Theatre Quotes
For use in newsletters, season or fundraising brochures or emails, presentations--you name it.
Category | Quote | First | Last | Source |
---|---|---|---|---|
Acting, Directing, General, Playwriting |
You need three things in the theatre -- the play, the actors and the audience, and each must give something. |
Kenneth | Haigh | http://www.satheatre.com/quotes.htm |
Acting |
You think, you don't just speak. The lines come off the thoughts. |
Jeremy | Irons | American Film magazine |
Acting |
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. |
Glenda | Jackson | People, March 1985 |
Acting |
You're an actor, are you? Well, all that means is: you are irresponsible, irrational, romantic, and incapable of handling an adult emotion or a universal concept without first reducing it to something personal, material, sensational -- and probably sexual. |
George | Herman | |
Acting |
Young actors, fear your admirers! Learn in time, from your first steps, to hear, understand and love the cruel truth about yourselves. Find out who can tell you that truth and talk of your art only with those who can tell you the truth. |
Konstantin | Stanislavsky | http://www.giga-usa.com/quotes/topics/acting_t004.htm |
Costumes |
Your eyes will always go to red, which is why there is a lady in red in all my shows. |
Florence | Klotz | It Happened On Broadway |
Directing, Diversity & Inclusion, Management |
A diversity of voices is inherently innovative—the form of theatre changes depending on who is telling the story. By investing in diversifying the voices that are amplified through live theatre, we are contributing to the growth of the art form. |
Round House Theatre |
Round House Theatre statement on Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility [ https://www.roundhousetheatre.org/About/Equity,-Diversity,-and-Inclusion ] |
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Directing, Diversity & Inclusion |
Anti-racist theatre is not about doing all the things to end oppression at once; it’s about doing what you can. Small changes in behavior and thinking can have profound impacts on you and your organizational culture. For me, when directing, those small changes have manifested in changing my adherence to the myth that there wasn’t enough time to do the work, which resulted in pleasantries before rehearsal but no time set aside during rehearsal for people to acknowledge one another. Now every rehearsal I lead begins with a check-in to acknowledge what we’re bringing into the room; access needs are shared, and we honor the indigeneity of the land. Through session agreements we collectively define how we want to do the work. I find people appreciate having the space to bring the fullness of themselves to their art making. |
Nicole | Brewer | American Theatre, September 16, 2019 [ https://www.americantheatre.org/2019/09/16/why-equity-diversity-and-inclusion-is-obsolete/ ] |
Diversity & Inclusion, Playwriting |
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. |
August | Wilson | |
Acting, Diversity & Inclusion, Shakespeare |
In a backstage interview during “The Taming of the Shrew,” Julia exclaims, “Some people think the only way to do Shakespeare is to do it like the British do it, because the British have the answer to Shakespeare! So I would imitate all the British.” He launches into a plummy version of “Othello,” and continues, “But then afterward I started realizing that I didn’t have to do it like that. I could bring myself to it. I could bring my own culture, my own Puerto Rican background, my own Spanish culture, my own rhythms.” Shakespeare benefitted from what Julia brought to his verse, which the actress Rita Moreno describes as salero. “It just means he was spicy,” she says, in the documentary. “And sexy, and tall!” |
Raul | Julia | New Yorker article by Michael Schulman, September 13, 2019 |
Playwriting |
Keep your hands moving. Writing is rewriting. |
August | Wilson | |
Playwriting |
Most plays have four, five vital moments in the play and the rest of the play is just getting to it. It’s just fill. I don’t know why, whether it’s just to create the sense that it’s real or that you have to spend two hours to experience the power (you have to see not just snapshots). But I find it very boring. I go to sleep when I see plays like that, and I go to sleep writing it. I would just actually fall asleep at the typewriter and would not be able to finish a scene written like that. What’s different now is that my work is much more emotional and connected to story. Because of that and the fact that the air around it is clean, it’s very strange. It reminds me a little bit of Edward Hopper’s paintings—where there’s something very real about the situation, it’s very mundane, but the air is always so clean you feel there’s something wrong. |
María Irene | Fornés | |
Musical Theatre, Playwriting |
Musicals were never not cool to me. |
Lin-Manuel | Miranda | Financial Times, 2022 |
Set Design |
My process is that I will read the play a couple of times and then not do anything until I've spoken with the director, because, of course, there are 500 different ways a play can look--and still honor every word that's in those stage directions. I don't want to think about how it works until I know what the director is interested in, and if the playwright is around, what they're thinking about as they've written it. Then I go away and do my research. |
Rachel | Hauck | Interview with the set designer in Stage Directions magazine, August 2019 |
General, Playwriting |
The past isn't done with us. Ever, ever, ever, |
Lin-Manuel | Miranda | NPR's "Fresh Air," June 29, 2020 |
Acting, Directing, General |
Theater is a verb before it is a noun, an act before it is a place. |
Martha | Graham | Merce Cunningham: The Modernizing of Modern Dance, by Roger Copeland (Routledge Books) |
Diversity & Inclusion, Playwriting |
There are so many ambiguous expectations of what a “Latino play” must do, and how it must represent its people, none of which match the reality of their lived experiences. But that’s what happens when people deal with “the Other”. They tend to want it to conform to preconceived notions, or to glamorize or exoticize it. I’m just interested in showing Latinos as people with the same capacities to succeed or fail in their lives like anyone else. |
Octavio | Solis |
The Rumpus Interview with Octavio Solis. February 1, 2013 [ https://therumpus.net/2013/02/01/the-rumpus-interview-with-octavio-solis/ ] |
Directing, Diversity & Inclusion, General, Management |
Ultimately, in order to have theatre reflect the world as it is, the industry must value the artists that it has historically marginalized, and start by redirecting resources to support these artists’ work and lives—a move that could both make theatre a more inclusive space for both artists and audiences. |
Emilyn | Kowaleski |
"Reimagining A Diverse and Inclusive Theatrical Space," Media Diversity Institute [ https://www.media-diversity.org/reimagining-a-diverse-and-inclusive-thea... ] |
Directing, Diversity & Inclusion, Management, Playwriting |
What is Diversity in simple words? What is Equity in simple words? Diversity vs Inclusion |
"What is DEI & EDI? – The Complete Guide" on Diversity for Social Impact website | ||
Acting, Directing |
You know what's the loudest noise in the world, man? The loudest noise in the world is silence. |
Thelonious | Monk | The Quotable Musician, from Bach to Tupac, by Sheila E. Anderson (Allworth Press) |
General, Playwriting | All art is political in the sense that it serves someone's politics. | August | Wilson | The Paris Review (The Art of Theater No. 14) |