Quotes About Theater

There are so many actresses I want to write for. I see them, and I think, 'Why is she not playing that lead? What's happened to that actress?' I think all I can do is to write parts for women, to say, 'Keep going, keep acting, because there are parts for you. There will be those plays.'

The thing with film and theater is that you always know the story so you can play certain cues in each scene with the knowledge that you know where the story's going to end and how it's going to go. But on television nobody knows what's going to happen, even the writers.

I know what it's like to be brought up by actors and writers.

I just love working with actors, and I love working with writers, working with designers. I feel that I am just a storyteller, and whether I am wearing the director hat or the playwright hat, it doesn't matter. And the rooms I tend to be in are pretty democratic, and the best idea wins.

We love 'Fiddler.' We love 'West Side Story.' I want to be in that club. I want to be in the club that writes the musical that every high school does.

I learn the lines that JK Rowling or whoever writes them, and say them.

Shakespeare teaches you how to act. You come out of this process as a better actor. It's just the nature of the words he writes.

There are so many remarkable playwrights working right now, that I see everything I can. Annie Baker is a genius, I'll see anything she writes. The same for Lynn Nottage, Cynthia Hopkins, and Lisa D'Amour. Anything they've got going on, I'll go see.

I come from a tradition where the writer writes a play for the actors, rather than for himself, and the dialogue is made to work onstage, so it needs actors to help shape it. So you never get a play right straightaway.

Writing, of course, is writing, acting comes from the theater, and cinematography comes from photography. Editing is unique to film. You can see something from different points of view almost simultaneously, and it creates a new experience.

I actually run a non-profit where one of the main objectives is to branch out and get a new audience for the theater. Just because the writing is so good and nothing is more effective than seeing something live and happening right in front of your face, so I definitely want to continue to pursue that.

Japanese ideas about religion, architecture, theater, and literature are based on wa and shunyata—concepts of plentitude and uncertainty, of togetherness framed by impermanence.

They were totally supportive, always saw everything I did. One of the thrills of my life was when they went to the theater to see something that I wasn't in. It opened doors for them that otherwise would have been totally closed.

I moved to LA and decided to do films and television, mainly because the theater in New York is totally dead.

People come to the Fountain Theatre because they've got hearts that are working and they've got heads that are working. They use the Fountain Theatre because it puts them in touch with the world that they're living in.

I did an internship at the Ardent theatre company in Philly after dropping out of college. I was earning $165 a week building sets and cleaning the toilets. Cleaning toilets is a good way of getting in touch with your creativity. That's when you find out if you got anything going on in your head.

I've always had not just an affection but a real love for the theater family in New York, and I really feel it is a family. I'm so touched by the generosity of everyone there.

Whatever part I'm playing, I always carry with me something that's been used by an illustrious predecessor. I'm a great believer in a touching of hands. I have daggers belonging to Henry Irving and Sarah Siddons.

The theater is a tough place. It's not cushioned the way it is in film and television.

It is a tough job to portray a character and make it believable on screen.

I saw some musicals at dinner theaters where I grew up. But I didn't go to a big theater to see one until probably after I graduated from high school when I took myself to see 'Tommy' when it was on tour. I absolutely loved it.

I went on tour in the play H.M.S. Pinafore.

After drama school I did a seven-month tour of Europe performing in 'Romeo and Juliet.' I played Romeo.

I do remember the tour of 'Cats' in Philadelphia. I was 12 and had a stomach bug.