Richard Foreman Quotes

I think any actor would agree that you can't replace theater. It's immediate. You have the energy of the crowd and every single night it's different.

I love Broadway. I love live performing. It's really spiritual when you can get to interact with people, and they actually affect how your show goes.

Film and stage are very different; I don't necessarily prefer one over the other. Every few years, I get a big itch to go back to the theater. To learn humility, to learn bravery and to remind yourself that the pistons that drive your craft are working on full power. And to remind yourself how badly paid actors can be.

I am so used to being up on stage and talking to my fans that it's strange to be on stage and be someone else. I can't look at the audience during 'In the Heights' or I will start talking 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.

I can never wink at the audience.

As actors, you do have to be aware of your audience. You can't act in a vacuum, even if that audience isn't exactly present with you.

A stage actor has to be 10% aware of the audience as he's performing.

When you think about Broadway, you think broad and big, but the fact is there are so many plays that are very intimate, but fill a 1,500-seat house. Plays like 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' have deep moments of silence and intimacy to them.

So what's so enticing about doing a play is that you get to do that thing that got you into acting in the first place... There's a real attraction to being able to play, to just play. And that's something that theater affords you.

An actor is at most a poet and at least an entertainer.

In theater, the wellspring of the character comes from the doing of it, like a trial by fire, but in front of an audience.

You always hear actors say, 'Theater is my first love,' and it is. It's a time when you really get to do what you do, and there's not a lot of waiting around and interruption and not a lot of money involved - sometimes money really clouds the waters of creativity.

To me, it's the kiss of death when you start winking at the audience as an actor. I just never liked it. I don't like it when we do monologues, looking into the character.

It's important to listen to the actor who is there on the stage and living it.

'Sleepy Hollow' was really the first thing I'd done that gave me the opportunity in the modern age to build an authentic relationship with an audience that was a lot more like what happens in theater.

I love the power of theater. I think it's an experience you never forget.

Any actor worth his salt is looking for truth, the core of truth of the particular situation he is portraying, of that play. The playwright, the actors and the audience, that's what we're all there seeking. When it's working, time is destroyed. Sometimes 'Moon,' a play of four hours, would go by in a snap of the fingers.

In theater acting, you leave that night and what it was is what it was.

It's about how you're using the space. That's what makes live music.

I love the theater because the theater is alive. The audience is right there.

You can reveal yourself on stage in a way that you can't on TV. If you drop a character on TV, it's death. Each character has to be ruthlessly, faultlessly played. But live, you can hint at what's going on behind. You can let the audience in a bit and go off the script.

I fight for my fans. I love putting on a good show for them, and I feel that they enjoy a good stand-up game.

Good actors can tell you more about your play than 1,000 hours alone at your desk.

I love breaking the fourth wall, and being given permission to play with the audience!