Theatre Relevance Quotes

The idea of making audiences feel like they matter, that the theatre matters, and that they're a partner in the event—that's what fuels me as a director . . . I believe it's actually radical to think about the audience.

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.

Theatres, actors, critics and public are interlocked in a machine that creaks but never stops. There is always a new season in hand and we are to busy to ask the only vital question which measures the whole structure. Why theatre at all? What for? Is it an anachronism, a superannuated oddity? Surviving like an old monument or a quaint custom? Why do we applaud and what? Has the stage a real place in our lives? What function can it have? What could it serve? What could it explore? What are its special properties?

I don't think theatre has changed; it's society that has changed.

Maybe all theatre is going to be irrelevant for all time.

I guess I've accepted that theatre is never going to be edgy in the way I want it to be. It's too expensive for a start. And, the audience seems to be complicit in the dullness.

I think new plays are vastly more surprising and challenging and inspiring; I hear from audiences all the time that they are delighted when they see plays about the world we live in now, at this moment.

You fight for certain roles, and you realise they're being filled by television and film actors, because theatre is constantly fighting for survival and they need names and faces and ticket sales.

I feel like 'Sweat' arrived on Broadway at the moment that it needed to. I feel like a commercial audience was not prepared for 'Ruined' or 'Intimate Apparel' for many different reasons.

I find that actors who are wanting to pursue tv or films don't seem to have much interest in classical theatre.

Most great plays of the past lose their grip on immediacy; on application to our lives right now.

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