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Playwriting Quotes

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Playwriting Quotes

“He put a fresh sheet in and, after spending a few moments wishing he were doing something quite different, typed: Gregory: But this is really qutie farcical. Like all the other lines of dialogue he had so far evolved, it struck him as not only in need of instant replacement, but as requiring a longish paragraph of negative stage direction in the faint hope of getting it said ordinarily, and not ordinarily in inverted commas, either. Experimentally, he typed: (Say this without raising your chin or opening your eyes wide or tilting your face or putting on that look of vague affront you use when you think you are "underlining the emergence of a new balance of forces in the scheme of the action" like the producer told you or letting your mind focus more than you can help on sentences like "Mr. Recktham managed to breathe some life into the wooden and conventional part of Gregory" or putting any more expression into it than as if you were reading aloud something you thought was pretty boring (and not as if you were doing an imitation of someone on a stage reading aloud something he thought was pretty boring, either) or hesitating before or after "quite" or saying "fusskle" instead of "farcical".) Breathing heavily, Bowen now x-ed out his original line of dialogue and typed: Gregory: You're just pulling my leg.”

TheaterTheatrePlaywrightScript WritingWriters BlockPlaywritingBritish Humour
Book:I Like It Here
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“Ingen kand dømme om et Skuespill, uden den der haver udstuderet et Theatrum, og af Erfarenhed mærket, hvad Virkning en Comoedie giør paa Skue-Pladsen: Og, naar saa er, kand man ikke meget reflectere paa deres Domme, der sidde hiemme og criticere udi deres Skriver-Stuer, uden at have seet et Skuespills Forestilning; thi de samme kand ikke dømme uden om Stilen, om Moralske Sententzer, og et Stykkes Regularitet, da Erfarenhed lærer, at en Comoedie, som efter alle Academiske Regler er indretted, dog ingen Comoedie er. Thi mangt et Skuespill, som ved Læsning synes at være af ingen Betydelse, haver den fortreffeligste Virkning paa Skue-Pladsen. Et Skuespils Vægt og Gyldighed grunder sig derfor ikke paa lærde Journalisters Critiqver, men paa Tilskuernes Applausu: naar jeg siger Tilskuerne, meener jeg alleene saadanne, som have en naturlig og ufordærved Smag.”

DramaTheatreCritiquePlaywritingComedies
Author:Ludvig Holberg
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“In playwriting, you've got to be able to write dialogue. And if you write enough of it and let it flow enough, you'll probably come across something that will give you a key as to structure. I think the process of writing a play is working back and forth between the moment and the whole. The moment and the whole, the fluidity of the dialogue and the necessity of a strict construction. Letting one predominate for a while and coming back and fixing it so that eventually what you do, like a pastry chef, is frost your mistakes, if you can.”

IfsThinkingGivingWritingEnoughPlayWholeMomentsAbleProcessMistakeKeysFlowStructureDialogueConstructionChefStrictComing BackBack And ForthFixingFrostPastriesFluidityPlaywritingPastry Chef
Author:David Mamet
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“I got the breaks. Starting from nowhere in the corn belt, I helped edit a country weekly, then was jack-of-all-departments on an obscure daily, so that when I arrived in a big city everything I tackled in the line of column conducting and syndicate peddling and playwriting had to bring promotion, because I had no social standing which could be endangered, no reputation to toss away and no pride which might suffer a setback. Everything I acquired had to be velvet. You cannot lose your silver spoon if you are brought up on pewter.”

IfsCountryBigsMightSufferingSocialLosesLinesCitiesBreakPrideStandingStartingReputationDepartmentSilverObscureBeltsPromotionCornColumnsSetbackEditsSpoonsTossVelvetConductingBig CitiesPlaywritingSilver SpoonsSyndicatePeddlingPewter
Author:George Ade
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“When I'm writing a play I hear it like music. I use the same indications that a composer does for duration. There's a difference, I tell my students, between a semi-colon and a period. A difference in duration. And we have all these wonderful things, we use commas and underlining and all the wonderful punctuation things we can use in the same way a composer uses them in music. And we can indicate, as specifically as a composer, the way we want our piece to sound.”

WayWantWritingDoePlayUseSoundDifferencesPiecesWonderfulStudentsPeriodsComposerWonderful ThingsIndicationDurationPunctuationPlaywriting
Author:Edward Albee
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“I began as a dramatist in the theater, so I'm always thinking about how a story moves, what it looks like, how to engage the senses, how dialogue sounds, what feels authentic and sounds real, what's funny, how to build distinctive and original characters - all the aspects of playwriting, scene-building, the architecture of dramatizing.”

ThinkingFeelsLooksRealCharacterStoriesMovingSoundBuildingSceneAspectTheaterOriginalsArchitectureSensesDialogueDistinctiveAlways ThinkingPlaywriting
Author:Adriana Trigiani
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“When I used to teach writing, what I would tell my playwriting students is that while you're writing your plays, you're also writing the playwright. You're developing yourself as a persona, as a public persona. It's going to be partly exposed through the writing itself and partly created by all the paraphernalia that attaches itself to writing. But you aren't simply an invisible being or your own private being at work. You're kind of a public figure, as well.”

WritingWellsKindPlayUsedTeachFiguresStudentsInvisibleDevelopingExposedPlaywrightPersonaPublic FiguresPlaywriting
Author:Tony Kushner
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“The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise.”

InspirationalChildrenWisdomRealizingGrowing UpLearningWiseWise WordsBecomingWords Of WisdomForgivenessAdultsForgivingCaringRealizationNovelistsImperfectionImperfectSpiritual WisdomAdolescenceLive And LearnLife LearningKids Growing UpYou Live And You LearnNobody's PerfectChildren Growing UpInspirational ForgivenessSelf ForgivenessNot Being PerfectPlaywritingImperfect WorldBecoming An Adult
Author:Alden Nowlan
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“What was once a cottage industry dedicated to the discovery and development of new voices and works has become instead the raison d'etre for many a playwright's existence . . .. And since readings have become playwrights' main source of exposure, the nature of playwriting has changed to fit readings' needs. Investigation into what is eminently theatrical has been substituted - more and more these days - by what can simply come across and read well.”

NeedsWellsHas BeensReadingVoiceExistenceChangedSourceDevelopmentIndustryFitDiscoveryCraftsThese DaysDedicatedInvestigationExposurePlaywrightTheatricalCottagesPlaywritingRaison D'etre
Author:Caridad Svich
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“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.”

IfsWorldWritingHumansIdeasSometimesUseProblemUsedOrderTurnsActorsAsksLanguageNovelAudienceLandSpeechPagesProductionsTheatrePainterUsed To BeCraftsAgentsLiftsVisualsPlaywrightTrickyCompoundsGood ActorsUse Of LanguagePlaywriting
Author:Ellen McLaughlin
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“I've come to view screenwriting assignments as playwriting grants, because they provide a considerable financial cushion. However, they can also be extremely time-consuming. Film projects tend to drag on and on, which takes me away from the theatre, and then they don't get made. At the same time, the screenplays that have come my way have been quite challenging, for the most part, and even enjoyable.”

WayHas BeensMadeFilmChallengesViewsProjectsFinancialTheatreCraftsMy WayGrantsTake MeDragEnjoyableConsumingScreenplaysAssignmentsScreenwritingCushionsTime ConsumingPlaywritingTake Me Away
Author:Donald Margulies
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