Theatre Tradition Quotes

Theatre artists are essentially sort of charlatans and thieves, I mean that's the tradition that we come from, so I have absolutely no, I make no bones about the fact that I steal from here and I take from there, and we all do it, that's perfectly all right, that's the nothing, there's nothing new in the world, there's nothing actually new in the way that you do something, but the point is is how do you take something and use it to articulate what is essentially a core of any given theatrical production.

Ever since I was little it was programmed into me that London is where great theatre occurs and all the big shows you love start there.

The Old Vic has always been first and foremost an actors' theatre, a home for great talent and memorable performances.

There's something very fine and lucid and rich in this tradition of the English actor.

There's something about doing theatre in London - it sinks a little bit deeper into your soul as an actor. It's something about the tradition of theatre, about performing on the West End stage.

I'm really passionate about pantomime because it is often the first introduction for a child to theatre, and if that child has a great experience at a pantomime they will continue to come year after year.

Doing Shakespeare once is not fair to the play. I have been in Shakespeare plays when it's not until the last two or three performances when I even understand certain things. In the old days star actors would travel the world doing the same parts over and over again.

If these theatres didn't exist, the tradition of British theatre would cease to exist.

In my opinion, there's nothing new in the theatre, ever. Theatre-makers are thieves, in the honourable tradition of charlatans. They fake it very, very well indeed for the entertainment of everybody else.

Ahmedabad is a cultured city with a rich heritage of craft and theatre.

Of course, the age-old tradition that a star must appear even if he or she is practically dying is an excellent one, but it can be carried too far. I one played a performance of The Knight of the Burning Pestle with a temperature of 103 and gave sixteen members of the company mumps, thereby closing the play and throwing everybody out of work. There may be a moral lurking somewhere in this, but I cannot for the life of me discover what it is.

I believe, and this is perhaps too nationalistic a view, that the American style of acting puts actors quickly in touch with each other, so that their continuous presence in a company, as in England, is not absolutely necessary.

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

As much as the mystery element is all a lot of fun, when you do go to 'Edwin Drood,' you're going to a theatre to see a show about going to a theatre and what that relationship between actors and audiences has been for years.

I'm an American playwright. Tennessee Williams got in all our DNA.

With my dad coming from a theatre tradition, there was a lot of preparation before auditions. Not just in terms of saying the lines correctly but a process of entering into what it was all about.

My work is very popular with performers, and there are theatre people who get what I'm doing and what tradition I'm working in. I'm very grateful to them - they're my people, who understand why I work the way I do.

I suppose there's a particular kind of efficiency about coming from a theatre tradition. You don't make a fuss, and you're cheap.

I think for me, I just love that trust you have with theater and your ensemble and people you are working with.

I come from a tradition where the writer writes a play for the actors, rather than for himself, and the dialogue is made to work onstage, so it needs actors to help shape it. So you never get a play right straightaway.

There is a very strong theatre-going tradition in Moscow. It has stayed strong.

My parents didn't take me to the theatre to see Chekhov when I was growing up - we went to see 'Francie and Josie' once every five years.

I'm not particularly precious about the theatrical experience any more.

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.

I remember when people actually wore coats and ties to theatre every night. They don't anymore. It's very different.