Top 1200 Theatre Quotes & Sayings - Page 3

I hate the idea of theatre just being an evening pastime. It should be emotionally and intellectually demanding. I love football. The level of analysis that you listen to on the terraces is astonishing. If people did that in the theatre... but they don't. They expect to sit back and not participate.

I believe if you go to a movie theatre, and you see something you think is incredible, if you walk out of the theatre and there was a bin in the lobby of DVDs of the film you just watched, you would buy four of them - one for you and three for your friends.

I think, in the past, you could buy a flat and live comfortably on theatre and touring theatre, but you can't do that anymore, which means that you have to have a certain amount of celebrity and profile to, therefore, get TV and film work.

As much as the mystery element is all a lot of fun, when you do go to 'Edwin Drood,' you're going to a theatre to see a show about going to a theatre and what that relationship between actors and audiences has been for years.

All of my scripts are based on other people's novels. Generally, I consider myself as one who writes for theatre. I do not see film work as a continuation of writing for theatre. It is more of an interruption of the writing process.

I'm a theatre person, that's who I am. I'm happy to make sojourns into the world of movies but I'm basically a theatre director that potters off and does a couple of movies.

My parents met in the theatre, and I thought that was so romantic. My dad was a scenic designer and my mom was a dancer, and that's how they met; they met in the theatre.

THEATRE HAS THE POWER TO MOVE, INSPIRE, TRANSFORM AND EDUCATE IN WAYS THAT NO OTHER ART FORM CAN. THEATRE REFLECTS BOTH THE EXTRAORDINARY DIVERSITY OF CULTURES AND OUR SHARED HUMAN CONDITION, IN ALL ITS VULNERABILITY AND STRENGTH.

Modelling was not very satisfying for me. I came to London to model, and I fell in love with the theatre. I was eating yoghurt every day so that I had the money to go to the theatre. I saw everything. It's still my dream to be on stage in London.

Theatre has always been my passion. It never happened to me that theatre took a back seat in my life. I have never stopped doing it even after joining the film industry, and I intend to perform it lifelong.

And people are so het up about the fact I'm in the theatre - it's like, 'Ooh these telly names, can they be any good?' I came out of RADA and my first job was at the National Theatre, but everyone wonders if I can cope. It makes me laugh.

Film has become a very passive experience, but with theatre, there is a contract made with the audience, where they participate. That's why my parents' puppet theatre was such a special place - people used their imaginations. It's a muscle that needs using.

I have seen Hollywood artistes like Al Pacino, Tom Cruise and Tim Burton doing theatre and Broadway shows. Cinema actors tend to go back to theatre because it gives them an opportunity to reinvent themselves.

Pass the popcorn, please. Life is a film, theatre, a theatre of the soul. We play different roles on different stages. At death, we walk offstage. At birth, we walk onstage.

I'm not a really firm believer in theatre that is 'about anything.' I don't think theatre can be about anything other than the people who show up and the value that they hold.

The fact is that 'The Wizard Of Oz' has never really worked in the theatre. The film has one or two holes where, in the theatre, you need a song. For example, there's nothing for either of the two witches to sing.

Theatre is relatively easy if you're British - you're living in the theatre capital of the world, London - there are so many places you can work, still. If I had begun to think of myself as a film actor, I think I would have got distracted.

There's a great charm in theatre; I enjoyed doing it for twelve years and did lots of plays. At this chapter of my life, I am a cinema actor, and I would like to continue to be so, and at some point I would return to the theatre.

If an irreducible distinction between theatre and cinema does exist, it may be this: Theatre is confined to a logical or continuous use of space. Cinemahas access to an alogical or discontinuous use of space.

There are many actors who'll make their living in other areas, and they'll say they don't like theatre. What they're saying is that they're afraid of theatre because they know it will separate those who can from those who can't.

To be honest, I am not theatre-trained and though I am confident in my skill set, to do theatre requires a better-tuned set of muscles and I sometimes defer to actors who are better trained. But at the times I do want a shot, I'll go for it, especially if the piece speaks to me and the opportunity comes up. The immediate response from a theatre audience is so thrilling, affirming, and soul-feeding; to know how you've affected an audience at curtain can be ego-blowing, both good and bad.

In the theatre, because you're all looking at the same thing in the same space, consciousness is no longer individual. There is a unified consciousness. Until you look and project what is happening, it doesn't exist; the audience are the ones making the theatre, not the players.

Theatre was my first love. I can't take the theatre out of me. And I wouldn't want to. To me, it's home.

There's a loyalty attached to football, and it is more communal than theatre. If you go to the football, it is part of the structure of your life. For lots of people, theatre is a treat.

I don't have a preference between theatre and film; I like to do both. But I will say that there's something about theatre that is more nourishing and sustaining than film ever can be.

I love the instantaneous nature of filming rather than the repetition of working in the theatre, but that maybe because I haven't had great experiences working in the theatre.

I studied at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which was founded by Laurence Olivier and has alumni like Jeremy Irons and Daniel Day Lewis. It's a very erudite institution; its ethos, really, was always theatre-based.

In my opinion, there's nothing new in the theatre, ever. Theatre-makers are thieves, in the honourable tradition of charlatans. They fake it very, very well indeed for the entertainment of everybody else.

I've never done stand-up; I came via small-scale touring theatre, through the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, then I got employed on that as an actor who had a humorous sensibility.

I never thought I'd be one of those old hams who favours theatre over everything, but I'm getting that way. Telly and film seemed more fun when I was younger; turning left on planes and washing up in nice places. But there are things that you only learn in theatre.

There is always a sacred hour in the theatre - after rehearsals and before performances, in the afternoon, between three and five o'clock. Normally the theatre is empty then, and this is a wonderful hour.

Theatre can entertain, provoke, challenge, investigate, comfort and educate. It's arrogant of a playwright to think education is more important than anything else. Writing for the theatre does not give you permission to lecture, hector or bore.

What draws me to the theatre, and what appealed to me about Too Much Light, is that you have no idea what's going to happen. That's the most exciting part of theatre, it's never the same. If it were, it would be like watching a movie.

The real writing of a piece comes only when you are performing it. It is why I like theatre. In film and TV, the image is locked forever, but in theatre, there is constant change; each performance is part of the writing process.

At the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre, Sanford Meisner said, 'When you go into the professional world, at a stock theatre somewhere, backstage, you will meet an older actor, someone who has been around awhile. He will tell you tales and anecdotes, about life in the theatre. He will speak to you about your performance and the performances of others, and he will generalize to you, based on his experience and his intuitions, about the laws of the stage. Ignore this man!'

My mother would strike me off if I didn't say theatre was incredibly important, and when you see something like 'Network' at the National Theatre, my god it's important. You feel like you can't breathe.

After a two-year stint at Cheek by Jowl theatre company in London, I put all my energies into breaking into New York's theatre scene. It took me eight years to build enough to play lead roles.

Theatre is an actor's medium. An actor has little control over a film. Which is why most actors who have done theatre, and then come to films find the former more creatively satisfying.

I love directing. It's something I started doing in theatre when I was in university in Chicago and I started a theatre company right out of college and was directing for many years.

Rather than disliking theatre, I've expressed a preference for television because it tends to deal in its small way much more with issues and is able to reach a broader church of people than theatre.

I was mad about the theatre growing up, really mad. We had a local theatre, the Torch, and I used to usher there. I would see the shows over and over again.

In theatre, presence is the matrix of power; the postmodern theatre of resistance must therefore both expose the collusion of presence with authority and resist such collusion by refusing to establish itself as the charismatic Other.

Certainly, nothing would stop me coming home for Christmas, if I can. But I've worked a lot in theatre, and in theatre in New York, we work Christmas Day a lot of the time as well.

My parents say it all began with my role of Percy the Polar Bear back in nursery school! I began dance classes at the age of five (you would never guess though) and then I went on to join my local theatre group, Glantawe Players, at the age of eight and then Swansea Amateur Dramatics Society. I then joined the National Youth Music Theatre, so I really can't remember a time when I wasn't interested in Musical Theatre!

Theatre is one of those things that children will love if they're helped to get there to see it. No child will find his or her own way to the theatre.

I like working in theatre now and I think that once you've done a certain amount of films most actors love working in the theatre because of the camaraderie.

We talk about theatre museums filled with old costumes and things. What we also need is a theatre museum of the old routines on videotape. We are only the custodians of those techniques, and they should be preserved.

Lou Tyrrell has created a theatre that is a safe haven for playwrights, a birthing center for new American writing. Arts Garage has created a vital, enthusiastic audience for theatre, music, painting and sculpture in Delray Beach.

I think theatre must be an event, an experience, not compete with cinema. When people are able to download stories on Netflix, you need to give them a good reason to jump into the car and drive two hours. It has to be something you can only see in the theatre, and it has to be worth it.

I need theatre for my equilibrium, because in theatre the actors don't care so much about image, about celebrity - you are more independent. There is not the narcissism, maybe, that you find in cinema.

I mean there’s a certain finality about a movie, when it’s done it’s done – that raised eyebrow in that moment will always be that raised eyebrow. Whereas a play only lives as a blueprint for a performance on any given night. There’s a reason you can eat popcorn and watch a movie and you can’t do that in the theatre. Theatre you have to lean in, you have to tune your ear to the stage and participateI respond to heat. And blood. And humanity. The cold experience is not for me. I’ve always enjoyed all the real people in a room together in the theatre.

When I was doing fringe theatre, my ambition was to do repertory. When I got to rep it was to do national theatre; then it was t,o get a couple of parts in television. I never had this great desire to overreach myself. I was too busy enjoying acting. I was just obsessed with it.

In the theatre, if you say 'Macbeth', all the actors will start looking very anxious. I'm so well-trained not to say it in the theatre that I can hardly say it in normal life.

When I was doing theatre in Mumbai, actors won't come because they had television. For many years, I did theatre religiously and in Mumbai, I saw people disrespecting it and it hurt me very badly.

I hate rules. I hate 'This is the way things are done'. I hate a lack of reinvention. I hate theatre as an archeological exercise. Theatre needs to be urgent.

I love the theatre and theatre people.

After my schooling, I started theatre. By the time I graduated, I was doing theatre 24x7. Luckily, the FTII (Film and Television Institute of India) acting course started.

Learning to write for the theatre is learning to be a human being, because the theatre by its very nature makes you deal with other human beings.

Theatre for a New Audience is one of America's most admirable and exciting theatre companites...some of the best acted and directed work to be found on American stages, engaging with the canon of world dramatic literature in a vigorous way.

I love theatre. I think it's the home of most actors...most actors start with it. It's so enjoyable to do and to be able to see your audience. And the process of theatre is great.