Harold Prince Quotes

No, I tell you what I like is having the play close after a decent run and looking back on it and saying, yes, I did that, and wasn't it wonderful? Because while you're doing it, it is really tough. It is so hard.

My favorite experience, in general, probably was the 'Little Shop' experience, which probably was terrifying, frustrating, and exhilarating and amazing, but because it was the first, that was the one where I watched the show just launch itself for the first time and thought, 'Oh my God, I'm going to have a career.'

When you're on stage with an audience, the director's nowhere to be seen. He's onto the next job.

You always have to speak good about the projects you do and you have to see the beauty in them. Sometimes you see them and you're happy with things, or maybe the process was nice and you enjoyed it, and you were happy with that. But when everything gathers - you liked the scripts from the very beginning, the directors, your friends - but then you see the result and you like it - it's beautiful.

The directors were often really nice and I was well behaved, so I would just sit there in rehearsal. That allowed me to see the process - not just the result, the red carpet, all of the wonderful, fun things that happen afterwards - the nuts and bolts, the nitty-gritty, "Let's try to build this character from the page," tech rehearsals.

The writing is hard, and the drawing is fun. It's very satisfying to see a drawing start to come together.

To me, writing is the most fun. It's not always fun, but finally when you make it come out the way you want, it's then you can say, 'It's fun, boy.'

I did it once in high school - I was Sandy in Grease - and I decided then that I would never do it again. I've felt that way for years, and that's no bullshit.

The performance is created by the director. The actor is the material. And I think that has to be true.

Sometimes I think the experience of a play is finished for me when I finish writing it. If it weren't for the need to make a living, I don't know whether I'd have the plays produced.

When you're a producer or director, there's so much sweat that goes into any given project.

When we're putting out records that people are responding to, it's amazing. And it's obviously what we shoot for every time. It's a tricky balancing act. But as long as it's sort of a righteous idea, then you're good to go.

I imagine as an axiom you could say that the better the play, the less "creativity" the director need exert.

I had a lot of fun writing things that died during dress rehearsal. Sometimes I remember the crazy ones that died even more fondly than the ones that did really well.

The best parts about writing a show are [its] first, second and 10th anniversaries. Everything else is relative levels of hell.

You have to have the essential pleasure of making a movie. It's such a huge factor and adventure for a director because you really are the leader and the captain.

Nothing is worse for me, as an actor, than when I walk on a set and the director goes, "Okay, you're going to be standing here, the other person is going to be standing here, and you're going to move to there and then do the scene." That doesn't help actors.

I've done animated TV stuff, but I'd never done animated film work, which is much more involved and much more labor intensive. The animators are much more meticulous and detailed. It's just been really fun and really satisfyingly creative.

The artist finds a greater pleasure in painting than in having completed the picture.

If you enjoyed making a thing, and you’re proud of the thing you made, that’s enough. Not everyone is going to like it, and that’s okay.

If you are ever completely satisfied with something you have written, you are setting your sights too low. But if you can't let go of your material even after you have done the best that you can with it, you are setting your sights too high.

Theater for me is terrifying but much more rewarding, because you know what they're seeing. Film is all little bits and pieces. And you can do an amazing job, but if the camera isn't getting it, it doesn't work. And then other times when you feel you really weren't present, and then you see it and somehow it works. So there's a mystery, there's a strange collaboration that takes place with everybody.

The act of writing is either something the writer dreads or actually likes, and I actually like it. Even re-writing's fun. You're getting somewhere, whether it seems to move or not.

With directing, you have to wake up early, which stinks, but you get to hang out with the crew, you're laughing, you're active, and you're working with the actors. It's just more fun than writing. Writing is very hard.

The theater is a need for me. It's a terrible attraction, something I'm compelled to do. And one derives a form of nourishment from the theater which you can never get from films. Making films weakens you in some way. With the theater, the work itself is a regenerative process.