A Quote by Eric Bentley

A play has two authors, the playwright and the actor.

Eric Bentley

Quote Topics

Actor Authors Play Playwright Two

Quote Author

Eric Bentley
American - Critic
Born: September 14, 1916

Any actor worth his salt is looking for truth, the core of truth of the particular situation he is portraying, of that play. The playwright, the actors and the audience, that's what we're all there seeking. When it's working, time is destroyed. Sometimes 'Moon,' a play of four hours, would go by in a snap of the fingers.

Jason Robards

Playwrights are naturally wary and protective - God, who's more protective than a playwright? You read a play, the playwright wants to hear from you immediately.

Gene Saks

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.

Anton Chekhov

Theatre is an actor's medium though behind the stage there is a playwright, director and perhaps in some, a music composer too, yet the actor is the one who ultimately tells the story to the viewers.

Himani Shivpuri

When I was 18 and not sure whether I wanted to be an actor, I realised that a playwright has no voice without an actor. That's my reason for acting: to get that character as right as possible for my writer. And I have never changed my philosophy.

David Suchet

I, too, am deeply concerned with an overarching idea that dramaturgs are now authors . . .. I am not taking the position that all dramaturgs own copyright, deserve special billing credit, or should receive remuneration akin to that of the playwright. I know from my ears at the Dramatists Guild that almost everyone a writer encounters has suggestions of how to write and rewrite the play or musical to make it work.

Dana Rosemary Scallon

A stage play is basically a form of uber-schizophrenia. You split yourself into two minds - one being the protagonist and the other being the antagonist. The playwright also splits himself into two other minds: the mind of the writer and the mind of the audience.

David Mamet

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.

Brad Dourif

I'm an actor and a playwright, and I don't earn much.

Ellen McLaughlin

For a long time I managed to think two things simultaneously, that I am actually a good playwright, and that the next time I write a play I will be revealed as someone who is no good at all.

Tom Stoppard

One of the good thing about theater in the states, is that the playwright we do have a say, especially in the beginning, when the play is being discussed around the table. We talk about the play, and the actors listen, and there have been cases, you disagree on something... I mean, actors don't usually tell you what they're going to do, they do it. Of course, you try to speak with the director and say, "Is there any way you can bring this actor to do something different?" You try as much as you can, but then, you also have to be open to interpretation.

Nilo Cruz

The parallels between a stage and a book are compelling. You, like all authors, create 'characters' in a 'setting' who speak 'dialogue' encased in 'scenes.' Most importantly, you - like the playwright - have an 'audience.'

Nancy Kress

[My approach to the Bible, history does really matter.] Everything matters. But I have priorities. For instance, for me to know whether there were two Isaiahs or one is less important than the text itself. Of course I read the arguments for and against. But it's not my task in life to say there were two or three authors of Isaiah's book, or how many authors there were of Deuteronomy. This is not what I'm doing.