Best Theatre Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 28

“Theatre is very much concerned with the society, with the social situation... A theatre piece of itself, demands a confrontation with the audience. It demands that you connect with people; it demands a collective and social effort with the company and later with the audience.”

People Social Effort Company Situation Audience Pieces Demand Concerned Theatre Collectives Confrontation

Author:Griselda Gambaro

“There, at the centre, are the artists who really form the consciousness of their time; they respond deeply, intuitively to what is happening, what has happened, and what will happen, and their response is expressed in metaphor, in image and in fable.”

Happens Form Artist Consciousness Happened Happenings Response Metaphor Theatre Centre Fables

Author:John Wain

“It is an actor's passion to observe the world. It is his art to become what he observes. And finally, it is his job to let the world observe him.”

World Art Jobs Passion Actors Theatre

Author:Richard Corliss

“Drama is exposure; it is confrontation; it is contradiction and it leads to analysis, construction, recognition and eventually to an awakening of understanding.”

Understanding Drama Theatre Awakening Recognition Analysis Contradiction Construction Exposure Confrontation

Author:Peter Brook

“You can throw away the privilege of acting, but that would be such a shame. The tribe has elected you to tell its story. You are the shaman/healer, that's what the storyteller is, and I think it's important for actors to appreciate that. Too often actors think it's all about them, when in reality it's all about the audience being able to recognize themselves in you. The more you pull away from the public, the less power you have on screen.”

Thinking Important Stories Reality Would Be Able Actors Acting Audience Appreciate Shame Privilege Theatre Screens Tribes Storyteller Healer

Author:Ben Kingsley

“An actor is part illusionist, part artist, part ham.”

Artist Actors Theatre Ham Illusionists

Author:Oscar Wilde

“In London, theatregoers expect to laugh; in Paris, they wait grimly for proof that they should.”

Should Waiting Laughing London Theatre Proof Paris

Author:Robert Dhery

“Like hungry guests, a sitting audience looks / Plays are like suppers; poets are the cooks / The founder's you; the table is this place / The carvers we; the prologue is the grace / Each act a course, each scene, a different dish.”

Looks Different Play Courses Audience Grace Poet Scene Sitting Tables Theatre Hungry Cooks Guests Founders Dishes Supper Prologue Carver

Book:Hit Or Miss! A Musical Farce in Two Acts

Source: Hit Or Miss! A Musical Farce in Two Acts

“We do not go to the theatre like our ancestors, to escape from the pressure of reality, so much as to confirm our experience of it.”

Reality Pressure Theatre Ancestor

Book:Essays of Elia

Source: Essays of Elia

“Theatre takes place all the time - wherever one is - and art simply facilitates persuading one this is the case.”

Art Cases Theatre Facilitate Persuading

Book:Silence: Lectures and Writings

Source: Silence: Lectures and Writings

“The structure of a play is always the story of how the birds came home to roost.”

Writing Play Stories Home Bird Structure Theatre Editing Roost

Author:Arthur Miller

“Great drama is the souvenir of the adventure of a master among the pieces of his own soul.”

Soul Pieces Adventure Masters Drama Theatre Souvenirs

Book:The World in Falseface

Source: The World in Falseface

“There are two impulses in theatre: to be frivolous or to make rules.”

Two Theatre Impulse Rules Frivolous

Author:Tadashi Suzuki

“Realism is something we practice when we aren't feeling very well. When we don't feel up to the extra effort.”

Feels Wells Art Feelings Effort Practice Design Theater Theatre Extras Realism Feeling Bad Feeling Down Extra Effort

Book:Towards a new theatre: the lectures of Robert Edmond Jones

Source: Towards a new theatre: the lectures of Robert Edmond Jones

“Cruelty in the theatre is unrelenting decisiveness, diligence, strictness.”

Theatre Cruelty Diligence Decisiveness Unrelenting

Author:Antonin Artaud

“Embarrassment is a partner in the creative act.”

Creative Theatre Partners Embarrassment

Author:Charles Jeffries

“The object is freedom.”

Objects Theatre

Book:A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theatre

Source: A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theatre

“I believe in the American theatre. I believe in its power to inform about the human condition, its power to heal ... its power to uncover the truths we wrestle from uncertain and sometimes unyielding realities.”

Believe Humans Sometimes Reality I Believe Conditions I Believe In Theatre Heal Human Condition Uncertain Unyielding

Author:August Wilson

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”

Wells Sometimes Reason Stories Theatre Good Story

Book:Mark Twain: The Complete Interviews

Source: Mark Twain: The Complete Interviews

“You weren't going to the theatre to change the world, but you had a chance to affect the world, the thinking and the feelings of the world.”

Thinking World Feelings Chance Theatre Changing The World

Author:James Earl Jones

“Family is the theatre of the spiritual drama, the place where things happen, especially the things that matter.”

Matter Happens Spiritual Drama Theatre Things Happen Things That Matter

Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton

“This is an extremely foolish and stupid and idiotic kind of attitude - to expect theatres to make money. Do the public schools make money? Do libraries make money? Does the zoo make money? D o the sewers make money? It's a community service.”

Kind Doe School Community Attitude Stupid Library Theatre Foolish Making Money Public School Zoos Idiotic Community Service Sewers

Author:John Hirsch

“One mustn't allow acting to be like stoc kbroker - you must not take it just as a means of earning a living, to go down every day to do a job of work. The big thing is to combine punctuality, efficiency, good nature, obedience, intelligence, and concentration with an unawareness of what is going to happen next, thus keeping yourself available for excitement.”

“The purpose of theatre is... making an event in which a group of fragments are sudde nly brought together... in a community which, by the natural laws that make every community, gradually breaks up... At certain moments this fragmented world comes together and for a certain time it can rediscover the marvel of organic life ... The marvel of being one.”

World Moments Together Law Purpose Certain Community Natural Break Groups Events Theatre Fragments Natural Law Fragmented Organic Life

Author:Peter Brook

“Acted drama requires surrender of one's self, sympathetic absorption in the play as it develops.”

Self Play Drama Theatre Surrender Sympathetic Absorption

Author:George P. Baker

“Acting is experience with something sweet behind it.”

Acting Behinds Sweet Theatre Something Sweet

Author:Humphrey Bogart

“Acting, in general, is something most people think they're incapable of, but they do it from morning to night. The subtlest acting I've ever seen is by ordinary people trying to show they feel something they don't, or trying to hide something. It's something everyone learns at an early age.”

People Thinking Feels Trying Shows Age Night Acting Morning Ordinary Theatre Incapable Ordinary People

Author:Marlon Brando

“Nobody "becomes" a character. You can't act unless you are who you are.”

Character Who You Are Theatre

Author:Marlon Brando

“Preparing a character is the opposite of building-it is a demolishing, removing brick by brick everything in the actor's muscles, ideas and inhibitions that stands between him and the part, until one day, with a great rush of air, the character invades his every pore.”

Ideas Character Actors Air Building One Day Opposites Theatre Muscles Preparing Bricks Inhibitions

Book:The Shifting Point: Forty Years of Theatrical Exploration, 1946-87

Source: The Shifting Point: Forty Years of Theatrical Exploration, 1946-87

“When I was a fireman I was in a lot of burning buildings. It was a great job, the only job I ever had that compares with the thrill of acting.”

Jobs Acting Building Theatre Burning Compare Thrill Great Job Fireman Burning Buildings

Author:Steve Buscemi

“Onstage, you just have to tell the absolute truth about the character you are playing. You hope you communicate it, and you hope it comes back like a tennis ball. If you're listening to the sound of your own voice, nobody else is. The audience knows, and they freeze on you.”

Ifs Knows Character Sound Voice Audience Listening Balls Absolutes Communicate Theatre Tennis Freeze Absolute Truth Tennis Balls

Author:Carol Channing

“Whatever you do kid, always serve it with a little dressing.”

Littles Kids Theatre Dressings

Author:George M. Cohan

“Of course, the age-old tradition that a star must appear even if he or she is practically dying is an excellent one, but it can be carried too far. I one played a performance of The Knight of the Burning Pestle with a temperature of 103 and gave sixteen members of the company mumps, thereby closing the play and throwing everybody out of work. There may be a moral lurking somewhere in this, but I cannot for the life of me discover what it is.”

Ifs May Play Age Courses Stars Company Moral Dying Members Tradition Performances Theatre Burning Excellent Throwing Closing Knights Temperature Sixteen Lurking Old Traditions

Author:Noel Coward

“In the first act, you get the audience's attention - once you have it, they will repay you in the second. Play through the laughs if you have to. It will only make the audience believe there are so many of them that they missed a few.”

Ifs Firsts Believe Play Attention Audience Laughing Theatre

Book:The Essential Noël Coward Compendium: The Very Best of His Work, Life and Times

Source: The Essential Noël Coward Compendium: The Very Best of His Work, Life and Times

“She stopped the show - but then the show wasn't traveling very fast.”

Shows Theatre

Author:Noel Coward

“Acting is not a state of being ... but a state of appearing to be. You can't be eight times a week without going stark staring mad. You've got to be in control.”

States Acting Week Mad Eight Theatre Staring Be You Appearing Starks

Author:Noel Coward

“Pray to God and say the lines.”

Lines Praying Theatre Praying To God

Author:Bette Davis

“A good actor makes clear the meaning of the words. A better actor gives also the emotion of the part. The best actor adds emotion of which the character is unconscious.”

Giving Character Actors Emotion Clear Add Theatre Unconscious Good Actors

Author:Clare Eames

“When you're doing a play and you're afraid of a scene, that's the scene you should embrace, because that's the scene that will tell you something about the play.”

Should Play Scene Embrace Theatre

Author:Raul Esparza

“To be a character who feels a deep emotion, one must go into the memory's vault and mix in a sad memory from one's own life.”

Feels Character Memories Emotion Theatre Good Memories Vaults Deep Emotions Sad Memories

Author:Albert Finney

“Being another character is more interesting than being yourself.”

Character Interesting Theatre Being Yourself

Author:John Gielgud

“Never get caught acting.”

Acting Caught Theatre

Author:Lillian Gish

“I love playing Chekhov. That's the hardest; that's why I love it most.”

Theatre Hardest Chekhov

Author:Uta Hagen

“I'm a bad liar; I don't know what to say backstage.”

Knows Lying Theatre Liars

Author:Uta Hagen

“A cat actually thinks visibly. If you watch him jump on a shelf, the wish to jump and the action of jumping are one and the same thing... It's in exactly the same way that all Brook's exercises try to train the actor. The actor is trained to become so organically related within himself, he thinks completely with his body. He becomes one sensitive, responding whole... The whole of him is one.”

Ifs Thinking Way Trying Whole Body Action Actors Wish Watches Exercise Cat Train Theatre Sensitive Related Shelves Jumping Responding Brooks

Author:John Heilpern

“What acting means is that you've got to get out of your own skin.”

Mean Acting Skins Theatre

Author:Katharine Hepburn

“Acting's entertainment. It's not brain surgery.”

Acting Brain Entertainment Theatre Surgery Brain Surgery

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“You think, you don't just speak. The lines come off the thoughts.”

Thinking Speak Lines Theatre

Author:Jeremy Irons

“You'd think is something one would grow out of. But you grow into it. The more you do, the more you realize how painfully easy it is to be lousy and how very difficult to be good.”

Thinking Grows Easy Difficult Realizing Be Good Theatre

Author:Glenda Jackson

“The secret of staying fresh in a show is to remember that the audience you're playing for that night has never seen it before.”

Shows Remember Night Secret Audience Theatre Staying

Author:Danny Kaye

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