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Quote by Tony Kushner

“I feel there's a power in theatre, but it's an indirect power. It's like the relationship of the sleeper to the unconscious. You discover things you can't afford to countenance in waking life. You can forget them, remember them a day later or not have any idea what they are about.”

Quote by Tony Kushner

Author

Tony Kushner is an American playwright known for his profound social and political commentary and complex character development. His works often explore historical, moral, and identity issues, reflecting the diversity and complexity of American society. His most famous works include 'Angels in America' and 'Homebody/Kabul.' Kushner has received numerous awards for his outstanding contributions to theater, including the Pulitzer Prize. more

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“I'm fairly certain when I die that the obituary will say, 'Author of 'Angels in America' dies.' Unless I'm completely forgotten, and then it won't say anything at all.”

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“Gay writers now have both a sense of history and the fables that allows them to dwell in the realms of the ridiculous and at the same time talk seriously about things.”

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“I find writing very difficult. It's hard and it hurts sometimes, and it's scary because of the fear of failure and the very unpleasant feeling that you may have reached the limit of your abilities.”

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“When I'm writing a new play, there's a period where I know I shouldn't be out in public much. I imagine most people who create go through something like this. You willfully loosen some of the inner straps that hold your core together.”

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“You have to have hope. It's irresponsible to give false hope, which I think a lot of playwrights are guilty of. But I also think it's irresponsible to simply be a nihilist, which quite a lot of playwrights, especially playwrights younger than me, have become guilty of.”

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“The kind of theater that I do is sort of ‘narrative realism,’ which I think in the broadest sense is legitimate to say is mainstream. I mean, in a certain sense, Suzan-Lori's plays have had mainstream levels of success. But Suzan-Lori is in some ways not a narrative realist.”

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“The act of thinking and interpreting is so central to Judaism that it makes more sense that we've become people like Woody Allen - thinkers and talkers and drafters of law.”

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“When I teach writing, I always tell my students you should assume that the audience you're writing for is smarter than you. You can't write if you don't think they're on your side, because then you start to yell at them or preach down to them.”

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“So I think I'll say the obvious thing: theater is ephemeral. When a production is done, it's gone forever. You can take pictures of it. You can make a film of it. But it's not the production. It's not the same thing.”

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“I'm a sort of political person, and I feel that there's a kind of ineradicably political dimension to theater, to all theater, whether it's overtly political or not.”

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Author:Tony Kushner