Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux Quotes

When Shakespeare was writing, he wasn't writing for stuff to lie on the page; it was supposed to get up and move around.

When it is good, theatre takes a lot of beating both to watch and perform.

It's quite rare for a group of people to come together for a live event that isn't loud music. A live event that enables thinking to take place, to take place collectively. It's unique to theatre. It's a quality I never want to see diminished.

I suppose I'm really interested in theatre that provides an intensity of experience on another level.

Live theatre provides a rush you can't get in film or television. But it is the TV and film work that offers the leisure to go off and do a play.

You can work and scratch out a living in the theatre, but, if you want to make money, you've got to hit the road. You've got to play big houses of 2, 3 thousand seaters with your name above the bill, do popular fare and reach out to the audience such as it is.

Theatre's a much less faddish, more sensible world than TV or film.

On stage, you've got dialogue you've learned. You've got a paying audience. It couldn't be better, you know?

Acting on stage is a living organism you can never pin down, and I believe the audience feeds off that, too.

I've ended up spending more time in front of a camera than on stage, but the stage is where I come from.

I never envisioned that I would be able to bring something to the entertainment table that would fit Las Vegas. Vegas is so presentational; it's live theater and, for me, it's always been film or television, which isn't why people come to Las Vegas. So it's exciting to be apart of all of this, the thrust of the entertainment of Vegas.

From the moment I saw 'Camelot' as a kid, the organic inclination of performing before a live audience is raw and visceral. Once you're out there, there's no yelling 'Cut!' or any such thing as a do-over because that moment has passed, and you're in it as it's happened and gone, sharing it with everyone.

In my heart of hearts, I love theatre. It's the joy and terror of putting a play on, the creativity of it. It is infinitely harder than film and television and more tiring. Your performance is heightened in the way it isn't with film.

We're not doing brain surgery. We're not saving lives... Even if you're doing Shakespeare, it's still entertainment. We're just entertaining people. We're just doing the stuff that comes on in between the ads.

The publicity machine for films and television is so much bigger than for theatre.

I'm not sure plays tell people anything. I think plays include an audience in an experience that is happening in that moment, and that's the specialness. What people take away has almost as much to do with what they bring as what we do.

The theatre always felt like home, and it does to this day. When I do screen acting, I miss telling a story from beginning to end, as you do nightly on stage. I love that relationship with the audience and how it changes each night.

One day, when I'm unable to physically perform, would I want to pursue more of an acting career? Eh, maybe. But I think my home is with the WWE, being on the road and wrestling in front of a live audience.

I would like to be going all over the kingdom...and acting everywhere. There's nothing in the world equal to seeing the house rise at you, one sea of delightful faces, one hurrah of applause!

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.

Robert Duvall taught me years ago. He said, "You know theatre is not real. I don't like plays." You know, he doesn't like plays. And I agree with him in certain ways, you know. They can be fun. I don't mind going to see them. I went and saw Phantom of the Opera. I thought hey, that's cool. Look at the mask and all that.

From the start it has been the theatre's business to entertain people ... it needs no other passport than fun.

Nothing in theatre has any meaning before or after. Meaning is now.

You know, you're doing the same show every day, and your inspiration, you have to look no further than the fact that you know people travel across the country to see you. In a lot of cases, this is that audience's only chance to see the thing, and so, that's what gets you up in the morning, and that's what gets you giving your best performance on stage, is the awareness that this audience is ready for it, and here to have an experience, and so in turn are you.

When you are in a good theatre show, it is a wonderful and very fulfilling experience, entertaining a large audience and their showing their appreciation for your efforts.