Maury Yeston Quotes

What I love about a play is that it's such an investment because only time can create a lot of what happens onstage.

In England, when we're at drama school, we spend a lot of time learning the craft from playwrights and stage actors, who are very well trained in the basics of acting because they need to get it right the first time - you can't have second or third takes when you're in front of a live audience, unlike in film.

The big advantage to playing the Venetian in Las Vegas - where it's a beautiful theater - is that unlike other places, even many other nice venues, I can do a set and lighting cues, I can put on a real show. I can dress up, wear a tux.

'The Taming Of The Shrew' is probably the first time I've worked in this country for about ten years, apart from theatre, and it's not for want of trying. It was so fantastic to work in London - it felt really glamorous.

I would like to direct. What goes on behind stage is very interesting.

The first time we performed as a duo, we had already been playing together in various situations.

I performed in public for the first time at three years old. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was on a big stage. There were probably three or four hundred people in the audience. We were doing this dance, this Kermit the Frog routine, all of us in our little green leotards.

I grew up near New York, and there were a lot of summer stock theaters in the area. I started an apprenticing with some of the theaters. Not really acting in them - I did everything else: everything but act.

For the first time I go to La Scala, for each thing, for each rehearsal, my knees were shaking. But the audience was very fine with me.

If you think about what 'The Killing' is, it is the theatrical production, not the script.

Movies are a fad. Audiences really want to see live actors on a stage.

One fine day I discovered that more complex plays really have to be directed.

The great thing about a sitcom is that you're in front of a live audience, so you really get in touch with what audience reaction is, but also there are lots of elements of film that you're dealing with, and there's kind of a great boot camp or graduate school mentality to it, because you're going to suck.

I grew up in the theater. I began my career at 3. That was the first time I stepped onto a provisional stage.

A friend of mine had his own theater company, and he jumped me in like I was in a gang. And once I came in, it was just that simple. For the first time in my life, I felt, 'This is a career, this is a life that I think I can grow old doing.' It was love at first sight. I loved being on stage and reading these plays. It was great.

In a play, the director is God, and I'm a great arguer. Rather boringly so, I think, about trying different things.

Filming is quite exciting because every day is different, but it can involve long hours standing around in chilly locations. Theatre is a very different challenge because every night you're striving to keep it fresh, even though you might have been performing the same play for months.

You know, this isn't theatre like it used to be.

I love flexing theater muscles. Television has merits as well, but there's no substitute for live theater.

That's kind of fuse for the show - those first 10-15 seconds you're onstage. The curtain drops and you see the crowd for the first time and they see you for the first time. The response and the energy that's going on right there - to me, that sets the tone for the rest of the night.

The great thing about the stage is that you have a structured month-long rehearsal period where you're going in every day. You have to have lots of run-throughs with theater because there are no second takes in front of a live audience.

I had done a lot of plays, particularly at my own theater in LA, and it was the first time in my theatrical life where I didn't feel that my role was also to keep everybody else working hard.

From the first time you can look in the paper and you accept that you're the entertainment for some people that night, it becomes so much more enjoyable to play live.

When you perform in front of an audience after only two days of rehearsal, you're flying by the seat of your pants - particularly when they're rewriting the show right up to the moment the camera goes on.

We are the kind of people who obsess over one word... but we have only one shot to get it right in concert. It was hard the first time I practiced with them. I was so nervous that my vocal chords were paralyzed for about a half-hour.