Mike Nichols Quotes

I saw Lee J. Cobb in 'Death of a Salesman' when I was about 15, and I couldn't get up from my seat in the theater; I was so... I was weeping, and I was upset. And I find that people are still like that in a similar circumstance in a theater today, where they just can't get up. It's too heartbreaking.

It was a wonderful experience to live the life for a year; to spend all day doing Shakespeare and then do a play in the evening.

Performing on stage is my first love - it's why I wanted to be an actor in the first place - and 'Arcadia' is the highlight of my career so far. I love the intimacy of a live theatre audience - you can really squeeze every last drop out of each scene.

For me, there is nothing more valuable than how people feel in a movie theater about a movie.

I've done so much theater, and yet I never had an experience like 'The Normal Heart.' We could feel the reaction of the audience every night. It was visceral.

I like working on stage because there's something very immediate about it, that interaction with an audience where you immediately hear their reaction, or feel them, whether they're with you.

He learned through the way that my father and I felt about his songs, his country songs, that they were great songs. And then he went out and sang them for the audiences that we found, and he found a tremendous reaction to that.

I saw a play in a black box theatre, and it changed my life.

Collaboration to me is... my favorite collaboration in the theatre is the collaboration between the actors and the audience because it's just that thing that happens when the only thing left that is left on the human scale is that human beings come to look at other human beings act out stories.

There is something about seeing real people on a stage that makes a bad play more intimately, more personally offensive than any other art form.

I love the immediacy of an audience being there and reacting. I'm spoiled, having grown up in theater.

There's a romance and power to live theater.

It's nice to get the feedback from a theater audience. It's a gas.

It's astounding how challenging plays are... The scary part is that you get to encounter humanity in a way you don't in films. The audience amplifies the experience.

It's wonderful to do a play that really means something.

It meant so much to me as a kid to see professional theater and hear Shakespeare's words.

To be able to be onstage and to hear people in the audience go, 'That's my song!' It's amazing.

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.'

I can stand at the back of the theater and watch an audience laugh, cry, and be moved by what I do. I can entertain people around the world. It's nice when you can give someone that gift.

Every time I go out on a stage I consider myself very lucky. Because, in a time where people are economically thinking about what to go and see - so, when I am on a stage, and it doesn't matter where I am, that's my favorite show. I come home after and say "That was my favorite show".

I love creating moments that feel bigger than just like an artist on stage.

You can read a Shakespeare play, but does that mean you wouldn't want to see it on the stage?

All the difference in the world between the movies and the thrill I get out of a play at the theater. Ay, yes! Like fooling around with paper dolls when you could be playing with a real live baby.

You live through the play at 8 o'clock, straight through, and nobody can call "Cut!" But also with the stage you're getting instant reactions. You hear people snoring in the audience, and bored to tears, or sometimes you hear the laughter, and you can hear them listening.

Theater is like boxing - having the audience ringside. It's instant gratification. Or horrification.