Theatre Quotes | Page 8 | AACT

Theatre Quotes

Words to the Wise
Quotations from a wide range of theatrical perspectives

For use in newsletters, season or fundraising brochures or emails, presentations--you name it.

Displaying 281 - 320 of 421. Show 5 | 10 | 20 | 40 | 60 results per page.
Category Quote First Last Source
Acting, Directing

The whole point about laughter is it's like mercury: you can't catch it, you can't catch what motivates it - that's why it's funny.

Mike Nichols
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
General, Playwriting

Theater is so critical because it has always been able to release people from their isolation... The theater is a communal event, church. The playwright constructs a mass to be performed for a lot of people. She writes a prayer, which is just the longings of one heart.

Marsha Norman
Acting

Acting expresses a part of the self otherwise hidden to the conscious mind.

Lisa M. O'Neill
Acting

I have no intention of uttering my last words on the stage. Room service and a couple of depraved young women will do me quite nicely for an exit.

Peter O'Toole

http://home.att.net/~quotations/theatre.html

Acting

Have a very good reason for everything you do.

Laurence Olivier Friendly Advice by Jon Winokur
Acting

Use your weaknesses; aspire to the strength.

Laurence Olivier Friendly Advice by Jon Winokur
Acting

Lead the audience by the nose to the thought.

Laurence Olivier Friendly Advice by Jon Winokur
Acting

I have to act to live.

Laurence Olivier http://theatre.usc.edu/whatistheatre
Acting

What is the main problem of the actor? It is to keep the audience awake, and not let them go to sleep, then wake up and go home feeling they've wasted their money.

Laurence Olivier
Acting

When you're a young man, Macbeth is a character part. When you're older, it's a straight part.

Laurence Olivier Theatre Arts May 58
Acting

Acting is an everlasting search for truth.

Laurence Olivier http://www.curtainup.com/quotepro.html
Critics

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs.

John Osborne Time, 31 October 1977
Acting

My playground was the theatre. I'd sit and watch my mother pretend for a living. As a young girl, that's pretty seductive.

Gwyneth Paltrow http://www.worldofquotes.com
General

Although one may fail to find happiness in theatrical life, one never wishes to give it up after having once tasted its fruits.

Anna Pavlova

http://en.thinkexist.com/keyword/theatrical

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
Playwriting

The more acute the experience, the less articulate its expression.

Harold Pinter The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips
Playwriting

As a writer you're holding a dog. You let the dog run about. But you finally can pull him back. Finally, I'm in control. But the great excitement is to see what happens if you let the whole thing go. And the dog or the character really runs about, bites everyone in sight, jumps up trees, falls into lakes, gets wet, and you let that happen. That's the excitement of writing plays--to allow the thing to be free but still hold the final leash.

Harold Pinter http://www.curtainup.com/quotepro.html
Costumes

If you do a certain amount of work on your own before consulting with the director then the process starts with the script. I tend to do a certain amount of my own work before I go into a first meeting. It is important to be open minded in your first meeting with a director but I like to be well-prepared for that meeting because sometimes that time with your director can be limited. At the time of that first meeting, I will have read the play several times and from different points of view. I might read the play once to just check how many costume changes there are. I will read it again to make a prop list. I will read it again to analyse where the entrances and exits are and also to imagine where the furniture will be. It's difficult to concentrate on all of these things in one reading so I go through these processes in separate readings. Once you have that under your belt, depending on the period of the production, I guess I start to do visual research based on my response to the text. Depending on where and when I might choose to look at photography of the period or I might choose to look at painting or I might just look at history books and look for thematic influences. That's the start and having done that you team up with your director and see what their response is to those ideas you have and then you start to form a stronger direction. [Christina Poddubiuk, Set and Costume designer]

Christina Poddubiuk http://www.artsalive.ca
Costumes, Set Design

I think the best shows are always the ones where the elements come together very well and where the intention is realized. These are the shows in which what you set out do is what you end up with. Through very fortunate circumstances, like the combination of a good director, a good cast, and other people designing, you all manage to end up at the point that you intended when you started out. Nothing is ever perfect and there are always things that you'd perhaps do differently but I think that as long as you get a sense of fulfillment from a show then it is going to be a good experiences. [Christina Poddubiuk, Set and Costume designer]

Christina Poddubiuk http://www.artsalive.ca
Acting

Act well your part; there all the honor lies.

Alexander Pope Essay on Man, Epistle iv, line 193
Shakespeare

Brush up your Shakespeare
Start quoting him now
Brush up your Shakespeare
And the women you will wow

Cole Porter Kiss Me, Kate (musical)
General

It hath evermore been the notorious badge of prostituted Strumpets and the lewdest Harlots, to ramble abroad to Plays, to Playhouses; whither no honest, chaste or sober Girls or Women, but only branded Whores and infamous Adulteresses, did usually resort in ancient times.

William Prynne http://izquotes.com/
Acting

Having talent is like having blue eyes. You don't admire a man for the colour of his eyes. I admire a man for what he does with his talent.

Anthony Quinn Sunday Express, 1960
Playwriting

A novelist may lose his readers for a few pages; a playwright never dares lose his audience for a minute.

Terence Rattigan

http://theatre.usc.edu/whatistheatre

Acting

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

Robert Redford
Acting

Acting is not being emotional, but being able to express emotion.

Kate Reid http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/acting
Musical Theatre

In musical theater you have to be very big and very animated, while film and television are more toned down.

Kevin Richardson http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/k/kevinricha292397.html
Acting

The most precious things in speech are pauses.

Ralph Richardson The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips
Acting

Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing.

Ralph Richardson http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/acting
Acting

Acting is mostly about listening. If you just focus in on what the other person is saying, acting takes care of itself to quite a large extent.

Alan Rickman http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alanrickma251358.html
Acting

Acting touches nerves you have absolutely no control over.

Alan Rickman http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alanrickma251360.html
Directing

Directing takes such a big lump out of your life.

Alan Rickman http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alanrickma251372.html
Management

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.

Rockefeller Panel Report Rockefeller Panel Report: The Performing Arts
Acting

When actors go onstage, you know immediately if they can do their job. You can be a lawyer or an accountant for years and not find out.

Patsy Rodenburg The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips
General, Musical Theatre

There is a traditional trick that theatre people have played as long as I can remember. A veteran member of a company will order a gullible newcomer to find the key to the curtain. Naturally, the joke is there is no such thing. I have been in the theatre over fifty years, and I don't think anyone would consider me naive, but all my life I've been searching for that key. And I'm still looking. . . .

Richard Rodgers Musical Stages
General

The theatre, like the fresco, is art fitted to its place. And therefore it is above all else the human art, the living art.

Roman Rolland http://www.wisdomportal.com/Quotes
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

Acting is standing up naked and turning around very slowly.

Rosalind Russell The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips
Fundraising

Fundraising is the gentle art of teaching the joy of giving.

Hank Russo

http://www.museummarketingtips.com/quotes/giving.html

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