Theater Direction Quotes

I've been working in theater, really, since about 1965. I started working with the Mabou Mines about then, and in a way I've always worked in the theater, but it's never been a main part of my work. And it wasn't until Einstein that I kind of shifted into high gear with theater, working with Bob, with Bob Wilson. And since then I find it a very attractive form to work in. It's just an extension of my work.

The only Shakespeare I ever did was a production of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' two years in a row in my garden in Rockland County on the Hudson River in the 1980s. I had all the actors from the Actors Studio come out, and we made our own costumes.

When I direct - everything I've directed has had improv in it, because I think there's something special in a performance the first time it's said out loud that's hard to recreate.

We worked on 'Fanny and Alexander' for seven months and it was an amusing production. Still, it was very long and heavy and so awfully complicated, .. And when the premiere was over and everything went well, I thought, 'That's that.' .

Plays are not written but rewritten, and much of the rewriting takes place at the behest of the director, whose job it is to grapple with the myriad complexities of moving a play from the page to the stage.

Edward Albee, the premier dark playwright of the American theater, would show up at rehearsal and quote his favorite lines from 'Auntie Mame'. He would stand at the back of the theater, not facing the stage, and sort of conduct the music of his play.

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

I've directed a couple of times in the theater, but I wouldn't make a habit of it because it's too consuming.

That's really how I got started was doing Shakespeare. When I got out of school, I was lucky enough to meet George Wolfe, who ran The Public Theater.

I want to write novels, and I want to write and direct theater.

I like to give the actors freedom to take what we have on the page and improve on it. And they do that quite a bit.

I want to get into the theater. I really wanted to be a theater director, but I turned out to be a movie director.

I had begun my professional career when I was 9 years old at the Cleveland Play House, and it was a very specific, real theater sort of like, you know, in England and the Berliner Ensemble - very devoted people. And I thought the theater was the greatest place I had ever been, and that's what I wanted to do.

With my background, I came out of the theater.

I would love to do a musical. I would love that. I would have to find the right book, the right story, but some day I'm going to make one. I would really like to go off and direct a musical. That's what I would really like to do when I grow up.

My mom started working at the California Shakespeare Theater in Oakland when I was two years old, so I've always grown up around theater.

Prior to joining NSD, I was briefly associated with a small theater group in Delhi called Sakshi. Saurabh Shukla, Manoj Bapayee were my seniors in that group. I performed a few supporting roles in Sakshi plays.

So much about being a director is getting the show ready for that first preview audience. I have a lot of experience making events that only happen once; it's opening and closing night in the same three-hour span.

I started as an actor. I started directing because Steppenwolf needed another strong director.

I really love diving in, head first, with directing and not having to worry about hair, makeup or lines.

If I have to, I'll go and direct theater and talk till the cows come home.

I don't get nervous when I'm directing a play. It's not like acting.

I always ended up having the funny part in Shakespeare, but I really thought I'd be doing theater. That was my ambition for myself.

Television can be a little tricky in terms of finding roles that feel fully flushed out, which is why I love being in the theater so much, because the roles tend to be really on the page.

I try to get the best performance an actor can give.