Theatre Quotes

Drama assumes an order. If only so that it might have -- by disrupting that order -- a way of surprising.

Actors work and slave and it is the color of your hair that can determine your fate in the end.

A ground plan is important in terms of its rigor. If your plan is soggy and weak, your production will be soggy and weak.

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.

Failure in the theatre is more dramatic and uglier than in any other form of writing. It costs so much, you feel so guilty.

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.

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.

Drama should not present new stories but new relationships.

This is an extremely foolish and stupid and idiotic kind of attitude--to expect theatres to make money. Do the public schools make money? Do libraries make money? Does the zoo make money? Do the sewers make money? It's a community service.

Acting is a very limited form of expression and those who take it seriously are very limited people. I take it seriously.

This is a non-commercial theatre. It's got to be run by a person who sees right from the start that the profits won't be money profits. [On the idea of a Federal Theatre Project, 1934]

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.

Playing Shakespeare is very tiring. You never get to sit down, unless you're a king.

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.

I started writing for the theatre because I hated it.

I've taught both screenwriting and playwriting, and playwriting is both much harder and much more rewarding. One can teach people how to tell a story in cinematic ways, but theater is a much more elusive craft.

You'd think is something one would grow out of. But you grow into it. The more you do, the more you realize how painfully easy it is to be lousy and how very difficult to be good.

The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.

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.