Theatrical Influence Quotes

My background is on the stage, so when I'd write movies, they'd be a lot like plays.

Having been raised by actors who love moral ambiguity and flawed protagonists, I feel like it's sort of in the blood to want to take it on.

I didn't see any Broadway till I was in my late twenties.

My whole background, my whole life was just lots and lots of theater, a lot of that being musical theater.

The only thing that surprised me about 'Lincoln' is that most of the critics who reviewed the film seem not to have grasped what should have been apparent right from the start, which is that 'Lincoln' is at bottom a play with pictures, not a screenplay.

My father was a GP; my mother was a teacher and amateur actress. My father was a bit of a storyteller, but the acting influence must have been from her - yes, put it down to my mother.

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.

I think my dad has a similar black sense of humour to mine, so perhaps it's just an inherited thing. I've got two little boys now, and I can see it with them as well. I don't know if you learn it off your parents - but my dad used to take me to see certain plays when I was quite young, so maybe that had an effect as well.

I grew up with the great Sir Laurence Olivier, and I think it's fair to say that a lot of actors of my age were influenced by his very individual vocal delivery. He was a showman who would always play to the gallery.

I studied Shakespeare in college, but not theatrically, more in terms of literature, and then I kind of took a break from it. Now there's resurgence in my appreciation for him. It's amazing: there are so many book titles and song titles that come just from lines that he wrote.

My whole background is theater, and theater is to some degree presentational.

I am inspired by show girls and Vegas. I was a cabaret performer, so that's where all that influence comes from.

I found it was my good fortune to somehow be able to work in these forms that I loved when I was a kid. I love movies and I could write screenplays. I love theater and I could write plays. I mean, they would be my own, I could never write what was used to be called the well-made play. But my first play, "Little Murders," turned out to be a great success and a great influence on plays at that time.

Television theatre, as is implied in its name, should rely on adaptations of scripts written for the theatre.

If Shakespeare was alive today, he'd be writing wrestling shows.

Personally speaking there's only so long you can go from film to film to film. There's an inspiration an actor gets from the stage.

Plays are frequently infected with ideas that came from actors or even sound engineers. Some Shakespeare scholars wonder whether some of the Bard's lines came from onstage improvisations by actors.

I have more artistic control in a smaller show. But it doesn't really matter. Sometimes you can have the smallest role in the smallest production and still make a big impact.

But those two plays left me on fresh terms with language. I didn't always have to speak in my own voice.

As a playwright, I imagine that in one fashion or another I've been influenced by every single play I've ever experienced.

I grew up doing theatre and spent a long time as a playwright. I still think very visually when I write.

Over-the-knee socks remind me of the 1920s, silent films, and the stars of the era who wore the rolled-down stockings. They sort of referenced that in 'Cabaret,' when Liza Minnelli was singing 'Mein Herr,' and I love the way she looks in that scene.

It is Ireland's sacred duty to send over, every few years, a playwright to save the English theater from inarticulate glumness.

I think I do things that are more common in theatre.

My own journey as a writer has been the discovery of different theatrical voices. Chekhov was a revelation. Tennessee Williams was another one. We read 'The Glass Menagerie' in high school, and I still remember the cover.