Top 96 Quotes & Sayings by Theresa Rebeck
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American novelist Theresa Rebeck.
Last updated on December 21, 2024.
Our distorted media culture sees men as subjects and women as objects; in films, Woody Allen gets older and older and still dates 20-year-old babes; movies about women are called 'chick flicks,' and men make fun of them.
Everyone pays lip service to this whole idea of doing more new plays, and nobody ever does it.
I'm not ashamed of being American; I'm very proud.
Rarely do I try to pull a creature out of life and make it a character.
I think new plays are vastly more surprising and challenging and inspiring; I hear from audiences all the time that they are delighted when they see plays about the world we live in now, at this moment.
I like to write. Prolific is part of who I am.
Why on earth is the 'New Yorker' publishing puff pieces about pretty girls who go to parties? Does the 'New Yorker' ever run photos of cute boys just because they're cute and they come from money and they go to lots of parties?
I think we have a cultural difficulty with looking at our problems.
Why is it so hard for men to identify with women as fellow travelers on this good Earth?
Nothing sounds as crazy as telling people you're not crazy.
Does art have to have high foot traffic to get funded in a recession? A lot of people, I am sure, would say absolutely not. And those postmodern art-loving loners surely would argue that even if one person likes a piece of art, that would make a museum worthwhile.
One thing I won't do in television is a sitcom. I find that world to be so neurotic and bizarre.
In America, the average playwright makes less than a receptionist in a non-profit theatre. We don't have decent health insurance - or any health insurance at all.
That stupid postmodern emphasis on image over content has slammed us right into a dramaturgy that willfully leaves the audience behind and then resents the fact that they don't 'get it.'
I have spent my whole life working in the theater, and most of the people I know have done the same. And we are pretty interesting people.
I sincerely believe that for the New York theatre to remain relevant, all our major producing institutions should be presenting new American plays.
Is the American theatre allowing itself to become irrelevant? The problem isn't that playwrights aren't being paid enough. It's that theatres all over America are looking towards New York to tell them what new plays to do.
I have a dog whose name is Banquo.
Some of my family goes back a long way in Denver.
Why is being a female having an agenda any more than being a misogynist - which David Mamet most certainly is?
Heath Ledger's recent death, like that of River Phoenix, was handled with great care by the press. Anna Nicole Smith's not so much.
I'm actually interested in poor behavior. I'm interested in what drives people to poor behavior.
I find a lot of input from other people very stressful.
Spielberg read the 'Understudy' and decided that was the voice he wanted to write 'Smash.' He wanted a story that had humanity and humor and high-stakes dreams.
The stage gives you more control over your own work; in television, there's a distressing amount of communal writing. Unless it's your show, you have no control over that. You're at the mercy of whoever's running the show.
I was born and raised in the Midwest, where people were taught that decency and integrity and community were all important values. We were democrats with a little 'd.'
Not so long ago, my feminist education taught me to ask the question, 'Is the gaze male?' The answer, apparently, is yes, which is why so many movies and television shows are about men and not women.
I had such a good experience doing 'The Understudy' with the Roundabout, and people were really enthusiastic about the work.
The ridiculous way that workplace politics are conducted completely gets in the way of excellence in America.
Denver's commitment to giving contemporary storytellers the stage is crucial to the American theater. That's something embraced by 'Smash.' We should be telling our own stories.
A lot of times, I think people feel that new plays are suspect, and actually, I don't know where that came from. I completely disagree with it!
People kept saying, 'You've made it!' and I was like, 'What have I been doing all this time?' I've always felt successful.
We need theatre that is contemporary, lively and relevant, and the only way to do that is to take care of our playwrights and produce their plays.
It's sort of a mystery where ideas come from.
Because I'm an American woman, and I write straight plays, it's always been sort of assumed I would never be done on Broadway. But that was never the goal.
Part of the problem with producing contemporary political theater in America today is that many theaters don't have flexibility or resources, be it hiring a lot of actors or staging a work that might be tough for some audience and board members.
Art is great. At its best, it engages the intellect and challenges the spirit; it connects us across history and reminds us of our humanity.
Some people think big audiences are crass and that, say, a comedy that appeals to a wide audience is pandering. Other people would argue that you could say that about Moliere.
Theater can be elusive and poetic, but it doesn't thrive when it doesn't reach an audience.
I go to museums. I buy art, even. You should see my house; we don't have any wall space left.
Sometimes I feel that my job on earth is to put Julie White through horrible things, watch her writhe and then recover.
There's a thing that happens to Midwesterners - we spend a lot of time talking about having a different set of rules about manners. I don't know about ethics, but certainly about manners, what you would say and what you wouldn't say. And that is not very East coast.
I have huge admiration for Jesus Christ and for his incredible compassion for all people.
It's not my responsibility to write plays about the way the world should be.
I write a lot because, if I don't, I start to panic, and I calm down when I write.
I have admiration for people who can do it well - the guys who wrote 'Cheers' and 'Frasier.' They created sort of a blissful comedic universe.
I actuall have to defend realism in theatre because I think TV does it badly - so corrupted by layers of bureaucrats who want to leave examination or psychology.
I have two sensational kids who I have raised with my husband, hoping and working every day to help them become healthy, happy, and decent human beings.
Theater is a public space. It is a spectacular space. It is a gathering place.
I think it's straight men who are oblivious to goodness or badness to dates. That's probably unfair. Maybe they just don't complain as much.
You have to respect who the character is. It has its own internal truth, and you can't betray that. And if you don't betray that, it will not betray you.
My son is a musician who next year will be attending the LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts in New York City, which his mother helped him get into by making him practice all the time.
So in case there was any doubt, I am here to report that having a play on Broadway does not suck.
There are so many people from many different classes and ways of life who converge in one space to make a musical.
I think it goes without saying that young would-be playwrights in developmental workshops should be so lucky as to write plays as good as 'Waiting for Godot,' 'Uncle Vanya' or 'King Lear,' none of which would have existed without a decent plot.
Obviously, a theatrical masterpiece needs more than a plot; many television shows are nothing but plot, and it is doubtful that they will stand the test of time. But I also don't think that making fun of plot or acting like we're all somehow 'above' structure is such a good idea.
We have this powerful ideological basis to the country that I don't think any other country in the world quite can brag about. It's a very complicated nation, and it's very fertile.
I seem to be constantly confronted by theater professionals who are more or less annoyed by the prospect of structure.
The audience just doesn't care. They are just as interested in women-centric stories as they are in stories about men.
The myth that theater isn't for everybody is total nonsense. In the 18th and 19th centuries, everybody in America used to go to the theater all the time. The shows they went to see were big, crazy melodramas that had careening storylines and houses burning down and pretty girls in danger and comedy and death and destruction.
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