John Lahr Quotes About Theatre

Quotes about: Theatre

• A prose writer never sees a reader walk out of a book; for a playwright, it's another matter. An audience is an invaluable education. In my experience, theatre artists don't know what they've made until they've made it.

  John Lahr

  Book, Artist, Theatre

• I go to the theatre expecting to have a good time. I want each play and performance to take me somewhere. Naturally, this doesn't always happen.

  John Lahr

  Play, Theatre, Want

  "Questions for John Lahr". www.newyorker.com. January 23, 2009.

• Most of the people dishing out judgment have no working experience of the theatre, have not written a professional play, a sketch, or even a joke; have never worked in a theatre, taken an acting class, or published any extended piece of work. They are creative virgins; everything they know about theatre is book-learned and second-hand.

  John Lahr

  Taken, Book, Class

  "Questions for John Lahr" by John Lahr, www.newyorker.com. January 23, 2009.

• The only thing I get from the theatre is a sore arse.

  John Lahr

  Theatre, Arses

• In Britain, the theatre has traditionally been where the public goes to think about its past and debate its future. The formation of the National Theatre, at the Old Vic, near the South Bank, in 1963, institutionalized the symbolic importance of drama by giving it both a building and state funding.

  John Lahr

  Drama, Past, Thinking

  John Lahr (2015). “Joy Ride: Lives of the Theatricals”, p.408, Bloomsbury Publishing

• First and foremost, I'd say my father, Bert Lahr ... gave me a love of theatre--its kinetic and emotional potential and its raffish backstage fun--and also set an artistic example of the importance of corrupting an audience with pleasure.

  John Lahr

  Fun, Father, Emotional

• Theatre is a game of hide-and-seek. For both the hiders and the seekers, the thrill is in the discovery. When the rules of the game are too vague or too complicated, however, the audience can lose its urge to play; the prize no longer seems quite worth the hunt.

  John Lahr

  Discovery, Games, Play

  "The Human Circus" by John Lahr, www.newyorker.com. March 1, 2010.

• Theatre people, who are an adaptive species, know that to remain sane in the process of production where everyone and his uncle has an opinion about how to fix a show, you must pick the people whose knowledge and taste you trust and stick only to these few. The Tweetocracy is no place to look.

  John Lahr

  Uncles, People, Theatre

• Any play that makes an audience think out of the box, that makes connections to life and names our pain and by doing so makes our pain subject to thinking and the process of understanding, is doing something inherently political. By promoting understanding, by putting experience in context, by making connections between the normal and the rational, theatre is an act of anti-terrorism. It stimulates courage and a survival spirit. In that sense of political, there are a lot of serious plays doing their work in the world.

  John Lahr

  Pain, Thinking, Play

  "Questions for John Lahr" by John Lahr, www.newyorker.com. January 23, 2009.

• Questions about political theatre always overlook America's most powerful and effective political theatre, which is always thriving: the American musical. The politics is conservative but, to my mind, effective and insidious.

  John Lahr

  Powerful, America, Political

  "Questions for John Lahr" by John Lahr, www.newyorker.com. January 23, 2009.

• I detest literature. I abominate the theatre. I have a horror of culture. I am only interested in magic!

  John Lahr

  Magic, Theatre, Culture

  Kenneth Tynan, John Lahr (2002). “The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan”, p.21, A&C Black

• The history of theatre is the history of first nights.

  John Lahr

  Night, Theatre, Firsts

  John Lahr (2013). “Prick Up Your Ears: The Biography of Joe Orton”, p.250, Open Road Media

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