Theatre Quotes
For use in newsletters, season or fundraising brochures or emails, presentations--you name it.
Category | Quote | First | Last | Source |
---|---|---|---|---|
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 |
Playwriting |
The structure of a play is always the story of how the birds came home to roost. |
Arthur | Miller | http://www.satheatre.com/quotes.htm |
Acting |
I do not regret one professional enemy I have made. Any actor who doesn't dare to make an enemy should get out of the business. |
Bette | Davis | http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/acting |
Acting |
Acting is not being emotional, but being able to express emotion. |
Kate | Reid | http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/acting |
Acting |
Acting is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four. |
Katherine | Hepburn | http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/acting |
Acting |
I love acting. It is so much more real than life. |
Oscar | Wilde | http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/acting |
Acting |
Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing. |
Ralph | Richardson | http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/acting |
Playwriting |
White male playwrights' works continue to dominate production slates. Sometimes it seems easier for them to have the texts of their driver's licenses produced than for the female or non-white playwright to have her best play produced. The reality is, they are more often given that all-important opportunity to fail than the women's play or ethnic play. |
Velina Hasu | Houston | http://www.pubinfo.vcu.edu/artweb/playwriting/quotes.html |
Playwriting |
Before I write down one word, I have to have the character in my mind through and through. I must penetrate into the last wrinkle of his soul. |
Henrik | Ibsen | http://www.notable-quotes.com/p/playwriting_quotes.html |
Playwriting |
I can't expose a human weakness on the stage unless I know it through having it myself. |
Tennessee | Williams | http://www.notable-quotes.com/p/playwriting_quotes.html |
Playwriting |
When I first started writing plays I couldn't write good dialogue because I didn't respect how black people talked. I thought that in order to make art out of their dialogue I had to change it, make it into something different. Once I learned to value and respect my characters, I could really hear them. I let them start talking. |
August | Wilson | http://www.notable-quotes.com/p/playwriting_quotes.html |
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 | |
Acting |
You ask my advice about acting? Speak clearly, don't bump into the furniture and if you must have motivation, think of your pay packet on Friday. |
Noel | Coward | www.musicals101.com/noelquot.htm |
Acting |
I will accept anything in the theatre . . . provided it amuses or moves me. But if it does neither, I want to go home. |
Noel | Coward | www.musicals101.com/noelquot.htm |
Playwriting |
It's no use to go and take courses in playwriting any more than it's much use taking courses in acting. Better play to a bad matinee in Hull - it will teach you much more than a year of careful instruction. Come to think of it, I never did play to a good matinee in Hull . . . |
Noel | Coward | www.musicals101.com/noelquot.htm |
Acting |
Of course, the age-old tradition that a star must appear even if he or she is practically dying is an excellent one, but it can be carried too far. I one played a performance of The Knight of the Burning Pestle with a temperature of 103 and gave sixteen members of the company mumps, thereby closing the play and throwing everybody out of work. There may be a moral lurking somewhere in this, but I cannot for the life of me discover what it is. |
Noel | Coward | www.musicals101.com/noelquot.htm |
Acting |
In the first act, you get the audience's attention - once you have it, they will repay you in the second. Play through the laughs if you have to. It will only make the audience believe there are so many of them that they missed a few. |
Noel | Coward | www.musicals101.com/noelquot.htm |
Acting |
She stopped the show--but then the show wasn't traveling very fast. |
Noel | Coward | www.musicals101.com/noelquot.htm |
Acting |
Many years ago I remember a famous actress explaining to me with perfect seriousness that before making an entrance she always stood aside to allow God to go on first. I can also remember that on that particular occasion He gave a singularly uninspired performance. |
Noel | Coward | www.musicals101.com/noelquot.htm |
General |
The theatre should be treated with respect. The theatre is a wonderful place, a house of strange enchantment, a temple of illusion. What it most emphatically is not and never will be is a scruffy, ill-lit, fumed-oak drill hall serving as a temporary soap box for political propaganda. |
Noel | Coward | www.musicals101.com/noelquot.htm |
Critics |
I have always been very fond of them . . . I think it is so frightfully clever of them to go night after night to the theatre and know so little about it. |
Noel | Coward | www.musicals101.com/noelquot.htm |
Fundraising |
Fundraising is the gentle art of teaching the joy of giving. |
Hank | Russo | |
Fundraising |
Donors don't give to institutions. They invest in ideas and people in whom they believe. |
G.T. | Smith | http://www.museummarketingtips.com/quotes/giving.html |
Fundraising |
In good times and bad, we know that people give because you meet needs, not because you have needs. |
Kay | Grace | http://www.museummarketingtips.com/quotes/giving.html |
Fundraising |
Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough. |
Oprah | Winfrey | http://www.museummarketingtips.com/quotes/giving.html |
Fundraising |
The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated. |
William | James | http://www.museummarketingtips.com/quotes/giving.html |
Fundraising |
Appreciation can make a day--even change a life, Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary. |
Margaret | Cousins | http://www.museummarketingtips.com/quotes/giving.html |
Lighting |
The lighting designer will never stop learning. Every production or project will present new challenges, new obstacles, new human dynamics and new problems to solve. There can and should be many failures along the way. This is part of the artistic process. The lighting designer shouldn't hesitate to make as many mistakes as possible - just don't make the same mistake twice. |
Bill | Williams | http://www.mts.net/%7Ewilliam5/sld/sld-100.htm |
Lighting |
Stage lighting is no longer a matter of simple illumination as it was less than 100 years ago. Today, the lighting designer is expected to be a master of art, science, history, psychology, communications, politics, and sometimes even mind reading. |
Bill | Williams | http://www.mts.net/%7Ewilliam5/sld/sld-100.htm |
Lighting |
The stage designer quickly learns that things are not always what they appear to be. A director who asks for 'more light' on an actor, probably doesn't mean that at all. Instead he really just wants 'to see the actor better'. The designer might chose to reduce the lighting contrast around the actor, or simply ask the actor to tip his head up a bit. Both solutions solve the problem without 'adding more light'. So the lighting designer also has to be a good listener, a careful interpreter and a skilled crafts person. |
Bill | Williams | http://www.mts.net/%7Ewilliam5/sld/sld-100.htm |
Lighting |
Stage lighting is no longer a matter of simple illumination as it was less than 100 years ago. Today, the lighting designer is expected to be a master of art, science, history, psychology, communications, politics and sometimes even mind reading. |
Bill | Williams | http://www.mts.net/%7Ewilliam5/sld/sld-100.htm |
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 |
Acting, Shakespeare |
In Shakespeare, keep it simple. Don't over-inflect. The speech needs to be naturalistic and simple and accessible as much as possible. |
Ralph | Fiennes | http://www.ifc.com/fix/2011/12/ralph-fiennes-coriolanus-interview |
General |
Theatre is like a virus: once you get it you can't get rid of it. |
Robin | Boisseau | http://www.hamptonu.edu/academics/schools/libarts/fparts/facultyandstaff.htm |
Acting |
Young actors, fear your admirers! Learn in time, from your first steps, to hear, understand and love the cruel truth about yourselves. Find out who can tell you that truth and talk of your art only with those who can tell you the truth. |
Konstantin | Stanislavsky | http://www.giga-usa.com/quotes/topics/acting_t004.htm |
Acting |
A fool cannot be an actor, though an actor may act a fool's part. |
Sophocles | http://www.giga-usa.com/quotes/topics/acting_t003.htm | |
Set Design |
A ground plan is important in terms of its rigor. If your plan is soggy and weak, your production will be soggy and weak. |
David | Hays | http://www.emerson.edu/emersontoday/index.cfm?action=3&articleID=678&editionID=45 |
Backstage, Lighting, Set Design |
If I wanted to have people tell me what to do, I would have become an actor. |
Rob | Hudd | http://www.denagy.com/techiejokes/tjokes.html |
Backstage |
If we could read minds, we wouldn't need headsets. |
Tommy | Kendrick | http://www.denagy.com/techiejokes/tjokes.html |
Acting, Backstage, Directing |
An actor without techies is a naked person standing in the dark trying to emote. A techie without actors is a person with marketable skills. |
Mark | Leslie | http://www.denagy.com/techiejokes/tjokes.html |