Top 100 Play Theater Quotes
#1. I didn't know anything about acting, I didn't know anything about theater, but I was just an exceptional student at high school. I wanted to play ball; I'm going after a basketball scholarship and be a doctor. I got injured and my marks began to drop.
#2. I started in theater. I would liken sitcom work more to theater work than I would, perhaps, to dramatic television. It's so quick. It kind of feels like the pace of a play.
#3. I went through a few phases of finding myself: I dabbled in musical theater, chess club, dance troupe, splatter-painting, school mascot (go Wildcats), babysitter, photojournalist, drill team girl, emo kid - and not one of them defined me, but every single one will always play a part in who I am.
#4. It's a shame how a lot of actors use theater as a stepping stone to film and television work; I think it shouldn't be treated that way. Maybe it's narcissism or something. I think we should always go back to it. I try and do a play a year, and I think that's really helped me.
#5. I see theater as a simple formula. Audience plus players plus story makes the play.
#6. I saw things at an early age because my mom was a theater actress. I did a play with her when I was 10 years old.
#7. I started off doing plays as a theater actor. But I never thought of it in terms of it leading anywhere. I was just trying to be the best actor that I could be in the context of what I was doing.
#8. Life is a theater, you can choose to play the part of the strong, determined, winner or the weak, fearful loser. The choice is yours.
#9. I directed a piece of theater in Italy. We took nine fables from the town and we created a play.
#10. Music is my passion, singing, performing. I play piano and musical theater is my background.
#11. When you go to the theater, if you're really involved in the play, you don't think about it - you're in it.
#12. I was on a series for a number of years, and I got very used to only doing a mini-play per week. When I first came back to the theater, and I was suddenly doing eight shows a week again for three or four months, I had to find a new reason to do it.
#13. The backstage play, in which the private lives of theater people are put onstage for the world to see, is one of the diciest of dramatic genres.
#14. When I'm editing, I try to bring out some dramatic structure. I think it is about theater in some way; it is a little play.
#15. Play out the play ...
#16. I started out in pre-law. I was going to go to law school. And I saw a production of 'Tally's Folly' that spring term. I took a theater class that term and auditioned for 'Harvey' at the end of the summer, and I was in a play every semester after that.
#17. To me idealized characters are so boring to play, especially having grown up in the classical theater. That's a great experience, but as a woman, especially, you've played a lot of idealized characters. So when you've got someone who has weaknesses as well as strengths, that's interesting.
#18. The truth is you don't like the theater except the times when you're in a room by yourself putting the play on paper.
#19. As someone who's been doing a lot of classical theater recently, I loved the idea of getting to run around in Steven Alan, and not be in a corset and a wig, and not have a dialect, and get to be in a 90-minute play with no intermission, and get to do real comedy.
#20. I think theater is a great training ground; I think it's a great opportunity to play.
#21. In this business, you have a hierarchy of stars. Russell Crowe, Tom Hanks - you name 'em, they can play any part they want. Guys like me who are somewhere down in the middle of the pack, that's a different story. I can do things in the theater that I can't do anyplace else.
#22. I discovered that I wanted to be an actor back when I did my first play in junior high. I've been doing theater in junior high and high school, and I just kept feeding the fire, kept wanting to pursue acting full-on.
#23. In the theater you rehearse for a minimum of five to six weeks. And then you get to play it. Which means you get to get better. That's the great thing about the theater.
#24. You never get anywhere until you figure out the difference between passion and compassion.
#25. I came to America to become an architect. And somewhere along the line while I was still in school, I was lured into theater, and that's how I became interested in theater. My first play was something called 'A Banquet for the Moon.' It was a weird play.
#26. I've always said I prefer theater, but there's only ever been one play that I really loved doing, and that was The Seagull.
#27. One's roused by this, another finds that fit: Each loves the play for what he brings to it.
#28. It's exciting to do something like this because usually what happens in theater is that, after the first or second reading of a play, it falls apart completely and the rehearsal process is such that you begin to pick up the pieces and put it back together again.
#29. I'm not a theater rat, so I never got a theatrical agent and did a play. I came really close though.
#30. I've always enjoyed performing. I was in figure skating before, and then I joined my first school play. Ever since that, you have not been able to get me out of the theater.
#31. People talk about generating my own work, but I don't really know how to go about that. There are certainly some roles in the theater I'd like to play but I don't know if I'll ever get to do it.
#32. When you play arenas you can create whatever you want. At a theater the height of the stage and the limitations of the theater can make you feel more separate from the audience.
#33. Voiceover work reminds me of old-time radio. When I was little I used to sneak and stay up at night and listen to Mystery Radio Theater - I loved all those old radio plays.
#34. Take some wood and canvas and nails and things. Build yourself a theater, a stage, light it, learn about it. When you've done that you will probably know how to write a play.
#35. The theater is so disappointing, really, that it's hard to go again and again. It's just too heartbreaking. I'd rather watch football or play a game or read.
#36. I not only loved studying theater, I loved being a theater major. It gave me an excuse to brood, to grow a beard, to wear black 'at' people. I didn't just want to play Hamlet, I wanted to be Hamlet.
#37. I always loved theater and acting in plays and directing, writing little plays and directing friends in plays.
#38. A troupe learns to play like we all learn to screw, stumbling and jostling until everything's finally in the right place.
#39. It was always theater for me. But part of that came out of the fact that I was always acting out as a kid. I was the kid who didn't play well with others.
#40. The truth is that a lot of plays aren't political at all. In American theater history, political theater has tended to crop up when there's a crisis, a national crisis.
#41. Kusewera, an organization that fosters orphanages in Africa and the Philippines and encourages through creative play and education. Anything and everything that supports cancer research. East West Players, the oldest and biggest Asian American theater in the U.S.
#42. Before shooting, I prepare with the actors much more like it's a theater play than a movie. Apparently, that way of working is very unusual.
#43. Our only competition in the theater is boredom, because if I'm bored with a play, if I'm revolted by a play on stage, with the Broadway prices, especially today, I'm going to walk out and not come back and pay that price again.
#44. I'd also like to do a play. I've never done theater, and constantly changing and refining a performance is something I'd like to do, even though it may sound like work to some people - and it probably is work.
#45. A very dear friend of mine great actress named Wendy Rich Stetson was very active in the theater department at Amherst and I went to all the plays she was in, and it became very clear to me that what she was doing was something I wanted to be doing.
#46. I was a theater actor back in the U.K., and you knew the whole play, so you could plot your storyline and character. And then I did 'Lost' and didn't know, and it was kind of frustrating, but I enjoyed it.
#47. A lot of the best acting training I had was in junior high and high school. We had very demanding directors and did real plays. You put our plays up against any theater troupe of any age, and they usually did pretty damn well.
#48. I played a little basketball, but basketball interfered with theater season. That's when we did our term plays and did nutshell versions of Shakespeare for English classes. And, believe me, I got a fair amount of looks from the guys on the team. 'You're in theater but you can play football?'
#49. There's a positive side to film and television, the sense of feeding into the theater ... Your fans will follow you, hopefully, and be open-minded to see you play other things and experience other stories you want to tell.
#50. It's a tough transition really for theater actors to adjust to television or film, and all of these years later, I still have a tendency to play it too big.
#51. Music is rhythm, and all theater is rhythm. It's about tempo and change and pulse, whether you're doing a verse play by Shakespeare or a musical.
#52. When we play an unaccompanied Bach suite we may compare ourselves to an actor in Shakespeare's day, creating scenery which did not exist at all, through the power of declamation and suggestion. So in Bach. There is but one voice
and many voices have to be suggested.
#53. Occasionally, I have time to go to the theater, and I think for a minute, 'Man, I'd really love to be doing a play right now.' Because I loved doing plays when I was doing them. Then I think, 'I want to do it right now, but will I want to do that Sunday matinee in six weeks?'
#54. Jordan [Ruddes], he learned that way, and that's what he knows how to do. That's how he kind of approaches all music, whether it's to learn a cover song that we're going to play, or to review Dream Theater music - he always uses charts. That's what he knows. I really rely a lot more on memory.
#55. I've been acting for a while, but theater is pretty different. I've never been in a play.
#56. So what's so enticing about doing a play is that you get to do that thing that got you into acting in the first place ... There's a real attraction to being able to play, to just play. And that's something that theater affords you.
#57. It's based not only on what it played like in the theater, but it's also knowing that certain things play differently in a home theater environment. You have different expectations when you're sitting with 700 people than when you're sitting with your friends or family. It's just a different world.
#58. The thing with film and theater is that you always know the story so you can play certain cues in each scene with the knowledge that you know where the story's going to end and how it's going to go. But on television nobody knows what's going to happen, even the writers.
#59. I come from a theater background, and if you're doing a play, your audience is right there, and you're able to have that one-on-one experience. Doing more TV now, when fans come up to me on the street and talk to me on social media, that's a way to bridge that gap.
#60. When she said goodbye it was like a play ending. It was like the theater and coming out again to the streets.
#61. I love theater. Like, every time I go to New York, I see a play.
#62. An ad for cigars appears in 100,000 newspapers; sales of that brand increase by 3% for a short time thereafter. A new play receives a viciously negative review in a theatrical journal that prints 500 copies; the playwright shoots himself. Who's the better writer?
#63. If I was discovered by anyone, it would be Stephen O'Neil, who saw me in a play at Williamstown and introduced me to my team who I'm still with today. He was the first person to introduce me to the film and TV world. Other than that, I just assumed I would be a theater actor my whole life.
#64. I went to college to be a jock and to play on the baseball team. And then, I got cut and realized that that was it for that. I was really small. The other guys were really big, on that team. I was a bit of a theater nerd, and I was an art history major.
#65. I think now that the great thing is not so much the formulation of an answer for myself, for the theater, or the play-but rather the most accurate possible statement of the problem.
#66. I saw a Shakespeare play when I was - I guess I was in junior high. And I just fell in love with the theater because, for me, it was a combination of big ideas and feeling.
#67. I was terrible in my first play. After that experience, I had to face that I wasn't good enough to play with the big boys. I had to go away and learn, so I worked in regional theater for three years. I even understudied at the Kennedy Center.
#68. When a theater goes dark for the night, a stagehand leaves a lighted lamp on stage. No one knows why any more, but some old timers say it is to keep the ghosts away. Others say it lights the stage for the ghosts to play. Whichever theory one adheres to, most people agree: a great theater is haunted.
#69. I had one of the best days of my life. I spent the afternoon with my two kids and my ex-wife at Serendipity. Then I came to the theater, and you know, I think I did the play the best I've ever done it.
#70. The first thing I ever did was play talent shows at the Uptown Theater and the Adelphi Ballroom.
#71. All the difference in the world between the movies and the thrill I get out of a play at the theater. Ay, yes! Like fooling around with paper dolls when you could be playing with a real live baby.
#72. And I think in theater, people don't really focus on the media unless there's a huge superstar doing a play or something.
#73. Always continue to perform no matter what or where the activity is: local theater, regional theater, local clubs or coffee shops. Continue to play the guitar or your instrument and always continue to progress or otherwise you will fail.
#74. So, through all that early professional career I would occasionally do a musical, a pantomime or a play with songs. The next stop would be a Shakespeare, or an Ibsen, or a play by a brand new writer who had never done anything in the theater before.
#75. My first thought about acting, growing up here in New York, was theater, and I feel like I need to force myself to go get my ass kicked in a rehearsal room and do one of those plays at some point.
#76. Doing theater, I call it concentrated shampoo. You put a dime in the palm of your hand and you get a headful of lather. When you do a play, you're there for two and a half hours, and you live a lifetime.
#77. Unfortunately, because the theater is always a poor relation when it comes to making the nut, it's not easy to get the audience in to see a play, unless you have a name that is recognizable, that the audience wants to see and is prepared to pay the $125 to see.
#78. I happen to love working in cinema, but the theater is always there ... you know, and I would never shut the door on it. Even though it's been quite a bit of time since I've done a play, last one was in New York.
#79. The Play's the Thing, wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.
#80. I'm doing a play, a musical. The musical follows the Mamma Mia concept. It's my first LA theater project.
#81. I often teach a graduate theater seminar on Greek tragedy in performance. I usually begin by saying that no matter what technological advances occur, the wisdom of these plays will never be obsolete.
#82. I studied theater in college, and I really wanted to be an actress and play a lot of different roles. Then I made landing on a television comedy my main focus.
#83. The classical city promoted play with careful solicitude, building the theater and stadium as it built the market place and the temple.
#84. This is my theater. This is where I can sing and act out a play and do sit-ups at the same time.
#85. In theater, you are there, you have a character, you have a play, you have a light, you have a set, you have an audience, and you're in control, and every night is different depending on you and the relationship with the other actors. It's as simple as that.
#86. When I first started acting, I started in opera and had a great desire to play grand, tragic characters. I got sidetracked in musical theater and ended up doing a lot of comedy.
#87. If Patti Lupone was born to play Evita then Madonna was born to play Patti Lupone playing Evita.
#88. Don't wear green in your dressing room,' suggested Miss Spink.
'Or mention the Scottish play, added Miss Forcible.
#89. I did a play I think my first six months on the show, called Bullpen. Then I got involved with Theater Forty and did this play called Plastic which is about two male models coming to a casting call.
#90. Oh gosh, well, you know, growing up in the '70s being a young boy there, you know, there were still exploitation movies, where, you know, were, you know, still opened up every week and, you know, played - sometimes they would play it at the local, you know, mall theater.
#91. Everyone can act. Everyone can improvise. Anyone who wishes to can play in the theater and learn to become stageworthy.
#92. Pen-and-paper role-playing is live theater and computer games are television. People want the convenience and instant gratification of turning on the TV rather than getting dressed up and going out to see a live play. In the same way, the computer is a more immediately accessible way to play games.
#93. Making a film or doing a play are completely different experiences and entirely fulfilling, but completely unique. I also think one complements the other. People often say that theater is about flexing your muscles, and is actually real acting, whereas I sort of disagree.
#94. I think we should all feel lucky and blessed that people are still, in this day and age, getting in their cars with other people and driving to a location and paying money to sit in a theater and watch a play.
#95. I'm doing this play right now, the new David Mamet play. It's called 'Race,' and it's very interesting how people really leave the theater filled with the desire to talk about the play and the issues and the characters, and how they're all navigating their personal views around race.
#96. I'd always loved the theater, and I began by writing plays. I work in the theater a lot in the UK, and I've worked in the theater out here quite a bit. Everything else - the films - followed as a consequence of that.
#97. I did a play called 'On Golden Pond' in a dinner theater in Maine and then went to New York for a talent competition having put together a three-man juggling routine and some one-liners and I got myself an agent from that.
#98. I know I'm as comfortable doing period as I am contemporary. I suppose we grow up with it in a sense, in the theater. We get to put on costumes and play a lot of period dramas or plays so we're exposed to it a little bit more I think because of our theatrical background.
#99. Charity in the theater begins and ends with those who have a play opening within a week of one's own.
#100. You work with stand-up comedians or you work with somebody in theater, you work with somebody from 'Star Search' or 'Survivor' or a kid, it constantly changes how you play with people.
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