Theater Tradition Quotes

On the whole, British actors star in theater, and I think there's something quite grounding about that.

There's a very old tradition of theater actors doing their own makeup. It's like putting on your mask. There's an element of storytelling involved in it - you put on your character when you put on your makeup. At least, that's how I like to look at it.

The Broadway audiences are very vocal and seem very engaged. For certain shows, especially with a show like 'The Heiress,' the audience's reactions sound like 'The Jerry Springer Show' sometimes. That seems to be a very New York thing. Oh, there's also the entrance round of applause here, which we don't get too much in London.

My mother was an extraordinary theater actor in Canada, and when I would finish school, I would go to the theater. I would do my homework, we would have dinner there, she would do her play, and then me and my sister would go home. So I grew up in it that way.

Although the 'New York Times' annually declares that Broadway is on its deathbed, news of its demise is greatly exaggerated. There's a lot of life yet in the old tart.

I come from a theater family and a theater background, and I come from a philosophy that you respect the space you occupy when you work and you put everything that you have into something.

Look at the shows that are really successful on Broadway. They're musicals. They're things that a woman will pick out the tickets for, or a man will buy the tickets with a woman in mind. It's a date. It's boyfriend-girlfriend, husband-wife. That's what the theater in New York has become.

I am sure if you went back to the days of 'My Fair Lady,' they would have had one public dress rehearsal, and that is it. And in a way, I would like to go back to that.

It may take a while, but I think 'On the Town' has the potential for us to break down the boundaries between the traditional theatergoer who may have fond memories of the musical and those with a 'Broadway-is-not-for-me' agenda.

The most reliable pleasure afforded by theater is the intermission.

I wish it was possible to do the work and not have to talk about it, but it is traditional in the theater to go into the village square and bang the drum and say, 'Come see this show, come see this show.'

I think that first nights should come near the end of a play's run-as indeed, they often do.

What I love about the theater is the work ethic. I grew up with it.

I love big, bold, truthful theater - the tradition of Victorian theater.

When I work in the theater, you know you'll get this almost devotional, religious experience where you're breaking bread with everyone every day.

At the beginning of a long-running play, everyone's nervous and paces around in a panic and reapplies lipstick. After a while, you'll get long-running card games or word games like Boggle.

It's always a problem, getting the curtain in at the end of the first act; having enough of a resolve so that you can bring the curtain in and then opening the show a second time is a little bizarre as a tradition. I've always preferred to go straight through.

Acting as a career is a long term thing and that work is kind of progressive and you can build on a career. It's part of the great tradition of the theater to me.

I always think the great parts outlive the actors that play them and that's a stage tradition, that goes back hundreds of years and it should be that way.

If you grow up in Britain, you just do Shakespeare. If you go and work in a theater once or twice or three times in your life, you're going to end up doing a Shakespeare, because he's obviously such a brilliant, brilliant writer.

Traditionally, I like to watch my plays from the very back.