists and friends of the author, and where for one unique evening the audience is almost expurgated of idiots.

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.

Lighting paperwork is a living thing, continually evolving throughout the production process until opening night.

Acting's entertainment. It's not brain surgery.

If there is a gun hanging on the wall in the first act, it must fire in the last.