American Theatre Quotes

There was a prison uprising at Alcatraz, and I drove the Marines over there in a landing craft to quell the riot. I am the only serviceman I know with an American Theatre ribbon.

I do a lot of American plays. I've done a lot of Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and Neil Simon. I was in 'Sisters Rosensweig,' 'Six Degrees of Separation,' all of that stuff. So we're very familiar with America. I did 400 performances of 'Born Yesterday.' I did 700 performances of 'They're Playing Our Song.'

I believe in the American theatre. I believe in its power to inform about the human condition, its power to heal ... its power to uncover the truths we wrestle from uncertain and sometimes unyielding realities.

Tennessee Williams was a gifted talker with a beautiful accent and we had lots of things in common.

Is the American theatre allowing itself to become irrelevant? The problem isn't that playwrights aren't being paid enough. It's that theatres all over America are looking towards New York to tell them what new plays to do.

In America, the average playwright makes less than a receptionist in a non-profit theatre. We don't have decent health insurance - or any health insurance at all.

I've always been a huge John Guare fan. But Edward Albee - he just can't be beat.

I have a bit of an obsession with the 1950's and all those actors from Montgomery Clift to James Dean and Anthony Perkins. Just that whole era of Tennessee Williams to Elia Kazan.

Theatre for a New Audience is one of America's most admirable and exciting theatre companites...some of the best acted and directed work to be found on American stages, engaging with the canon of world dramatic literature in a vigorous way.

Tennessee Williams moves my soul.

I know I'm not known as method. By nature I'm not a brooder. What I continue to use is a mixture of the English school, which is traditionally outside-in, and the more American way of working from the inside out.

But, you see, the theatre is not always art in America.

I always describe race as the final taboo in American theatre. There's a real reluctance to have that conversation in an open, honest way on the stage.

My experiences in film and theatre in the States have been much more rigorous-in England there's an environment of, Let's try this.

American naturalism is what my indulgent actor side loves: a bit of Tennessee Williams, a bit of Clifford Odets, August Wilson - I would just love to tackle some of that.

I love the '50s and grew up loving works from that time period and from those great playwrights.

Just as I was turning fifteen, in the spring of 1946, my parents took me to see 'The Glass Menagerie,' well into its year-long run. I had seen a number of shows on Broadway by then, but nothing like this - because there was nothing like this on Broadway.

I used to drive up from theatre in Michigan to Stratford, Ontario to watch every show. I idolized the actors from Stratford. I was very influenced by them because they would come down and work at my theatre and get time on their American Equity union cards.

I would love to take a crack at 'Long Day's Journey Into Night.'

I sincerely believe that for the New York theatre to remain relevant, all our major producing institutions should be presenting new American plays.

In Germany, actors tend to be more laid-back and take orders from the director: 'Tell me what you want.' I'm more into collaboration. So are Americans.

One of the things I find very little of in America - and certainly not on Broadway - are plays with political attitudes.