Arthur Miller Quotes

Unfortunately, because the theater is always a poor relation when it comes to making the nut, it's not easy to get the audience in to see a play, unless you have a name that is recognizable, that the audience wants to see and is prepared to pay the $125 to see.

The modern economics of the theater is such that we write plays with fewer and fewer characters.

I wanted to be a theater actress, but I thought it would be easier to get to New York and the theater if I had a name than if I just walked the streets as a little girl from California.

I was invited to a couple of races, but I was doing a play in New York.

When I left New York, not a lot of shows were happening there, but 'Golden Boy' is such a New York show.

I just did a play in New York which has been my best experience that I've had for maybe ever. It was Paul Weitz's play called Privilege and I was in New York for three months.

I think the movie business is in trouble. It's all movies that you've seen before. Everything's a remake; they want things that are familiar rather than things that surprise you.

I moved to New York to do a play when I was 18.

I'd like to do a play in New York.

All I really want to do is plays - and that's a New York thing.

I would love to do Shakespeare in New York.

A play is a hard thing, particularly in L.A. It's less expensive than in New York, but there's also less of a commitment to people doing plays than in New York. So it's a strange battle.

I don't really have any plans in terms of what I want to do - movies, television, theater - but I'd love to do a play in New York.

It was hard to make a living as an actor in New York if you did not do soap operas or commercials.

A play that works well and is done quite a lot - I've never done the math - but it's probably more remunerative than a movie.

A play gets on Broadway by fluke. And you don't even start out with that ambition. When I do a play, the intention is just to put it up somewhere.

If you want to support a writer, produce the first five plays he writes.

Final-offer arbitration should have great appeal for the daring (the risk seekers) who play against the timid (the risk avoiders).

Walter Matthau made all the big money and he was wonderful as Oscar Madison on the stage. You couldn't beat him. I know because I replaced him on Broadway. He was just delightful.

The world is full of people who want to play it safe, people who have tremendous potential but never use it. Somewhere deep inside them, they know that they could do more in life, be more, and have more -- if only they were willing to take a few risks.

It just happened that we did [Fences] seven years ago on Broadway. Scott Rudin brought me August Wilson's original screenplay for it, and I realized I hadn't read the play. So I read it. Then I realized that Troy (my character) was 53 - and I was 55 at the time. I realized I better hurry up! I might be too old!

History will remember the inhabitants of this century as the people who went from Kitty Hawk to the moon in 66 years, only to languish for the next 30 in low Earth orbit. At the core of the risk-free society is a self-indulgent failure of nerve.

The theater is a baffling business, and a shockingly wasteful one when you consider that people who have proven their worth, who have appeared in or been responsible for successful plays, who have given outstanding performances, can still, in the full tide of their energy, be forced, through lack of opportunity, to sit idle season after season, their enthusiasm, their morale, their very talent dwindling to slow gray death. Of finances we will not even speak; it is too sad a tale.

It's more than usually possible that I won't do a play again. But Skylight is one of the great plays in the English language. I was lucky enough to be a part of it at one point in its life, and it's a timely thing to deliver it again in the modern world.

Let's give a big cuddly shout-out to Pat Healy, infant provocateur and amateur journalist at The New York Times. Keep it up, Pat - one day perhaps you'll learn something about how Broadway works, and maybe even understand it.