Theatre Quotes
For use in newsletters, season or fundraising brochures or emails, presentations--you name it.
Category | Quote | First | Last | Source |
---|---|---|---|---|
Acting |
Being another character is more interesting than being yourself. |
John | Gielgud | The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips |
Shakespeare |
Brush up your Shakespeare |
Cole | Porter | Kiss Me, Kate (musical) |
Playwriting |
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. |
Beth | Henley | http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/beth_henley.html |
Playwriting |
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. |
Arthur | Miller | http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_Miller |
Directing |
Casting is instrumental in helping you understand the play. If you cast it right, as soon as the actor steps on the stage, you get certain impressions that help you understand what the play is about. |
Howard | Kissel | It Happened On Broadway |
General |
Charity in the theater begins and ends with those who have a play opening within a week of one's own. |
Moss | Hart | |
Critics, General |
Coughing in the theater is not a respiratory ailment. It is a criticism. |
Alan Jay | Lerner | http://www.worldofquotes.com |
Backstage |
Definition of Stage Manager: The person who rarely gets credit when everything goes right. |
Anonymous | ||
Set Design |
Designers play with scale and proportion, making the ordinary extraordinary by taking an object out of context and changing its scale in relation to the characters' size and appearance. |
Peter Ruthven | Hall | http://www.theatredesign.org.uk/events.htm |
Directing |
Directing takes such a big lump out of your life. |
Alan | Rickman | http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alanrickma251372.html |
Directing |
Don't let a single comic moment pass you by; then help the audience get the laughs. Give them permission to laugh by holding for laughter and by letting them know early on what they're in for. In the first few moments, the audience is gathering information, looking at the scenery and costumes. Create a comic moment as soon as you can. |
James | Carver | Stage Directions Guide to Directing |
Acting |
Don't think you're funny. It'll never work if you think you're funny. |
George | Abbott | Friendly Advice by Jon Winokur |
Acting |
Don't use your conscious past, use your creative imagination to create a past that belongs to your character. I don't want you to be stuck with your own life. It's too little. |
Stella | Adler | Friendly Advice by Jon Winokur |
Playwriting |
Don't write stage directions. If it is not apparent what the character is trying to accomplish by saying the line, tell us how the character said it or whether or not she moved to the couch isn't going to aid the case. |
David | Mamet | The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips |
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 |
General, Playwriting |
Drama - what literature does at night. |
George Jean | Nathan | |
Playwriting |
Drama assumes an order. If only so that it might have -- by disrupting that order -- a way of surprising. |
Vaclav | Havel | |
Playwriting |
Drama is based on the Mistake. I think someone is my friend when he really is my enemy, that I am free to marry a woman when in fact she is my mother, that this person is a chambermaid when it is a young nobleman in disguise, that this well-dressed young man is rich when he is really a penniless adventurer, or that if I do this such and such a result will follow when in fact it results in something very different. All good drama has two movements, first the making of the mistake, then the discovery that it was a mistake. |
W.H. | Auden | |
Playwriting |
Drama is life with the dull bits cut out. |
Alfred | Hitchcock | |
Playwriting |
Drama should not present new stories but new relationships. |
Frederick | Hessel | The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips |