Best theater & audience Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 3

“Immediate gratification of a live audience makes me come alive. I miss performing in theater. I'll make my return to the stage eventually.”

Audience Alive Stage Missing Return Theater Performing Gratification Immediate Gratification

Author:Brendan Dooling

“Well, because we're talking here about people who've been ordered deported and the administration has done nothing about actually making sure that they go home. This is theater, I think, for two audiences - one probably for the American public to some degree, to make it seem as though the administration is taking this renewed surge of Central Americans seriously.”

People Thinking Wells Two Done Home Seems Talking Audience Degrees Theater Administration

Author:Mark Krikorian

“It's always been about when I do theater, the audience is just a viewer, not taking part in what's onstage. Whereas if you're doing stand-up, it's inclusive.”

Ifs Audience Theater Viewers

Author:Jon Glaser

“Whether I'm directing live action or animation, my responsibility is the same. I have an audience sitting in a theater with their popcorn, and I've got to show them a good time and make them feel something.”

Feels Shows Action Responsibility Audience Sitting Theater Good Times Animation Popcorn

Author:Lee Unkrich

“I always think that the difference between film and theater is like the difference between masturbation and making love. Because, in film, you just have to get one moment right; you're practically by yourself. And in theater, you actually have to have a relationship with the audience.”

Thinking Moments Film Differences Love Is Audience Theater Making Love Masturbation

Author:Susan Sarandon

“Typically, among the audience members joining the actors, the director, Ann Ciccolella and myself, about half of these theater goers have read the novel [Anthem], and half have not read it. That is interesting.”

Actors Interesting Half Novel Audience Directors Members Theater Joining Anthem

Author:Jeff Britting

“There's just something about getting up, putting it out there, and getting this exchange of energy. Whether your audience is a camera lens, or live theater, or whatever it is, just putting that out there and getting it back is just an honor.”

Energy Audience Honor Theater Cameras Lenses Live Theater Camera Lenses

Author:Lauren Bowles

“The exercise in theater is night after night you are doing the same play, but you have another opportunity to explore. It changes nightly even because of the audience and your day going into the evening of the performance. With film it's much more controlled.”

Play Film Night Opportunity Audience Exercise Performances Theater Evening Controlled Another Opportunity

Author:Julia Stiles

“I need to create a whole cinematic experience. I think that's what it takes to get the audience to the theater and justify seeing [a movie] on a big screen. You have to give them a cinematic experience.”

Thinking Needs Giving Whole Bigs Audience Seeing Theater Screens Justify Cinematic Big Screen

Author:Fede Alvarez

“When you're dealing with a symbol in a realistic play, it is also a realistic fact. You must expect the audience's mind to work on both levels, symbolically and realistically. But we're trained so much in pure, realistic theater that it's difficult for us to handle things on two levels at the same time.”

Mind Two Play Facts Difficult Levels Audience Pure Theater Handle Symbols Realistic

Book:Conversations with Edward Albee

Source: Conversations with Edward Albee

“The biggest lesson we took was when Werner [Herzog] said in a meeting with us that the mother of all challenges is to get your film seen in theater. To finally share this film has been so gratifying. The way audiences have responded, too.”

Way Has Beens Said Film Mother Challenges Audience Share Lessons Theater Meetings

Author:Sam Pressman

“I'm trying to change theater, in my own way - not just magic. I say that humbly, because I'm learning every single day. I do 15 shows a week, and every single audience I have is like a test screening for you, when you listen and go, "Really? They laughed at that?" All over the stage I have lines, written onstage, that I'm changing every single day.”

Way Trying Shows Lines My Own Audience Written Magic Week Stage Tests Theater Laughed Screening Trying To Change

Author:David Copperfield

“I grew up in music theater playing to the audience - singing and dancing and showing off. That's really my background. But the camera's different. I think I'm more at home on stage.”

Thinking Different Home Audience Stage Grew Grew Up Singing Theater Cameras Dancing Backgrounds Showing Off Singing And Dancing

Author:Christopher Walken

“[With theater] you draw the audience into the room as best you can, and in film, you can draw them into the room, you can draw them outside into the desert, you can take them out into the ocean, you can do all these amazing things.”

Film Can Do Rooms Audience Ocean Draws Theater Desert Amazing Things

Author:Kenneth Lonergan

“I see the audience as the final collaborator. I think it's kind of bullshit when people say, "I'm not interested in the audience reaction." I'm like, "Then why do you do theater? You can write a book, then you don't have to see how the audience reacts." It's a living, breathing thing.”

People Thinking Writing Kind Book Audience Theater Finals Reactions Breathing Not Interested Bullshit Collaborators

Author:Lynn Nottage

“If you're a playwright, unless you're really lacking in get-up-and-go, you can always get your play up somewhere. You can't necessarily make a living doing it, but theater is about meeting an audience. Plays are not easier to write necessarily, they take less time to write. If you get them up, it's a much more rough-and-tumble kind of existence. I think it's, from my perspective, easier than novel writing.”

Ifs Thinking Writing Kind Play Existence Novel Audience Perspective Easier Theater Meetings Get Up Rough Lacking Playwright Novel Writing

Author:Tony Kushner

“If you really want to help the American theater, don't be an actress, dahling. Be an audience.”

Ifs Want Helping Audience Theater Actresses

Author:Tallulah Bankhead

“Every time I go to the theater, there's something about the atmosphere, seeing something unfold live in front of an audience, that you can't get out of your system.”

Audience Seeing Fronts Theater Atmosphere

Author:John Madden

“As filmmakers, we want the audience to have the most complete experience they can. For example, I interviewed Stanley Kubrick years ago around the time of '2001: A Space Odyssey.' I was going to see the film that night in London, and he insisted I sit in one of four seats in the theater for the best view or not watch the film.”

Want Years Film Night Space Views Watches Audience Four Example Years Ago Theater London Filmmaker Seats Stanley Odyssey Space Odyssey 2001 A Space Odyssey

Author:Michael Mann

“Well, Toronto, I consider to be the birthplace of my films. I've made three films and this is the third one to premiere here in the same theater on the same day at the same time - they are my audience. They're the people that I think about while I'm writing, directing, and editing. I specifically make movies for them.”

People Thinking Writing Wells Made Film Three Audience Thirds Theater Editing Toronto Premieres Birthplace Birth Place

Author:Jason Reitman

“I prefer the old theaters because the audience is... trapped.”

Audience Theater Trapped

Author:Jerry Seinfeld

“I'm interested in the theater because I'm interested in communication with audiences. Otherwise I would be in concert music.”

Would Be Audience Communication Theater Concerts

Author:Stephen Sondheim

“I firmly believe lyrics have to breathe and give the audience's ear a chance to understand what's going on. Particularly in the theater, where you have costume, story, acting, orchestra.”

Giving Believe Stories Chance Acting Audience Ears Theater Breathe Costumes Orchestra

Author:Stephen Sondheim

“I love the theater as much as music, and the whole idea of getting across to an audience and making them laugh, making them cry - just making them feel - is paramount to me.”

Feels Ideas Whole Audience Laughing Cry Theater Paramount

Author:Stephen Sondheim

“But theater, because of its nature, both text, images, multimedia effects, has a wider base of communication with an audience. That's why I call it the most social of the various art forms.”

Art Form Social Audience Effects Communication Theater Various Multimedia

Author:Wole Soyinka

“There's a kind of dynamic quality about theater and that dynamic quality expresses itself in relation to, first of all, the environment in which it's being staged; then the audience, the nature of the audience, the quality of the audience.”

Firsts Kind Quality Audience Environment Relation Theater

Author:Wole Soyinka

“I always think if it's a good story, the audience can't wait to run out of the theater and go tweet somebody with the gist of a story, in a nutshell, almost, because it was that interesting.”

Ifs Thinking Stories Running Waiting Interesting Audience Theater Tweet Good Story Gist

Author:Steven Spielberg

“I played in front of every conceivable audience you could face: an all-black audience, all-white, firemen's fairs, policemen's balls, in front of supermarkets, bar mitzvahs, weddings, drive-in theaters. I'd seen it all before I ever walked into a recording studio.”

Faces Black White Audience Fronts Fairs Balls Theater Studios Bars Policemen Supermarkets Fireman All Black Recording Studio Bar Mitzvah Mitzvah

Author:Bruce Springsteen

“I want to give the audience a hint of a scene. No more than that. Give them too much and they won't contribute anything themselves. Give them just a suggestion and you get them working with you. That's what gives the theater meaning: when it becomes a social act.”

Want Giving Social Audience Too Much Scene Theater Theatre Suggestions Hints

Author:Orson Welles

“I suppose it is submerged realities that give to dreams their curious air of hyper-reality. But perhaps there is something else as well, something nebulous, gauze-like, through which everything one sees in a dream seems, paradoxically, much clearer. A pond becomes a lake, a breeze becomes a storm, a handful of dust is a desert, a grain of sulphur in the blood is a volcanic inferno. What manner of theater is it, in which we are at once playwright, actor, stage manager, scene painter and audience?”

“The audience is the most revered member of the theater. Without an audience, there is no theater. Everything done is ultimately for the enjoyment of the audience. They are our guests, fellow players, and the last spoke in the wheel which can then begin to roll. They make the performance meaningful.”

Done Lasts Acting Audience Player Members Performances Theater Fellows Theatre Meaningful Enjoyment Wheels Spokes Guests

Author:Viola Spolin

“Tennis is more than just a sport. It's an art, like the ballet. Or like a performance in the theater. When I step on the court I feel like Anna Pavlova. Or like Adelina Patti. Or even like Sarah Bernhardt. I see the footlights in front of me. I hear the whisperings of the audience. I feel an icy shudder. Win or die! Now or never! It's the crisis of my life.”

Feels Art Dies Winning Sports Steps Audience Fronts Performances Theater Crisis Court Tennis Motivational Sports Ballet Whispering Anna Icy Now Or Never

Author:Bill Tilden

“ِِِِِِِِِِArt house theaters are vanishing. They have almost disappeared completely, and that means there's a shift in what audiences want to see. And they have to be aware of that and be realistic. It's as simple as that.”

Want Mean Art House Simple Audience Theater Realistic Vanishing

Author:Werner Herzog

“I write for an audience that likes what I like, reads what I read, thinks about the things I think about. In many ways, this puts me in opposition to the people who go to the theater generally.”

People Thinking Way Writing Audience Theater Likes Opposition

Author:Eric Bogosian

“Cary Grant was wonderful to work with on stage. He would move downstage, so that as he looked at me the audience had to look at me, too. He knew a lot about the theater and how to move around. He was very secure.”

Looks Moving Work Audience Wonderful Stage Theater Secure Grants Look At Me

Author:Fay Wray

“I love doing theater so much - being in front of an audience and seeing how a character grows and develops with every performance.”

Character Grows Audience Seeing Fronts Performances Theater Being In Love

Author:Jerry Hall

“Macbeth is a very popular play with audiences. If you want to sell out a theater, just mount a production of Macbeth. It's a short play, it's an exciting play, it's easy to understand, and it attracts great acting.”

Ifs Want Play Easy Acting Audience Exciting Theater Sells Productions Very Popular

Author:Ian Mckellen

“Gene [Siskel] often mentioned something François Truffaut once told him: the most beautiful sight in a movie theater is to walk down to the front, turn around, and look at the light from the screen reflected on the upturned faces of the members of the audience.”

Looks Light Beautiful Faces Turns Walks Audience Fronts Members Sight Theater Screens Genes Movie Theater Beautiful Sights

Author:Roger Ebert

“A playwright... is... the litmus paper of the arts. He's got to be, because if he isn't working on the same wave length as the audience, no one would know what in hell he was talking about.”

Ifs Knows Writing Art Talking Audience Hell Paper Theater Wave Length Playwright

Book:The Collected Essays of Arthur Miller

Source: The Collected Essays of Arthur Miller

“When you are on stage in front of an audience, you want to engage the entire crowd. If a thousand people are in the theater, you need to dance a thousand different ways, not one-thousandth of a way.”

People Ifs Way Want Needs Different Audience Stage Fronts Thousand Theater Crowds Different Ways Ballet

Author:Suzanne Farrell

“The virtue of dress rehearsals is that they are a free show for a select group of artists and friends of the author, and where for one unique evening the audience is almost expurgated of idiots.”

Shows Artist Audience Virtue Groups Unique Theater Dresses Theatre Evening Idiot Rehearsal Select

Book:Selected works: Edited by Roger Shattuck and Simon Watson Taylor

Source: Selected works: Edited by Roger Shattuck and Simon Watson Taylor

Theater Quotes

Related topics

Theater Quotes