Dan Byrd Quotes

I always do drama. It's just that some people laugh at it and some people cry.

I enjoy being on stage with other artists. I have a chance to watch and see people responding to the other artists songs. I get to see how people are affected by the music.

I made my drama teacher cry. I only took drama to get out of writing papers in English and the teacher was this thespian Broadway geek and here I was this Italian guy from Staten Island and I would put her in tears.

As far as working with actors, I feel very comfortable working in that aspect of directing.

I went to Second City, where you learned to make the other actor look good so you looked good and National Lampoon, where you had to create everything out of nothing, and SNL, where you couldn't make any mistakes, and you learned what collaboration was.

I learned at 'SNL' that it's a bummer to bum people out.

That's what acting is. You're not alone. It's reacting. That's what we do.

I don't like to know exactly what I'm going to do in a scene, because the most interesting moments as an audience member are moments of truthful spontaneity.

With fiction, I've grown to really love the challenge of lying, the challenge of telling a good tale that isn't truthful, and working with performers is endlessly fascinating. You know, learning what a good performance is, how to get a good performance, how much or how little you need to create emotion or to create character.

When you have great acting partners, you hope that your reaction to them is propels you deeper into your own character.

If a play is good and you're effective in it, you suddenly hear a silence that is loud, and that moment makes the whole schmageggy business of an actor or an actress worthwhile, because you suddenly know that they are human beings like you, who are receiving something from you.

Some of my biggest moments have been in jam sessions, but I don't want to talk about them. There were always other people involved.

The excitement of theatre is palpable but the frustrations, and the complete absence of a definitive evening - the play as text means practically nothing in a way - , there's no particular performance that is definitive in the way a novel is a solid object you hold in your hands and here it is. You can't say that about a play. If the novel gives us a sense of throbbing consciousness, theater is pure soul, beautiful and elusive.

Every movement of the theater by a skilful poet is communicated, as it were, by magic, to the spectators; who weep, tremble, resent, rejoice, and are inflamed with all the variety of passions which actuate the several personages of the drama.

The Color Purple received four Tony nominations; the play is highly looked at and it's a must see for everyone. I just want to carry on what Jennifer Hudson has done and help the team get to the finish line.

The first merit of pictures is the effect which they can produce upon the mind; — and the first step of a sensible man should be to receive involuntary effects from them. Pleasure and inspiration first, analysis afterward.

I actually quite like working with kids and I like working with animals, which everybody says you shouldn't do. It makes you feel like you're not acting, as soon as you have someone who's providing stuff to react to.

I love working with actors. I grew up with a lot of actors. All my friends are actors. I love that process.

One of the things I love about acting is other actors, looking into their eyes, and working off them, and listening and responding to them.

I'm so dependent on reacting to the other actors on the set, and to the director. I'm very responsive. I react. And I treasure the energy that reaction gives.

Theatre audiences can't be made to think and cry: at best, they can be made to think and laugh, or to feel and cry.

When the play is still evolving I try to be at rehearsal as often as possible, and part of that casting process. You find new things when the language is living in different people's mouths.

Although arguably, it's my job to dig deep whether I'm improvising or not. It's just their style. That's the way they feel like they get what they want. I mean, they're really good storytellers, so I love being in their hands.

I will accept anything in the theatre . . . provided it amuses or moves me. But if it does neither, I want to go home.

You have a responsibility for the way you make the audience feel, and I want them to feel uncomfortable.