Theatre Quotes
For use in newsletters, season or fundraising brochures or emails, presentations--you name it.
Category | Quote | First | Last | Source |
---|---|---|---|---|
General |
The world is a complicated place, and there's a lot of division between people. The performing arts tend to unify people in a way nothing else does. |
David | Rubenstein | |
Acting, Playwriting |
It is the writer's job to make the play interesting. It is the actor's job to make the performance truthful. |
David | Mamet | The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips |
Lighting |
Lights are to drama what music is to the lyrics of a song. The greatest part of my success in the theatre I attribute to my feeling for colors, translated into effects of light. |
David | Belasco | The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips |
General, Management |
I've never quite understood the idea of a "season." Whenever an artistic director says to me, 'I have this slot,' I always start to feel we're parking cars or something. |
David Henry | Hwang | The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips |
General |
There is no greater gift that a person can be given than to be put in touch with his creativity. [Theatre] transformed my life. [Director Declan Donnellan on discovering theatre as a lonely 16 year old.] |
Declan | Donnellan | The Guardian |
Acting |
Actors ought to be larger than life. You come across quite enough ordinary, nondescript people in daily life and I don't see why you should be subjected to them on the stage too. |
Donald | Sinden | |
General |
I am so used to seeing the sort of play which deals with one man and two women. They do not leave me with the feeling I have made a full theatrical meal they do not give me the experience of the multiplicity of life. |
E.M. | Forster | |
Acting |
If you cried a little less, the audience would cry more. |
Edith | Evans | Friendly Advice by Jon Winokur |
Acting, Costumes |
The subjective actress thinks of clothes only as they apply to her; the objective actress thinks of them only as they affect others, as a tool for the job. |
Edith | Head | |
Acting, General, Playwriting |
The thing that makes a creative person is to be creative and that is all there is to it. |
Edward | Albee | wisdomquotes.com/ |
Playwriting |
People often ask me how long it takes me to write a play, and I tell them 'all of my life.' |
Edward | Albee | http://www.curtainup.com/quotepro.html |
Playwriting |
A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage. |
Edward | Albee | http://www.curtainup.com/quotepro.html |
Acting |
You can't be funny unless you're tragic, and you can't be tragic unless you're funny. |
Elaine | Stritch | |
Acting |
Audiences are not strangers to me. They're the best friends I've got in my life. |
Elaine | Stritch | |
Acting |
You cannot tell an audience a lie. They know it before you do; before it's out of your mouth, they know it's a lie. |
Elaine | Stritch | |
Acting |
These performers that go on about their technique and craft - oh, puleeze! How boring! I don't know what 'technique' means. But I do know what experience is. |
Elaine | Stritch | |
Acting |
Onstage, nothing is as important as truth, nothing. As soon as you lie, they know it. |
Elaine | Stritch | It Happened On Broadway |
General |
To save the theatre, the theatre must be destroyed, the actors and actresses must all die of the plague. They poison the air, they make art impossible. It is not drama that they play, but pieces for the theatre. We should return to the Greeks, play in the open air; the drama dies of stalls and boxes and evening dress, and people who come to digest their dinner. |
Eleanora | Duse | http://izquotes.com/ |
Acting |
Act in your pauses. |
Ellen | Terry | Friendly Advice by Jon Winokur |
Acting |
Imagination! Imagination! I put it first years ago, when I was asked what qualities I thought necessary for success upon the stage. And I am still of the same opinion. Imagination, industry [hard work], and intelligence--the three I's--are all indispensable to the actor, but of these three the greatest is, without any doubt, imagination. |
Ellen | Terry | The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips |