Best Playwright Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 8

“I'm sensitive about the criticism [for not producing new playwrights], yes. But I'm hip to it as well. I read 500 new plays a year, and 99.99 percent of them are not good. I see no reason to do a new play just because it's new. It's like kissing your sister, a virtue, but so what? It seems to me more worthwhile to take a proven playwright and say, Write something for us.”

Writing Years Wells Reason Play Seems Virtue Kissing Percent Criticism Crafts Hips Sensitive No Reason Worthwhile Proven Playwright

Author:Gregory A. Boyd

“I write in order to understand the images. Being what my agent . . . somewhat ruefully calls a language playwright, is problematic because in production, you have to make the language lift off the page. But a good actor can turn it into human speech. I err sometimes toward having such a compound of images that if an actor lands heavily on each one, you never pull through to a larger idea. That's a problem for the audience. But I come to playwriting from the visual world - I used to be a painter. I also really love novels and that use of language. But it's tricky to ask that of the theatre.”

“Broadway remains the closest thing we have to a national theatre, the place where the greatest number of people can potentially see new work. For an American playwright to say it doesn't matter is simply to capitulate to the current situation.”

People Matter Numbers Situation Remains Currents Theatre Crafts Closest Broadway Playwright Current Situation New Work

Author:Tony Kushner

“. . . I felt I was finally in a position to affect not only the artistic content of the American theatre, but also its institutional structures. This has been an important goal of mine, as there have always been a variety of issues - artistic freedom, author's rights, access by minority groups - which have concerned me and even influenced my decision to become a playwright in the first place.”

“Belonging to the Dramatists Guild Council where, with my fellow dramatists, I can directly affect (and protect) the professional lives of all American Playwrights has always made me feel that I am returning as much to the theatre as I withdraw. Because only playwrights can ensure the well-being of playwrights. No one else will do it for us.”

Feels Wells Made I Can Protect Fellows Theatre Crafts Well Being Belonging Council Playwright Professional Life Guilds

Author:Peter Stone

“My style as a human being is to indulge people who need to escape, yet I insist on confronting them as a playwright. It's quite embarrassing, it's quite unpleasant, it's quite awkward.”

People Needs Humans Human Beings Style Crafts Awkward Embarrassing Indulge Playwright Confronting

Book:Writing Wrongs: The Work of Wallace Shawn

Source: Writing Wrongs: The Work of Wallace Shawn

“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.”

Thinking Giving Guilty Playwright Irresponsible Having Hope False Hope Nihilist

Author:Tony Kushner

“The utmost I can bear for myself in my best days is that I was one of the hundred best playwrights in the world, which is hardly a supreme distinction.”

World I Can Bears Hundred Supreme Distinction Playwright

Author:George Bernard Shaw

“About 2500 years ago Aeschylus, the Greek playwright, wrote, He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. These remarkable photos and the stories that accompany them should be on billboards from sea to shining sea, so the pain and suffering they represent might fall drop by drop upon the American psyche and against our will, by the awful grace of God, wisdom might come to these United States and her foreign policy.”

“I fell into playwriting accidentally, took some classes in it, and also took creative writing classes, but I really didn't expect it to be a career because I didn't believe there was a way to make money as a playwright without being lucky and I didn't feel particularly lucky.”

Way Feels Writing Believe Class Careers Creative Lucky Making Money Creative Writing Playwright Playwriting

Author:Orson Scott Card

“Sometimes we go to a play and after the curtain has been up five minutes we have a sense of being able to settle back in the arms of the playwright. Instinctively we know that the playwright knows his business.”

Knows Has Beens Sometimes Play Able Five Minutes Arms Theatre Settling Curtains Five Minutes Playwright

Book:The Selected Letters of Anton Chekhov

Source: The Selected Letters of Anton Chekhov

“The British playwright Nina Raine is one of her generation's most promising talents.”

Generations Talent British Playwright Nina

Author:John Lahr

“A prose writer never sees a reader walk out of a book; for a playwright, it's another matter. An audience is an invaluable education. In my experience, theatre artists don't know what they've made until they've made it.”

Knows Made Book Matter Artist Walks Audience Reader Theatre Made It Prose Playwright Invaluable

Author:John Lahr

“I think a playwright realizes after he finishes working on the script that this is only the beginning. What will happen when it moves into three dimensions?”

Thinking Happens Moving Three Literature Realizing Scripts Dimensions Playwright Three Dimensions

Author:Don DeLillo

“What I was utterly convinced of, and still am, is the idea that the only responsibility the free intellectual has is vis-a-vis himself. He is not responsible to either a political party or a ruler.”

Stills Ideas Political Party Responsibility Politician Intellectual Responsible Convinced Novelists Rulers Political Parties Playwright Freethinker Intellectual Freedom

Author:Tawfiq al-Hakim

“All playwrights should be dead for three hundred years.”

Should Years Three Hundred Playwright

Author:Joseph L. Mankiewicz

“You can't make a living as a playwright. You can barely scrape by.”

Playwright

Author:Sam Shepard

“If it's stage, the two most important artists are the actor and the playwright. If it's film, THE most important person is the director. The director says where the camera goes.”

Ifs Persons Two Important Film Artist Actors Stage Directors Cameras Playwright Important Person Most Important Person

Author:Brad Dourif

“What shouldn't you do if you're a young playwright? Don't bore the audience! I mean, even if you have to resort to totally arbitrary killing on stage, or pointless gunfire, at least it'll catch their attention and keep them awake. Just keep the thing going any way you can.”

Ifs Way Writing Mean Young Attention Audience Stage Killing Awake Bores Arbitrary Resorts Playwright Pointless

Book:Conversations with Tennessee Williams

Source: Conversations with Tennessee Williams

“It was kind of enlightening to become a playwright.”

Kind Enlightening Playwright

Author:Beth Henley

“Necessarily, I'm always involved in casting, as any playwright is, because the whole process of putting on a play is a collaborative, organic effort on the part of a bunch of people trying to think alike.”

People Thinking Trying Play Whole Process Effort Involved Bunch Casting Playwright

Author:David Ives

“My first acting class was taught by a little known playwright, David Mamet, who then cast me in my first play, opposite John Malkovich.”

Firsts Littles Play Acting Known Class Taught Opposites Casts Playwright Acting Classes

Author:John Mahoney

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Playwright Quotes