Best 631 quotes in «theatre quotes» category

All that day she had had the feeling that she was playing in the theatre with actors better than herself and that her poor playing spoiled the whole thing.

All the theories that acting is reacting to imaginary circumstances as though they are real, and directing is turning psychology into behavior, those are all stabs at something that can't be taught. All the great actors can't talk about what they do, and they don't want to begin to talk about it. They just do it.

A lot of people think theatre must be much harder work than film, but anything histrionic or superfluous gets seen on camera so you have to work to distil it into a complete sense of what's true.

Although the theater is not life, it is composed of fragments or imitations of life, and people on both sides of the footlight have to unite to make the fragments whole and the imitations genuine.

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

An actor without techies is a naked person standing in the dark trying to emote. A techie without actors is a person with marketable skills.

A play has two authors, the playwright and the actor.

A prose writer never sees a reader walk out of a book; for a playwright, it's another matter. An audience is an invaluable education. In my experience, theatre artists don't know what they've made until they've made it.

As far as I'm concerned, an audience is an audience. Whether it's an audience in Hull or the National Theatre, that's who you play to. It's not money - it's good to get some, but that's not why I do it. You do it because you have to, to tell a story.

Any fifth language that you use should be equally used as just another bit of theater language, so that if you have a strong text, then the light should be as strongly part of that text as, for example, the sound it should be or whatever it is that you see.

As far as I'm concerned, Cate Blanchett is a goddess, but she's really down to earth. She's got all those Oscars, she's made all those amazing films and she could spend her whole life doing that, but what does she also do? She gives birth to three boys and creates her own theatre in Sydney.

Artistic ambition is important. And it seems it would be a great time to do some theatre, like a new extreme.

As far as I'm concerned all theatre is physical. As Aristotle says, you know, theatre is an act and an action, and he didn't mean just the writing of it, he meant that at the centre of any piece there is an action, a physical action.

As fascinated as I was by words on paper, it was matched by my fascination with words in people's mouths. The spoken word. And that is the world of theatre.

As for theatre, there's ups and downs to everything. Theatre is ephemeral. But that is part of its charm because you can always say the production was better than it was.

As in a theatre, the eyes of men, after a well-graced actor leaves the stage, are idly bent on him that enters next.

A stage set should not make a pretty picture of its own. The empty stage should look formal and pleasing, but should seem to be waiting for the action to complete it; it should not hold definite significance in itself.

A theatre, a literature, an artistic expression that does not speak for its own time has no relevance.

A theatre receives recognition through its initiative, which is indispensable for first-rate performances.

Auctions are bizarre combinations of slave market, trading floor, theatre and burlesque... a lot of people are going to be making a lot of excuses or maintaining that they were never part of this.

At the same time, television theatre became more visibly active.

A video taped stage performance is just - you know, it's never gonna be the same as it is if you're sitting there live in the theatre.

A young Brit girl with no theatre experience decided to take on an iconic American role on Broadway. Maybe I should have thought that through?

Because Chicago was to radio what Hollywood was to films and Broadway was to the theatre: it was the hub of radio.

Broadway remains the closest thing we have to a national theatre, the place where the greatest number of people can potentially see new work. For an American playwright to say it doesn't matter is simply to capitulate to the current situation.

But I think theatre in a repressive society is an immensely exciting event and theatre in a luxurious old, affluent old society like ours is an entertaining event.

But, you see, the theatre is not always art in America.

As an actor, variety is the spice of life. I love theatre… it's what I enjoy the most. But a bit of TV, a bit of film, a bit of stage - what more could you ask for?

Being another character is more interesting than being yourself.

Belonging to the Dramatists Guild Council where, with my fellow dramatists, I can directly affect (and protect) the professional lives of all American Playwrights has always made me feel that I am returning as much to the theatre as I withdraw. Because only playwrights can ensure the well-being of playwrights. No one else will do it for us.

Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm, A sylvan scene, and as the ranks ascend Shade above shade, a woody theatre Of stateliest view.

Chess and theatre often lead to madness.

By obtaining a sense of its place in the unfolding drama of life, set in an ecological theatre, so we can understand why it has become one of the leading players.

Choosing to be in the theatre was a way to put my roots down somewhere with other people. It was a way to choose a new family.

Coughing in the theater is not a respiratory ailment. It is a criticism.

Best performance of the year: Aston Villa v. Milan, September 1994

Create an atmosphere in which anything is possible.

'Doctor Who' was my first telly job, and before that I did a lot of theatre in education, children's theatre.

Do you know what makes a movie work? Moments. Give the audience half a dozen moments they can remember, and they'll leave the theatre happy.

Charity in the theater begins and ends with those who have a play opening within a week of one's own.

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.

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.

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

Drama - what literature does at night.

Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that's printed about him.

Every character is a part of you and a part of the character that you are going to evolve into that you are not yet.

Every play should be 90 minutes. There would be so many more theatre-goers if plays were shorter.

Every place is a goldmine. You have only to give yourself time, sit in a teahouse watching the passers-by, stand in a corner of the market, go for a haircut. You pick up a thread – a word, a meeting, a friend of a friend of someone you have just met – and soon the most insipid, most insignificant place becomes a mirror of the world, a window on life, a theatre of humanity.

Every time I make, I've made a piece of work, I've wanted to get rid of it, obliterate it and do the next thing, because it was never quite what I wanted. I think the moment you think you've arrived is the moment that you should stop.

Coming from the theatre I have played some fabulous characters where I get to wear gowns and I get to be a princess or someone from the 1920s, or I get to wear showgirl costumes. I'm used to wearing a wardrobe that changes how I feel.