Playwright Quotes - Page 10

• It's an odd mix, the life of a playwright.

  Laura Wade

  Odd

  6 Copy quote

• To me, the job of a playwright is to explore and bring to light our lives. You can't hold back; you have to give in to this. Sometimes, you say things people don't want to hear.

  Ted Lange

  Jobs, Light, People

  4 Copy quote

• When I was around eight, I learned how to touch-type at school, and I received a computer as a present. I started writing plays, and for many years I thought I would be a playwright.

  Gabrielle Zevin

  Writing, School, Eight

  4 Copy quote

• Like most playwrights, I hate talkbacks with a passion that can burn a hole through hell.

  Katori Hall

  Hate, Passion, Hell

  7 Copy quote

• Playwrights are the most gregarious writers - to get our work done, we need actors, directors, set designers.

  Katori Hall

  Directors, Needs, Actors

  7 Copy quote

• I never wanted to be a playwright.

  Zoe Kazan

  Wanted

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• One of the best things that happened for me as a playwright is becoming a comic-book writer.

  Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa

  Book, Becoming, Comic

  4 Copy quote

• In terms of collaboration, working on a new piece is always thrilling, as I'm sure most people would say, because the playwright is in the room and the piece itself evolves in response to what is happening in the room.

  Gideon Glick

  People, Collaboration, Pieces

  Source: www.broadwayworld.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's a lucky circumstance when you get to usher in new work, because you are able to ask the playwright and the director (who in a new work is always in dialogue with the playwright) an unlimited amount of questions.

  Gideon Glick

  Directors, Lucky, New Work

  Source: www.broadwayworld.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I remember being asked when I was in high school what do I want to do when I grow up and the answer is so indicative - I would like to have been a successful playwright.

  Mitchell Hurwitz

  Growing Up, School, Successful

  "Mitch Hurwitz on the Creative Process, Casting Jason Bateman, and Loose Seals". Interview with John Sellers, www.vulture.com. October 22, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• You have to get beyond your own precious inner experiences. The actor cannot afford to look only to his own life for all his material nor pull strictly from his own experience to find his acting choices and feelings. The ideas of the great playwrights are almost always larger than the experiences of even the best actors.

  Stella Adler

  Ideas, Choices, Feelings

  Howard Kissel, Stella Adler (2000). “Stella Adler - The Art of Acting: preface by Marlon Brando compiled & edited by Howard Kissel”, p.65, Hal Leonard Corporation

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Paris is the playwright's delight. New York is the home of directors. London, however, is the actor's city, the only one in the world. In London, actors are given their head.

  Orson Welles

  New York, Home, Cities

  22 Copy quote

• I think that as a playwright, if I detail that environment, then I'm taking away something from them [designers]. I'm taking away their creativity and their ability to have input themselves, not just to follow what the playwright has written. So I do a minimum set description and let the designers create within that.

  August Wilson

  Creativity, Thinking, Input

  9 Copy quote

• I have a great interest in Victorian musical & cabaret performances and Weimar artists so the references are there, to Cabaret and also All That Jazz and other films where, where there's a kind of (influential German playwright Bertolt) Brecht-ian approach, almost to the character standing outside of himself or, in this case, he's "self-séance-ing."

  Andy Serkis

  Character, Artist, Self

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The great Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen, wrote, "One of these days, the younger generation will come knocking at my door." The future is knocking at our door right now. Make no mistake, the next generation will ask us one of two questions. Either they will ask: "What were you thinking; why didn't you act?" Or they will ask instead: "How did you find the moral courage to rise and successfully resolve a crisis that so many said was impossible to solve?

  Al Gore

  Mistake, Thinking, Doors

  Nobel Peace Prize Lecture, delivered 10 December 2007, Oslo, Norway

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If by any chance a playwright wishes to express a political opinion or a moral opinion or a philosophy, he must be a good enough craftsman to do it with so much spice of entertainment in it that the public get the message without being aware of it.

  Noel Coward

  Philosophy, Political Opinions, Wish

  "A Talent to Amuse". Book by Sheridan Morley, 1985.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am a playwright. I show What I have seen. In the man markets I have seen how men are traded. That I show, I, the playwright.

  Bertolt Brecht

  Men, He Man, Shows

  Bertolt Brecht, Ralph Manheim (1987). “Poems, 1913-1956”, p.257, Taylor & Francis

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are lots of young vital playwrights who are experimenting, and these are the plays that people who are interested in the theatre should see. They should go off Broadway. They should go to the cafe theatres and see the experiments that are being made.

  Edward Albee

  Play, People, Theatre

  4 Copy quote

• I think that's foolishness on the part of the playwright to write about himself. People don't know anything about themselves.

  Edward Albee

  Writing, Thinking, People

  The Believer Interview, www.believermag.com. September 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• By some curious mischance, a couple of my plays managed to hit an area where commercial success was feasible. But it's wrong to think I'm a commercial playwright who has somehow ceased his proper function. I have always been the same thing - which is not a commercial playwright. I'm not after the brass ring.

  Edward Albee

  Couple, Thinking, Play

  "Conversations with Edward Albee". Book edited by Philip C. Kolin, 1988.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I can write better plays than any living danced, and dance better than any living playwright.

  George M. Cohan

  Writing, Play, I Can

  9 Copy quote

• There are certainly times in history where power associates itself closely with fields that we would call the humanities, like rulers surrounding themselves with philosophers and poets, or playwrights. We do not live in that moment, and the best way to gauge the proximity of an academic field to power is by salary.

  Elliott Colla

  Humanity, Salary, Gauges

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the beginning this was just an idea. Then it was a short story. Then it was a script. Each step was pretty exciting to see people come on board to support the project. It's gratifying to know that more people are seeing my work in this form than my work as a playwright. And it's been fun to hear people's response to seeing it. I've been having some deep conversations with strangers and friends about how much it has made them think about slavery and its impact today.

  Steven C. Harper

  Fun, Thinking, Impact

  Source: www.nerdprobs.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I feel that I am just a storyteller, and whether I am wearing the director hat or the playwright hat, it doesn't matter.

  Adam Rapp

  Directors, Matter, Hats

  Source: www.broadwayworld.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The psychological detective story in "Equus" made Peter Shaffer's name as a playwright. But it was his next play, "Amadeus," that cemented his reputation, largely because of the movie version. Another battle of wills, it was the story of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart seen through the eyes of lesser composer Antonio Salieri.

  Bob Mondello

  Eye, Play, Names

  "British Playwright Peter Shaffer, Who Wrote 'Equus,' Dies At 90". "All Things Considered" with Robert Siegel, www.npr.org. June 6, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source