Theatrical Process Quotes

Theater is all about the rehearsal process. In fact, I think a lot of times opening night there's a mixed sadness because you're finished with a lot of people's favorite part of the process, which is finding the character and discovering it, and then you get to live it.

Usually, I'm the kind of actor where you show me once or twice, I can do it. I don't do it creatively, but I know how to do the process.

My problem with the traditional acting method was that I never understood what you were supposed to be thinking about when you're onstage.

Every time I feel that I really hit critical mass and I'm in the right place is when I feel like the director and I become a third thing, and that's the character.

Film is a much lonelier process than theatre. You really don't have any rehearsal time in film. You don't shape it together... with theatre, there is a complete kind of family atmosphere. The sociable side of this business is the theatrical side, it really isn't the film side.

Writing a play is like smashing that [glass] ashtray, filming it in slow motion, and then running the film in reverse, so that the fragments of rubble appear to fly together. You start - or at least I start - with the rubble.

The process of doing a play is an organic one, and the process of doing a film is totally inorganic.

I certainly am not a great believer in over-rehearsing between actors, and certainly not doing the dialogue too much.

In discussing the process with the actors, I made it clear to them that they could improvise but that the sum total of their improvisation needed to impart certain plot points, and schematic material.

What I do is I come in the morning and get involved in the character, but I'm always very pleased to leave it at night and have my life.

I love the theater. I love the rehearsals. That's where you build a performance. That's your foundation. If you're gonna build a house, you start with the foundation. That makes the house strong. That's the way I build a character, from the foundation out.

I've gotten to work with people like Kristin Chenoweth and Chita Rivera... Seeing their process is so interesting. Seeing that these people aren't immortal - that they go through the same motions as we do and ask for feedback and break down scenes... They have to work, too, and that's really exciting to see.

I think it's the same to be an actress anywhere because the profession is about attitudes towards events - it is a process to try to understand life. I think this is the case for actors across the world.

I find all of my performances come down to mathematics in a sense - how do you approach the problem of this character? Sometimes I crack that problem, sometimes I don't.

The rehearsal process is the biggest gift you can give to the director and to yourself as an actor because it allows you to shape the character and the scenes.

The directors were often really nice and I was well behaved, so I would just sit there in rehearsal. That allowed me to see the process - not just the result, the red carpet, all of the wonderful, fun things that happen afterwards - the nuts and bolts, the nitty-gritty, "Let's try to build this character from the page," tech rehearsals.

To me, getting notes, honing the part, and refining the role is the real fun of the play.

Theatre is so much fun because you do theatre and you have a month of working it out on your own, and then a month of rehearsal, so by the time you get to stage I know where I'm failing and I know where I'm succeeding and your boundaries are pretty concrete.

It makes sense that it's so different from film and television, because it's so in-depth. As actors, when we're in film or television, we can have transcendent moments and we get to work with really creative and incredible people, but it's such a small percentage of your time that's about your process.