Quotes from Harold Prince

It's fine when you careen off disasters and terrifyingly bad reviews and rejection and all that stuff when you're young; your resilience is just terrific.

All these actors who died before I was born, all the theaters and the artistic movements - all that stuff fills you up and makes you feel like you're the inheritor of all this information and of all its passion.

I got successful awfully quick, and I wanted it... But I do think there is responsibility to move the musical theater form forward. I think you always have to be aware of the work that came before and build on that.

'Showboat' is the quintessential family show.

The truth of the matter is that I have lasted a long time, and with it comes both good and bad things. One of the good things is that no one can ever take my career away from me. No one can ever say, 'You can't be in the theater any more.'

I've seen a lot of 'Show Boats,' but I've never seen the one that thoroughly satisfies me.

I really like reaching out and seeing the audience - they're potential audiences! And on occasion I can make them excited about going to the theater again, if they've ceased or gone less.

I'm just really trying to say what I really mean, which is: 'Your eye's on the prize, your eye's on the future. It's nice to know that a lot of wonderful things have happened to your life and that so much of it has been successful. That's great, but the work is really what makes it fun - and that has to be the future.'

Throwing money at something doesn't really create - forgive me that onerous word - art.

I remember when people actually wore coats and ties to theatre every night. They don't anymore. It's very different.

The perfect expression of receiving a lifetime award is to be working when they're handing it out.

I really don't spend time thinking about the past. I think about the future. I'm not stopping.

I wouldn't be here if it weren't for 'Show Boat.' The kind of theater I chose to be involved in is completely a direct reflection of what 'Show Boat' made possible.

I like to do everything you can possibly do before you go into rehearsal, because once we are in rehearsal or on the stage there will be a problem I didn't anticipate. It's really good to think we got it all nailed - of course you've never got it all nailed.

You do a show to be a hit and hopefully run a couple of years.

It's nice to stay up nights worrying about the material, and not about the investors who gave you $10 million to do your musical.

Artistic self-indulgence is the mark of an amateur. The temptation to make scenes, to appear late, to call in sick, not to meet deadlines, not to be organized, is at heart a sign of your own insecurity and at worst the sign of an amateur.

I always had a good time in theatre, even when shows don't turn out as well as I'd like.

I'm always glad to see somebody rethink something rather than reproduce something I did.

You could argue that 'Sweeney Todd' was romantic, if you looked closely at it, but it didn't impart that to its audiences. But it's large, and it's melodramatic, and it's a style I like to work in periodically.

I don't look back. I look forward and plan new shows. That's really feeding the most important part of working in the theater.

I saw 'On The Town' about nine times. I discovered it. I loved it. I was in college.

I'm on a single track here - I work to direct what I want to see onstage. I basically have been feeding my own needs - to be working on a specific project at a specific time, and fortunately more often it works than fails.

The truth is, for some absurd reason, no one is willing to admit that the interests of the producers and the theater owners are not the same.