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I don’t know about you, but I love quotes. Words are powerful. Quotes are morsels, tidbits our mind can engage with. They are the hors d’oeuvres of the literary arts. Connecting us in words to anything our mind wanders to at any particular moment. Quotes are also mental post-it notes, reminding us of what is important and of why we do what we do, love what we do.
So here, without further ado, for all of you who love theatre and the performing arts in general, a small collection of what I consider to be the most beautiful theatre quotes.
For when I need a burst of energy during creation or a particularly grueling workday backstage. And for right now when, like many, I do not work backstage anymore. These quotes remind me of the magic I was a part of. And of how much it meant to me.
“Love art in yourself, and not yourself in art.”
Constantin Stanislavski, My Life in Art
“We do on stage things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.”
Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
“If you were born with the ability to change someone’s perspective or emotions, never waste that gift. It is one of the most powerful gifts God can give—the ability to influence.”
Shannon L. Alder
“The Director’s Role: You are the obstetrician. You are not the parent of this child we call the play. You are present at its birth for clinical reasons, like a doctor or midwife. Your job most of the time is simply to do no harm. When something does go wrong, however, your awareness that something is awry–and your clinical intervention to correct it–can determine whether the child will thrive or suffer, live or die.”
Frank Hauser, Notes on Directing
“The stage is a magic circle where only the most real things happen, a neutral territory outside the jurisdiction of Fate where stars may be crossed with impunity. A truer and more real place does not exist in all the universe.”
P.S. Baber, Cassie Draws the Universe
“Theatres are curious places, magician’s trick-boxes where the golden memories of dramatic triumphs linger like nostalgic ghosts, and where the unexplainable, the fantastic, the tragic, the comic and the absurd are routine occurrences on and off the stage. Murders, mayhem, political intrigue, lucrative business, secret assignations, and of course, dinner.”
E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly
“Actors need a kind of aggression, a kind of inner force. Don’t be only one-sided, sweet, nice, good. Get rid of being average. Find the killer in you.”
Stella Adler, The Art of Acting
“How could we explain that standing on a stage and speaking someone else’s words as if they are your own is less an act of bravery than a desperate lunge at mutual understanding? An attempt to forge that tenuous link between speaker and listener and communicate something, anything, of substance.”
M.L. Rio, If We Were Villains
“There is a word for people like you, and that word is audience. An audience comes to a theatre perhaps to see something which if they saw it in real life, they may find offensive… Perhaps you’ve come here this evening, because you want to see something you’ve only done in the privacy of your own homes, something perhaps you wished you’d done in the privacy of your own homes or something that you dreamed about doing in the privacy of your own homes.”
“An audience likes to sit in the dark and to watch other people do it. Well, if you’ve paid your money – good luck to you. However, from this end of the telescope things look somewhat different – you all look very small, and very far away and there’s a lot of you. It’s important to remember that there are more of you than of us. So, if it does come to a fight, you will undoubtedly win.”
Florian Malzacher
“Children and adults alike need to experience how rewarding it is to work at the edge of their abilities. Resilience is the product of agency: knowing that what you do can make a difference. Many of us remember what playing team sports, singing in the school choir, or playing in the marching band meant to us, especially if we had coaches or directors who believed in us, pushed us to excel, and taught us we could be better than we thought was possible. The children we reach need this experience. Athletics, playing music, dancing, and theatrical performances all promote agency and community.”
Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
“So here it is: A month of heart-breaking, gut-wrenching work that, if we do it right, leads to no definite conclusion. Eighteen-hour days and eighteen-hour nights. For you, new members, this will feel like some kind of endurance race. We’ve got one month to break down this awful script, rebuild it, learn every one of its variations, and then rehearse the result until you can do it in your sleep.
But even then we won’t be finished, because there’s a hostile crowd out there just dying to be the first ones to solve the mystery—which we will not let them do.
Let’s get to work.”
Vincent H. O’Neil, Death Troupe
“I will never tire of touring. Television feels like throwing shit at a wall and hoping some of it will stick. But working live, even at this late stage in my career, I feel like you are making new fans one by one in the most unlikely places and sometimes giving people new experiences they would never have imagined they would enjoy.”
Stewart Lee, March of the Lemmings: Brexit in Print and Performance 2016–2019
“The life of a play begins and ends in the moment of performance. This is where author, actors and directors express all they have to say. If the event has a future, this can only lie in the memories of those who were present and who retained a trace in their hearts. This is the only place for our Dream. No form nor interpretation is for ever. A form has to become fixed for a short time, then it has to go. As the world changes, there will and must be new and totally unpredictable Dreams.”
Peter Brook, The Quality of Mercy: Reflections on Shakespeare
This is it, a little taste of theatre quotes. I hope you enjoyed this collection of mental post-it notes. And maybe, like me, you recognized yourself in some of them.
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Liam Klenk was born in Central Europe and has since lived on four continents. Liam has always been engaged in creative pursuits, ranging from photography and graphic design, to writing short stories and poetry, to working in theatre and shows. In 2016, Liam published his first book and memoir, 'Paralian'.
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