John Lithgow Quotes

By the time I started writing plays, Broadway was never an expectation, so it's never been central.

The thing about making a musical is that you can and will be replaceable really quickly.

I'm interested in the theater because I'm interested in communication with audiences. Otherwise I would be in concert music.

Stage performing is a dying art form.

I'd always fantasized about writing a new play. Even when I had all this success in television, what I was daydreaming about in my dressing room is that one day I would do it.

I'm not a playwright; I'm a writer who loves theater.

Any play is hard to write, and plays are getting harder and harder to get on the stage.

I majored in musical theatre performance at college, then went through years of waiting tables and temping while looking for acting work.

A storyteller is basically what actors and writers are.

My background is in largely in theatre and acting. I grew up in a town with a well-respected Shakespeare Festival, and I fell in with some kids whose parents worked there. We staged all-kid versions of 'Hamlet', 'Cymbeline', a few others. All the while, I was making short films; monster movies, slapstick comedies, claymation.

My first writing job was with a company called TheatreworksUSA.

I had seen 'Avenue Q' off-Broadway back in 2003 and fell in love with it. I just thought it was the smartest, funniest thing I'd seen in a long time.

I write plays, and I have a musical that's starting to get produced now. That's what I would love to do, but it's so hard. The only reason people are reading my plays and musicals is because I'm in movies.

When I was growing up, there was no such thing as Off-Broadway. You either got your show on or you didn't.

My father was a classical singer of baroque music, and my older sister was in musical theatre, and I thought about doing the same thing but then realised straight acting was for me.

It's very hard to be a playwright because it's very competitive.

The very first proper play I did was 'Godspell,' and I played the guitar for it, and I had a small part in a high school play. And before that, in sixth grade, I wrote a musical about Noah's ark.

I think everyone's intentions are to become a performer at first. But by the time I was in high school and college, I discovered that I liked writing and that I was probably a little better at it.

You hear about Broadway your whole life, and I learned what it meant to work on Broadway in 'The Phantom of the Opera.'

It must have been an extraordinary time. I guess the worrying thing about musical theatre to me, is if you look at the London season this year, mine is actually the only one to have come in.

I had some experience writing collaboratively when I wrote for the theatre.

I didn't know I'd ever write a Broadway musical.

Plays were really my last option. The reason I didn't write plays initially was because I thought theatre was the worst of all the art forms.

A play is a hard thing, particularly in L.A. It's less expensive than in New York, but there's also less of a commitment to people doing plays than in New York. So it's a strange battle.

Why should I write a play? I don't have to write a play, do I? But somehow, I think that's what I'm here for, so I'd better do it.