David Mamet Quotes About Theatre

Quotes about: Theatre

• Don't write stage directions. If it is not apparent what the character is trying to accomplish by saying the line, tell us how the character said it or whether or not she moved to the couch isn't going to aid the case.

  David Mamet

  Writing, Character, Theatre

  David Mamet (1986). “Writing in restaurants”, Viking Adult

• When you come into the theatre, you have to be willing to say, 'We're all here to undergo a communion, to find out what the hell is going on in this world.' If you're not willing to say that, what you get is entertainment instead of art, and poor entertainment at that.

  David Mamet

  Art, Theatre, World

  David Mamet (2013). “Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama”, p.27, Vintage

• 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!'

  David Mamet

  School, Men, Law

• A dramatic experience concerned with the mundane may inform but it cannot release; and one concerned essentially with the aesthetic politics of its creators may divert or anger, but it cannot enlighten.

  David Mamet

  Theatre, May, Enlightening

  David Mamet (1986). “Writing in restaurants”, Viking Adult

• The audience will teach you how to act and the audience will teach you how to write and to direct. The classroom will teach you how to obey, and obedience in the theatre will get you nowhere. It’s a soothing falsity.

  David Mamet

  Writing, Theatre, Classroom

  David Mamet (2011). “True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor”, p.19, Vintage

• They have a desire to put on plays and to fulfill that traditional role of a theater in a community: to be the place where people go to hear the truth.

  David Mamet

  People, Theatre

  "Postgraduate Pioneers of the Mamet Method" by Stacey Okun, www.nytimes.com. August 02, 1987.

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