Theatre Quotes

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

What is Diversity in simple words?
Diversity is about a rich mix of differences. It encompasses all the dimensions that make each person one of a kind, including ethnicity, race, age, style, gender, personality, beliefs, experiences, sexual orientation and more. Psychological, physical, and social differences that occur among all individuals. A diverse group, community, or organization is one in which a variety of social and cultural characteristics exist

What is Equity in simple words?
Equity levels the playing field. The guarantee of fair treatment, access, opportunity, and advancement for all, while striving to identify and eliminate barriers that have prevented full participation of some groups. Tackling equity issues requires an understanding of the root causes of outcome disparities within our society. Equity is the process of ensuring that processes and programs are impartial, fair and provide equal possible outcomes for every individual. Equity is promoting justice, impartiality and fairness within the procedures, processes, and distribution of resources by institutions or systems. Promoting equality should remove discrimination in all of the aforementioned areas. Bullying, harassment or victimization are also considered as equality and diversity issues.

Diversity vs Inclusion
Diversity doesn’t contradict Inclusion. The extraordinary happens at the intersection of inclusion and diversity. When we come together, the power of each one of us is magnified. By including and appreciating diverse perspectives and backgrounds, we create a stronger commitment, more innovative solutions and better results.

The two happiest days in a theatre person's life: The day you start on a new show and the day the thing closes.

The only way to see the value of a play is to see it acted.

Every performer has moments of self doubt. The great ones, however,overcome every obstacle to reach their full artistic potential. It takes talent, to be sure, but it also takes a personality that simply will not settle for second best. That's what makes us respect the effort and admire the results.

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.

As nearly everyone knows, a manager has practically nothing to do except to decide what is to be done; to tell somebody to do it; to listen to reasons why it should not be done, why it should be done by someone else, or why it should be done in a different way; to follow up to see if the thing has been done; to discover that it has not; to inquire why; to listen to excuses from the person who should have done it; to follow up again to see if the thing has been done, only to discover that it has been done incorrectly; to point out how it should have been done; to conclude that as long as it has been done, it may as well be left where it is; to wonder if it is not time to get rid of a person who cannot do a thing right; to reflect that he or she probably has a family, and that certainly any successor would be just as bad, and maybe worse; to consider how much simpler and better the thing would have been done if one had done it oneself in the first place; to reflect sadly that one could have done it right in 20 minutes, and, as things turned out, one had to spend two days to find out why it has taken three weeks for somebody else to do it wrong.

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

All the world's a stage. Some of us just have better seats.

This ain't Chekhov, you know! [comment to cast during a rehearsal for "H.M.S. Pinafore"]

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.

The critics suppose that it is easy to write a play. They aren't aware that writing a good play is difficult and writing a bad one is twice as hard.

The theater, which is in no thing, but makes use of everything -- gestures, sounds, words, screams, light, darkness -- rediscovers itself at precisely the point where the mind requires a language to express its manifestations. To break through language in order to touch life is to create or recreate the theatre.

By whatever means it is accomplished, the prime business of a play is to arouse the passions of its audience so that by the route of passion may be opened up new relationships between a man and men, and between men and Man. Drama is akin to the other inventions of man in that it ought to help us to know more, and not merely to spend our feelings.

A playwright is the litmus paper of the arts. He's got to be, because if he isn't working on the same wave length as the audience, no one would know what in hell he was talking about. He is a kind of psychic journalist, even when he's great.

I write for myself, and my goal is bringing that world and that experience of Black Americans to life on the stage and giving it a space there.

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.

Keep your hands moving. Writing is rewriting.

The fun for me is knowing what the other person is saying and what my character would be thinking at that time. On the stage you get the chance to do all that, to analyze and build a part, to react, to contribute something no one else can--not the author, not even the director.

You have to think about the big speeches in Shakespeare as the most important things the character has ever said; they need to be spoken with your chest cut open, your heart bare, and with tremendous passion. You need to tear the words from the sky. If you don't feel like you've run a marathon when you're done, you're not doing it right. It takes courage to open yourself up to an audience like that, letting them see your insides without desperately trying to show them--it takes practice.

But when I got to SMU and decided to take a playwriting class, I said this isn't a bad idea. If I write characters, they could be as dumb as me, and I don't have to be very smart.

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.