Don Rickles Quotes

You perform for a different audience each night. People who don't understand just think that you go out there every night and do the same thing, but you don't - you have to find out who they are and give it to them.

With a play, for me, there's no time to sit back on it. You're living on your instincts. And every night there are subtle changes and adjustments, because what's in front of you is a living, breathing audience.

One thing changes every evening: It's the audience, and I'm working my magic. I'm always learning from it.

I love being onstage. I love the relationship with the audience. I love the letting go, the sense of discovery, the improvising.

I love to create something new every night onstage; that makes a big difference.

Whenever I come to Ireland, I end up just bantering with the crowd so the show will just be what it is.

Playing live is really the art form. You're a lot freer, a lot looser. You've got people there that can give you feedback, and then you can play off of that. There's so much more energy.

Some guys like myself, we like to play off the crowd.

I studied structured improv, where you start from one position and see where it takes you. I like spontaneity. If you set yourself up to do the same thing every night, you may not connect as well to a different audience.

Theatre is immediate, it's alive, you're there with the audience, it can't be done again and again and again and again, it's organic.

If a leaf fell from a tree, I'd stop juggling and play with the leaf. I went to my prop bag and got a little bandage and stuck the leaf back on the tree. People loved it.

Most of my act is improvisation. I'm inspired for the moment. Standing there in front of 2,000 or 3,000 people you don't know can be pretty inspiring.

You have a different crowd every night, so you should do a different show to suit them. I tailor the show to their mood.

You work with stand-up comedians or you work with somebody in theater, you work with somebody from 'Star Search' or 'Survivor' or a kid, it constantly changes how you play with people.

One of the things that makes any good entertainment, whether it's a play, drama, comedy, television, film, whatever, is that you feel a certain amount of spontaneity.

Set lists are tough because you come up with this structure of how the songs are going to go from one to the next, but at the same time, you have to be spontaneous and take requests and change the set list at the drop of a hat.

An actor finds things in the moment with a director and other actors that you don't have time to hand-draw or animate with a computer.

Believe it or not, I write on stage. I can't write anywhere else; I have to be in a moment. I also have to challenge myself to make something funny out of a premise. I never have my own jokes written. I have to change things as I go along, and I have to entertain myself.

Live stage is being made as you go along. You feel the energy. There's nothing like a live audience.

The beautiful thing about theater is every night is an opportunity to incorporate what you discovered the night before.

I never try and do the same show, ever. The audience controls the dynamic of the shows. Sometimes they listen, and sometimes they ask a million questions.

I don't think we've ever known what the hell's going on when we do Tap shows. It's possible the audience are effectively getting to see more of the movie when we play. You know, they know the songs, so anything we do onstage, whether we're meaning to or not, is an extension of the film. Other than that, I wouldn't understand what's going on.

You have to create the show anew, and find it anew, on a nightly basis.

Theater is such its own living, breathing animal. You do a show every night, but it's different every night. Being on stage, you're experiencing a journey.

Improv is a disposable art form, but it's kind of freeing in that way, too, because things can fail, and the audience is a little more forgiving.