Quotes from Sam Wanamaker

I think the Schwontkowski banner will help publicize the construction of the new Globe and probably will also help fundraising.

I foresee the Globe attracting scholars from all over the world.

This is more than just the rebuilding of the Globe, creating some kind of monument to Shakespeare which he doesn't need. His books are his monuments. But this will be a major center for the study of Shakespeare in performance. We are making the only faithful effort to restore the theater in every respect as close to the original as possible.

Shakespeare is as naturally a part of American culture as it is the British culture; the Americans have a natural interest in their heritage.

The British are much more cynical and regard the idea of a Globe reconstruction as an Elizabethan Disneyland. But the Americans have a real hunger for what they see as their history, their culture and their Shakespeare.

What I want is an international monument to the world's greatest playwright. It would be an attraction that would be both educational and an automatic sight for tourists, like St Paul's and the Tower of London. It would be built with honesty and integrity not another Disneyland, but as nearly as possible a replica of the original Globe Theatre.

The Globe will become an automatic sight like the Tower of London and St. Paul's.

I've always been in institutional theater.

Unlike young actors, I don't feel unfulfilled. I've had my successes. I don't have to worry that I won't have time for other things.

We will get back to the earlier, instinctive and less inhibited nature of theatre. Today, spectators are passive, but Elizabethan, Greek and Roma; theatre was interactive.

There are more movie stars in the lobby of the Aquadulce than there are in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel.

You could argue we are a different audience today,but on the other hand what is it that makes Shakespeare great? It is that he understands the common denominator of man, his emotions and relationships.

Shakespeare is undoubtedly the greatest dramatist the world has known, and 95 countries translate his work into their languages.

What could be more fitting - or more exciting - than to restage Shakespeare's plays on the very spot where they were first performed, in the shape and style of theater for which they were written?

I'm not interested in creating a self-aggrandizing home base for myself, for my artistic foibles and interests.

I admit we don't know for sure the exact spot where the original Globe stood. But the Greenmore Wharf site is as nearly right as we can figure.

Shakespeare belongs to the whole of mankind, not just one country.

The Globe is a missing monument. There's no existing example of a theater from Shakespeare's time. You have Roman theaters, Greek theaters, all kinds of theaters, but none in which the plays of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and Marlowe were performed. Scholars feel that it would be of immense value to have one.

The Ides of March? That doesn't worry me.