Stephen Karam Quotes

I am an internationally produced playwright.

It's an odd mix, the life of a playwright.

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 wrote two plays before I was cast on 'The Neighbors.' They actually got published, which was cool.

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

I had dreams of winning Olivier Awards.

I think Shakespeare, at his heart, was just the way all of us are that make movies: He wanted to entertain people.

People ask me, 'Is there pressure to win a Tony for your next one?' I've got three on my mantelpiece; I'm good. If that's the end of the story, I'm fine.

I am trying to write a play that is big and I feel represents me - that's my big ambition.

Kids used to come round to my house, and I'd force them to do a play in the bay windows of my house and get all the mums and dads to sit and watch. I'd write the programme, write the play and be the star.

If I can't find real situations that interest me in real life, then I'll go and write them in play form.

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

My second play, The Birthday Party, I wrote in 1958 - or 1957. It was totally destroyed by the critics of the day, who called it an absolute load of rubbish.

I think there is no world without theatre.

I did plays in college, and I have half of a play. But I'm kind of stuck. I keep revisiting it so maybe it will move somewhere. There's something about plays where you can feel that sense of artifice at any moment.

I keep both of my Tonys on my mantle. They're in front of a mirror so if you look at just the right angle, it looks like I have four!

I thought I would spent my career doing Chekhov and Ibsen in regional theaters, so the fact that I started doing new plays was a whole new world I didn't expect, and that I would like to keep doing.

I'm constantly involved in theater, looking at theater, trying to do work in theater, support theater. And that's kind of my creative passion.

As a playwright, you are a torturer of actors and of the audience as well. You inflict things on people.

I began coming to Paris in the 1960s when I was told audiences here liked my work. More than 20 of my plays have been produced in Paris, and several have had long runs and have returned in revivals.

I was a writer. I just wasn't a very good one. I was lucky enough to have a playwriting teacher who told me that I'd be a better actor than I would a playwright.

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

I do acting for the awards... and cash money.

A dramatist is one who believes that the pure event, an action involving human beings, is more arresting than any comment that can be made upon it.