Theater Art Quotes

Performing on Broadway is an honor and a challenge for any artist.

The hope is that in rediscovering 'Chicago,' audiences will rediscover what theater was. It was sophisticated, complicated, adult.

I adore the theater and I am a painter. I think the two are made for a marriage of love. I will give all my soul to prove this once more.

One fine day I discovered that more complex plays really have to be directed.

The theater is a communal event, like church. The playwright constructs a mass to be performed for a lot of people. She writes a prayer, which is really just the longings of one heart.

I went to art school first and thought that I'm going to design theater sets. That was my path.

And I don't consider Broadway the acropolis of theatrical art. I mean Broadway is commercial - that's what it is. It's expensive seats and a lot of them that have to be filled every night. Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway, as far as I'm concerned, is in New York the pride of New York theater.

Art is an expression of who you are. Parts that I play are my sculptures.

The theater has to impose itself on the public, and not the public on the theater... The word "Art" should be written everywhere, in the auditorium and in the dressing rooms, before the word "Business" gets written there.

The beauty of theater is that you get to live the character from beginning to end without stopping. The natural momentum of the story propels you through in such a way that feels organic.

The drama may be called that part of theatrical art which lends itself most readily to intellectual discussion: what is left is theater.

I like to originate new roles and characters for musical theater.

I think the things that I enjoy most about directing theater, or works that are really visceral in terms of comedy and have a sort of rock and roll aesthetic.

I find theater very lazy and artificial, and then when it's not, it lacks refinement.

I'm not sure plays tell people anything. I think plays include an audience in an experience that is happening in that moment, and that's the specialness. What people take away has almost as much to do with what they bring as what we do.

The wonderful thing about theater as an art form is it's a purely empirical art form. It's all about what works. And every show, every production, is created anew right from the moment you go into the rehearsal hall.

I see the audience as the final collaborator. I think it's kind of bullshit when people say, "I'm not interested in the audience reaction." I'm like, "Then why do you do theater? You can write a book, then you don't have to see how the audience reacts." It's a living, breathing thing.

There is really nothing like seeing a live stage performance.

I don't think theater is dying, and musicals are a great American art form. We've got apple pie, jazz and musical theater.

My No. 1 artistic inspiration in theater is Brian Stokes Mitchell.

In not-for-profit theater, you don't worry so much about how the audience is going to react. You want to make them absorb the piece.

Musical theater is an American genre. It started really, in America, as a combination of jazz and operetta; most of the great musical theater writers in the golden era are American. I think that to do a musical is a very American thing to me.

In 2005, I worked as a scenic painter for a while when I was taking a break from music.

Acting is just such an incredible art form.

People whose understanding and taste in literature, painting, and music are beyond question are, for the most part, ignorant of what is good or bad art in the theater.