Quotes About Theatre

My college training was primarily in theatre, with an eye to becoming a director, actor, or producer.

At first, like every other actor, I wanted to do characters with deep traits - what we call 'serious characters.'

No, I've never moved on with a play. I did the original 'Closer' in London but didn't transfer to the West End or Broadway with it. The same is true of 'Iceman': I didn't go to the Old Vic or Broadway with that. I don't know; I feel an allegiance often to the play where you do it first, in the theatre that it's in; you do it for that space.

In 1973, 'Sizwe Banzi is Dead' and 'The Island,' which I co-wrote with Athol Fugard and Winston Ntshona, transferred from The Royal Court Theatre to the Ambassadors Theatre in the West End.

That's the magic of art and the magic of theatre: it has the power to transform an audience, an individual, or en masse, to transform them and give them an epiphanal experience that changes their life, opens their hearts and their minds and the way they think.

The point of theatre is transformation: to make an extraordinary event out of ordinary material right in front of an audience's eyes. Where the germ of the idea came from is pretty much irrelevant. What matters to every theatre maker I know is speaking clearly to the audience 'right now.'

When I was at the Royal Ballet School, I remember receiving my first eyeshadow palette from Marks & Spencer as a gift. It sparked my interest in beauty, which peaked when I became more involved in theatre and got to experience so many stunning image transformations to suit different productions.

I started in theatre, and for me, it was all about transformation. You transform into the character that you're playing.

While training is important to fine-tune one's skill set, in my case, the exhaustive theatre experience and the grind of rehearsals ensured an easy transition into different roles.

I'm very lucky to be on 'Melissa and Joey' because it's a multi-cam sitcom, and it was a nice transition from theatre because it's taped in front of a live audience.

A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that's just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it's a joke.

We're so bereft of support of theatre in this day and age.

The word theatre comes from the Greeks. It means the seeing place. It is the place people come to see the truth about life and the social situation.

The entrance into Jerusalem has all the elements of the theatre of the absurd: the poor king; truth comes riding on a donkey; symbolic actions - even parading without a permit!

The theatre is supremely fitted to say: 'Behold! These things are.' Yet most dramatists employ it to say: 'This moral truth can be learned from beholding this action.'

All theatre has truth, from Theatre in Education to panto to Shakespeare.

The truth is I love musical theatre and always have.

They can't," said Jonathan. "The Dame is always played by a man." "And the Principal Boy is always a girl," agreed Judy. "It's traditional." "I don't see why," insisted Paddington.

I sincerely believe that for the New York theatre to remain relevant, all our major producing institutions should be presenting new American plays.

During a performance of 'Blood Brothers' in 1990, I forgot to sing. I was so moved by what my co-star Kiki Dee was doing, that I completely missed my cue.

I don't believe really good plays - interesting plays, complicated plays - can mean just one thing to every single person in the audience.

Why was I so single-minded about acting? Acting wasn't in the family; no one went to the theatre in my street. It wasn't encouraged in my school.

One of my best memories is with a really good group of people in the Canberra Youth Theatre. We did a play about the seven deadly sins, and we had to dress up in costume and perform in Garema Place like the drama freaks we were. Great fun.

I think of everything as comedy, but I don't think of it in terms of sitcom comedy, I think of it in terms of Chekhov comedy. Chekhov called his plays comedies. There's always a mixture of a laugh with sadness. So the plie to the laugh is sadness.