Harold Prince Quotes

Theater is a living creature. It takes a while to break in, like a new pair of shoes.

In my heart of hearts, I love theatre. It's the joy and terror of putting a play on, the creativity of it. It is infinitely harder than film and television and more tiring. Your performance is heightened in the way it isn't with film.

As theater artists, it's a great luxury to have time.

There's a tremendous amount to be gained from being a performer, and being an artist, and being an actor.

You always hear actors say, 'Theater is my first love,' and it is. It's a time when you really get to do what you do, and there's not a lot of waiting around and interruption and not a lot of money involved - sometimes money really clouds the waters of creativity.

Theatre is like an actor's nectar, like how cinema is a director's medium.

Theatre is something that keeps me very alert, and I am actively creating whether I am on stage or directing. In films, I feel I become more of an introvert, going deeper in the realism of a character.

Theatre is really an actor's playground.

When you're in a good play and a good production, you find that you're in something that has a life beyond you. You think, 'Oh my goodness, this play's alive.'

But theatre is always a difficult experience.

In theater, there's a lot of work to do to build the characters. It's a great experience.

I do not use any set methods, not even The Method. The character after all is in the lines.

When you're talking about pure form, theater is a wonderful outlet.

Backstage life is terrific training for an actor, seeing shows from the wings.

Working on a play is a vibrant and collaborative business. Everyone from the choreographer to the music director to the director to the writers work together toward the same goal, and everyone chimes in on everything.

All actors are on the run from some demon or other.

I have just gained a deeper and deeper respect for acting and the whole art of it because you're really trying to live a life and to do the best justification for it.

I love theater work because of the immediate effect your performance has on the audience. And I love the repetition; I love getting on the same stage for more than a month and reciting the same lines, trying to make a small or large step towards an improvement in my acting.

As an actress I find the most enjoyable part of acting is really just to please the director. I just want to please my director.

I need theatre for my equilibrium, because in theatre the actors don't care so much about image, about celebrity - you are more independent. There is not the narcissism, maybe, that you find in cinema.

I love an acting challenge, and I love getting to sit down with my script and do all my drama work.

You know, working as an actor, I'm always working within my own imagination.

What I always loved about theater is that that's an experience that a company of actors just sinks itself into for weeks, and you really get to work on the material, and by the time you're in front of an audience, you really own it.

Acting for screen is very different from acting on stage, and then obviously when you dance... everything is a physical embodiment. But the discipline is the same approach. You have to take both things seriously; nothing well-crafted is by mistake.

But, yes, I learned everything working in theater. I learned the importance of community - I was constantly going to play readings, stand-up nights, improv. nights.