David Lindsay-Abaire Quotes

I still feel I belong to the theatre. There is nothing more challenging and exciting for an actor than performing before a live audience. The stage is the real testing ground for an actor.

I think film and television are really a director's medium, whereas theatre is the actor's medium.

I don't direct the plays of others.

Making a film or doing a play are completely different experiences and entirely fulfilling, but completely unique. I also think one complements the other. People often say that theater is about flexing your muscles, and is actually real acting, whereas I sort of disagree.

The reason why I hate working in theatre is the tedium of memorisation. But once that is done, then you feast on this never-ending meal. If you play it correctly, every night is fraught with very high stakes that are very difficult to find in everyday life.

I'd like to be a director who gives my actors complete freedom while collaborating with them to find performances.

I started out producing theatre in New York.

Compared to film or television, theater is more interactive, collaborative.

When you conduct opera, you control the stage. But with a film, the film controls you.

Of all the mediums, theatre is the one where you really need to have something to say - because it's just you, the words, and the space.

The great thing about theater is the doing it again and again and again.

I have written before, but I was primarily an actor and improvisational performer.

When it comes to writing musicals, you write the best piece you can. Then, its destiny is in the hands of the actors and the director.

Opera is too obsessed with buildings.

The whole idea of performing before an audience is fun and organic.

I still enjoy the heck out of getting up there to play shows every night.

Given a choice, I prefer directing a play to a film.

It's always been about the live show for us. We're having Halloween onstage every night.

Dibakar and Shekhar have the vision that we would associate with European cinema. They leave their actors on their own to give a personal narration on the screen.

Taking up the choreography for an awards night is completely different from choreographing a song for a film.

Directing is quite a nuts-and-bolts thing. It's a mixture of creating an atmosphere in which actors can feel safe enough to be dangerous.

The cool thing about doing a play is that the final interpretation of a piece is turned over to the actors.

I have done a lot of street theatre and plays and interacted with the public through radio and television.

Of course theater will always be associated intimately to literature, but the themes or whatever have to penetrate you by the senses. Theater is a sensuous experience, and that's its main difference from film or any other dramatic art.

When I'm performing for 4,000, 5,000 people, it's a show. It's a rock n' roll concert.