theatrical inspiration Quotes

Alan Rickman told me to do a play, so I did. Because when Alan Rickman tells you do something, you go and do it.

You know, you're doing the same show every day, and your inspiration, you have to look no further than the fact that you know people travel across the country to see you. In a lot of cases, this is that audience's only chance to see the thing, and so, that's what gets you up in the morning, and that's what gets you giving your best performance on stage, is the awareness that this audience is ready for it, and here to have an experience, and so in turn are you.

My oldest brother used to take me to the theater. The first play he took me to see was 'Black Comedy,' then he took me to see 'Butley.' We'd see all these British plays. And 'Hello, Dolly,' with Pearl Bailey. I was unconsciously thinking, 'Gee, I would love to be able to do that.'

I grew up watching old musicals and seeing Ginger Rogers wearing a beautiful fitted bodice that had ostrich feathers. I love how it moved when she danced. Theatrical pieces like that stayed with me. I wanted to grow up to wear those kinds of things.

And when I first started writing, it was literally in acting classes. And what would happen is now it's really easy to get scripts and stuff but back then, you know, oftentimes you'd buy the novelization to a movie if you wanted to get an idea of what the scene, you know what happened in the scene.

Shakespeare's 'Othello' was inspired by Cinthio's 'A Moorish Captain'; his 'Hamlet' came from Saxo Grammaticus's 'Amleth.'

One of the things that made me want to be an actor more than ever was seeing a Chekhov play, "The Sea Gull," when was 14 in the Bronx.

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

Since I was 19, I've had the most fun possible every single day, even when I had a rough life. It was the army which taught me about life, and the theater which taught me how good it could be.

As a kid, I was obsessed with Broadway cast recordings, and I would totally mimic and memorize every little choice that these actors made.

I think Lindsay Kemp really introduced me to the work of Jean Genet, and through that, I kind of kept re-educating myself about other prose writers and poets.

A dramatist is one who from his earliest years has found that sheer gazing at the shocks and counter-shocks among people is quite sufficiently engrossing without having to encase it in comment.

I saw Waiting for Godot when I was 17 in rep with a then unknown actor called Peter O'Toole playing Vladimir. I remember leaving the theatre promising myself that one day I would have a go at this play and then pretty much forgot it for 50 years.

Seeing the play ( A Lie of the Mind ) clearly is part of why I wanted to direct it. I see hope at the end of this play. People talk about how dark the play was, but I feel like, if you really look at the darkness, you're able to go through it, and you realize that you can handle dark moments in life and that everything will be all right.

I started off as a theatre designer, and by some extraordinary circumstance I saw something in Stratford-upon-Avon, and realized that that's the kind of design I want, but also that that's the kind of designer I'll never be.