Theatre Quotes
-
The power of the print reviewer is one of those urban myths. There have always been shows that slipped under the critical radar to become popular successes: 'Tobacco Road', 'Abie's Irish Rose' and our old friend 'Spider-Man', which got the worst reviews in theatre history and is still apparently going strong.
-
When I was a little younger, I really did love musical theatre in the same hopeless dorky way that she does. I was obsessed with Jesus Christ Superstar and I used to reenact it in my room when no one was home.
-
Make them laugh, make them cry, and hack to laughter. What do people go to the theatre for? An emotional exercise. I am a servant of the people. I have never forgotten that.
-
Two Chinamen visiting Europe went to the theatre for the first time. One of them occupied himself with trying to understand the theatrical machinery, which he succeeded in doing. The other, despite his ignorance of the language, sought to unravel the meaning of the play. The former is like the astronomer, the latter the philosopher.
-
Theatre is my first love. I don't understand why people say that theatre can't give you money.
-
I knew 'Be Our Guest' would be performed on a set and in costume, but anyone with a history in Theatre In Education will know that can mean anything.
-
I love the intimacy of making movies. The focus is deeper and much more intense than musical theatre.
-
I write the occasional entry for the 'Times' Theatre blog, especially when I'm in London and seeing two shows a day, but I don't tweet. I don't want to have to express my opinion in 140 characters. That's like writing haiku. You need a certain amount of legroom to review a play properly.
-
Whether you are a writer or an actor or a stage manager, you are trying to express the complications of life through a shared enterprise. That's what theatre was, always. And live performance shares that with an audience in a specific compact: the play is unfinished unless it has an audience, and they are as important as everyone else.
-
If you want to get into the shoes of someone, it's not just about seeing and hearing. It is also about what you touch and what you smell. Smell is so specific and so powerful. And this is the beauty of immersive theatre - it's something you cannot get in any other art form. I think this is the real future for theatre.
-
There's great theatre in New York City, but no New York City in theatre.
-
I want my audience to be constantly captivated, bewitched, so that it leaves the theatre dazed, stunned to be back on the pavement.
-
I'm gonna say this and I really mean it - I'm very thankful that I'm not a huge star. I've all the stardom and celebrity that I can handle. But I also have peace and quiet. I am left alone. And I am not recognized everywhere I go and it's perfect. I can come and fill the theatres and I get on stage ... people say: "Well, oh yeah, that must be him," you know?
-
Theatre is a game of hide-and-seek. For both the hiders and the seekers, the thrill is in the discovery. When the rules of the game are too vague or too complicated, however, the audience can lose its urge to play; the prize no longer seems quite worth the hunt.
-
I rarely use mythology for its own sake because, as a theatre person, the mythological figures are in fact humanity to the ninth degree and Yoruba mythology in particular has fascination of being one of the most humanised mythologies in the world.
-
People that went to art house theatre have more options, I used to go, but now think any movie can be delivered in a red envelope three months after it's released so why not watch it on my flat screen in the comfort of home.
-
I don't think theatre has changed; it's society that has changed.
-
Got a degree in acting and actually double majored in musical theatre. And then I came straight to New York and started working.
-
Looking at the actors I most admire - Judi Dench, Ian Holm, that whole generation - they all started in rep and slowly built themselves into the position where they could juggle theatre and film.
-
I was prepared for the theatre, but not for the nuts and bolts.
-
My parents lived, breathed, ate and slept theatre. Emotions were right on the surface. Growing up, the unreal had as much importance as the real.
-
I want to do movies that I'm proud of where my kids, at some point, can see and I can feel comfortable sitting there watching it with them. And just that move people. That make people feel a little bit better about themselves when they leave the theatre.
-
I'd love to play a lead in the theatre.
-
I think in the old days, everybody used to act really quickly because Hollywood was built by theatre people.
