Elizabeth Meriwether Quotes

So I decided to start writing plays, and went to Yale.

Fifteen years ago I walked out of a production of one of my plays at the RSC because I decided it was a waste of time.

I grew up wanting to be a writer for theatre.

I love novels, but I'm not a novelist. I'm just a dramatist, which means I write lines for actors. That's all I have ever wanted to do.

I'm not really a 'puppet' person in particular; I think they are very theatrical, and I've found different uses for them in shows, but my true interest is in writing Broadway musicals.

At university, I used to write silly little sketches and monologues, but never fiction.

The instinct to impersonate produces the actor; the desire to provide pleasure by impersonations produces the playwright; the desire to provide this pleasure with adequate characterization and dialogue memorable in itself produces dramatic literature.

I love acting but I also love writing, especially comedy.

When I was about 12, I spent the summer writing four plays on my dad's old typewriter for a school play competition. And I wrote little comic bits at secondary school and at university.

I never wanted to be a playwright.

I started in Shakespeare. I'm classically trained, which, how hilarious is that? Then one night, I saw Second City and thought, 'Wow, that's what I want to do.' But I never thought it would morph into screenplay writing.

I went to the Experimental Theater Wing at NYU and wrote and directed a small amount of stuff there.

My first play was 'The Room', written when I was twenty-seven.

I have a nice little movie career, and I write plays and do my act.

I'm a writer. I'm not an actress.

I wanted to write plays. I was at Yale graduate school at the time for English literature, not for acting... I liked the idea of collaboration, and I thought if I'm gonna write plays, I should learn something about speaking the lines that I might try to write.

It's hard to find a play that's right for me to do. Rather than waiting around for the right script to come along, I decided to write one myself.

I like the detail work of telling a story in small pieces, as is done in movie-making, and also the long leap of faith needed to see a theatre performance through each night. Both require focus and self-discipline.

I thought I wanted to be a playwright because I was interested in stories and telling stories.

I love doing theater so much - being in front of an audience and seeing how a character grows and develops with every performance.

When you're talking about pure form, theater is a wonderful outlet.

I'm like the master of ceremonies being funny, and then sometimes people you're with, girlfriends and stuff, are like, 'God I wish I had the person on stage to be with all the time.'

Playwriting gets into your blood and you can't stop it. At least not until the producers or the public tell you to.

I don't pretend to be anything but an actor and a writer.

Work in the theater sharpened my verse and my cinema.