Lynn Nottage Quotes

• I feel it's my social responsibility to shine a light on areas that don't get seen. My personal feeling is that it's an artist's responsibility to be engaged with the culture. And when the culture is going through turmoil, I think an artist can't ignore that. I don't feel that every artist has to be politically engaged, but I can't imagine that you can be an active participant of this culture and not in some way reflect that in the work you are creating.

  Lynn Nottage

  Responsibility, Artist, Thinking

  18 Copy quote

• I want the audience, when they leave, to think of the characters on the stage in three dimensions. I want them to have empathy. I also want them to think about engaging more with where we are culturally.

  Lynn Nottage

  Character, Thinking, Empathy

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  7 Copy quote

• Just because it’s a unique perspective doesn’t mean it can’t offer something universal.

  Lynn Nottage

  Mean, Unique, Perspective

  17 Copy quote

• I see the audience as the final collaborator. I think it's kind of bullshit when people say, "I'm not interested in the audience reaction." I'm like, "Then why do you do theater? You can write a book, then you don't have to see how the audience reacts." It's a living, breathing thing.

  Lynn Nottage

  Book, Writing, Thinking

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  7 Copy quote

• I'm interested in the moments where the audience is restless. I'm interested in the moments where they lean in and become incredibly engaged: the laughter, the silence. All of that is part of how I think about shaping and rewriting the play.

  Lynn Nottage

  Laughter, Thinking, Play

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  7 Copy quote

• I was repeatedly told that there isn't an African American woman who can open a show on Broadway. I said, 'Well, how do we know? How do we know if we don't do it?' I said, 'I think you're wrong.'

  Lynn Nottage

  Thinking, African American, Broadway

  15 Copy quote

• When you begin a play, you're going to have to spend a lot of time with those characters, so those characters are going to have to be rich enough that you want to take a very long journey with them. That's how I begin thinking about what I want to write about and who I want to write about.

  Lynn Nottage

  Writing, Character, Journey

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  8 Copy quote

• It's much easier to conjure characters strictly from your imagination than to have to think about whether you're representing people in a truthful way.

  Lynn Nottage

  Character, Thinking, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  7 Copy quote

• I can't quite remember the exact moment when I became obsessed with writing a play about the seemingly endless war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but I knew that I wanted to somehow tell the stories of the Congolese women caught in the cross-fire.

  Lynn Nottage

  War, Writing, Fire

  "Picking Through the Ruins: How Do We Stop The DRC’s War Against Women" by Lynn Nottage, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 28, 2009.

  10 Copy quote

• In the business of war, the role of women is really to maintain normalcy and ensure that there is cultural continuity.

  Lynn Nottage

  War, Roles, Normalcy

  "Lynn Nottage's 'Ruined,' 'Fabulation' open". Interview with Robert Hurwitt, www.sfgate.com. February 27, 2011.

  9 Copy quote

• I wanted to tell the story of these women and the war in the Congo and I couldn't find anything about them in the newspapers or in the library, so I felt I had to get on a plane and go to Africa and find the story myself. I felt there was a complete absence in the media of their narrative. It's very different now, but when I went in 2004 that was definitely the case.

  Lynn Nottage

  War, Media, Library

  8 Copy quote

• A play that forces us to question our moral responsibility to the victims of human rights abuse.

  Lynn Nottage

  Responsibility, Rights, Play

  8 Copy quote

• When the play is still evolving I try to be at rehearsal as often as possible, and part of that casting process. You find new things when the language is living in different people's mouths.

  Lynn Nottage

  Play, People, Trying

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• Hopefully this is going to be a trend, the beginning of a movement to reclaim theater for the artist and not commerce. I think there's a level of fatigue. Artists are tired of having to create work that's then coopted by commercial demands. When you begin souping up the car, the car no longer feels like your own.

  Lynn Nottage

  Tired, Artist, Thinking

  Source: variety.com

  7 Copy quote

• If you lead with the anger, it will turn off the audience. And what I want is the audience to engage with the material and to listen and then to ask questions. I think that 'Ruined' was very successful at doing that.

  Lynn Nottage

  Successful, Thinking, Want

  6 Copy quote

• Each play I write has its own unique origin story.

  Lynn Nottage

  Writing, Unique, Play

  7 Copy quote

• Plays are getting smaller and smaller, not because playwrights minds are shrinking but because of the economics.

  Lynn Nottage

  Play, Mind, Shrinking

  8 Copy quote

• African American women in particular have incredible buying power. Statistically, we go to the movies more than anyone. We have made Tyler Perrys career. His films open with $25 million almost consistently.

  Lynn Nottage

  Careers, African American, Buying

  4 Copy quote

• I think that when you're first shaping the play and trying to find a character, the initial actors that develop it end up imprinting on it - you hear their voices, you hear their rhythms. You can't help but to begin to write toward them during the rehearsal process.

  Lynn Nottage

  Character, Writing, Thinking

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• I need a release from whatever I'm writing.

  Lynn Nottage

  Writing, Needs, Release

  7 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Suzan-Lori Parks

David Lindsay-Abaire

Sanaa Lathan

Sarah Ruhl

David Henry Hwang

George C. Wolfe

Katori Hall

Paula Vogel