Susan Hill Quotes

The old guys like me started in the theatre. I was in the theatre for nine years.

When I lived in Ojai, I did community theater, and I was intrigued by acting.

There are some actors who come alive in front of a crowd, and if you've cast it right, there's an energy between cast and audience that can be exhilarating for both parties, then enjoyed by the audience at home.

I have done one or two plays in New York briefly.

I like a direct relationship between actor and audience.

In a play you can witness your audience live, understand how they feel. It lets you evaluate yourself and measure your growth.

We didn't go to Broadway musicals when I was growing up; it was too expensive.

I always loved drama at school. We had a great drama teacher at my secondary school, and she made drama feel cool. She inspired me, and then I did the National Youth Theatre in London.

When I'm in the audience of Broadway shows, I feel like I'm in the presence of something really special with artists working at the height of their craft and doing the best work that they possibly can.

The main thing about the Globe is there's 700 people all standing right in front of you.

Everything happens every night for this audience, and it's a very special occasion to come to the theatre.

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

I think what's different about working on stage is that you have another chance to portray it again. If you don't get something right on film, you can do another take, but on stage, once it's done, it's done. You can't go back.

When I have an evening out I like to see big musicals where the whole audience is encouraged to giddy up out of the seat.

Each medium has its own beauty and way of working. While television offers immense reach and long-running shows, films are shorter and they are presented differently. With theatre, it's the thrill of instant feedback.

There's something about a live theater performance: You can't fake it.

I did it once in high school - I was Sandy in Grease - and I decided then that I would never do it again. I've felt that way for years, and that's no bullshit.

At eight o'clock the curtain goes up and that's it, you're out there with yourself, the audience, the other players. There's no "take two" business. You're on. The great thing is the rehearsals, too. When you're bouncing around on film sets and TV sets you don't really get the opportunity to - generally speaking - rehearse much. With theater you're kind of four-to-five weeks locked down in the room with the guys figuring stuff out. It's back to play school.

I learnt a lot from my Broadway experience, it was one of the most challenging things I will probably ever have to do in my entire life, because it was eight shows a week - live singing with really hard choreography - and the spontaneity, you don't know what's going to happen.

The only way to see the value of a play is to see it acted.

One half of the pleasure experienced at a theatre arises from the spectator's sympathy with the rest of the audience, and, especially from his belief in their sympathy with him.

Acting has been my passion from the minute I started. I was pretty young when I wanted to be a doctor, but when I started doing theater work as a freshman in high school, the first time I hit the stage I was like, If I can do this every day, life won't get any better!

Probably my first memory of theatre, the first one I guess that had an impact on me was when I saw my very first panto with my Primary School. I think just going there and experience that for the first time, being so young, it's something that's actually stuck with me right up until now. And to think back and to sort of remember that magic and that first little hint of it was brilliant.

I remember feeling the temperature change the first time the curtain came up, the difference between the audience temperature and the stage temperature. I'll never forget it.

I'd love to do a play a year, if I'm honest, but it depends what comes up. But I do love theatre and it's very different from TV and film, not better or worse.