Theatre Quotes

Long experience has taught me that in England nobody goes to the theatre unless he or she has bronchitis.

~ James Agate

Playing Shakespeare is very tiring. You never get to sit down unless you're a king.

~ Josephine Hull

Theatre is simply what cannot be expressed by any other means a complexity of words movements gestures that convey a vision of the world inexpressible in any other way.

~ Eugène Ionesco

As an actor he should be an extra in police line-ups.

~ Robert H. Gurney

Did I tell you what happened at the play? We were at the back of the theatre, standing there in the dark, when all of a sudden I feel one of 'em tug at my sleeve, whispers, Trudy look! I said, Yeah, goosebumps. You definitely got goosebumps. You like the play that much? They said it wasn't the play that gave 'em goosebumps, it was the audience!I'd forgot to tell them to watch the play; they'd been watching the audience! Yeah, to see a group of people sitting together in the dark, laughing and crying at the same things...well that just knocked 'em out! They said, Trudy, the play was soup, the audience, art.So they're taking goosbumps back with 'em into space. Goosebumps! Quite a souvenir. I like to think of them out there in the dark, watching us. Sometimes we'll do something and they'll laugh. Sometimes we'll do something and they'll cry. And maybe, one day we'll do something so magnificent, the whole universe will get goosebumps.

~ Jane Wagner

The theatre only knows what it's doing next week, not like the opera, where they say: What are we going to do in five years' time? A completely different attitude.

~ Harrison Birtwistle

Every baseball crowd, like every theatre audience, has its own distinctive attitude and atmosphere.

~ Bill Veeck

Theatre is a must for actors. They should try it at least once. It makes you disciplined, teaches you to respect your work, and boosts your confidence as an actor.

~ Sushant Singh Rajput

Look at a football field. It looks like a big movie screen. This is theatre. Football combines the strategy of chess. It's part ballet. It's part battleground, part playground. We clarify, amplify and glorify the game with our footage, the narration and that music, and in the end create an inspirational piece of footage.

~ Steve Sabol

I did an A Level in Theatre Studies and had a really inspirational teacher, and then I just went on to university.

~ Jessica Raine

It's not called the Theatre of Dreams for nothing.

~ Henrikh Mkhitaryan

It's communication - that's what theatre is all about.

~ Chita Rivera

I love the rehearsal process in the theatre, and the visceral sense of contact and communication with a live audience.

~ Judd Nelson

I got amazing training both with Theatre Sports... back in Edmonton, Alberta - I can't give those people enough credit - and the daytime drama I did. Incredible training, both of them.

~ Nathan Fillion

Theatre sports is the best improv training period.

~ Wayne Brady

What's great about collaborating is getting to work with wonderful people. That's what theatre is about: other people getting you to give your best, and getting everyone else's best out of them.

~ Jason Robert Brown

The strength of British theatre should be that these actors in their middle years know what they're doing and are good at it. Not rich, not famous, but making a living.

~ Ian Mckellen

I had a teacher who loved movies. He had a little theatre called The Flick, and he would let a bunch of us volunteer to work there, and he also let us make little movies in class.

~ Kathleen Kennedy

I started elocution lessons because I was being teased, and I had a brilliant drama teacher. At the age of 14, I appeared at the National Theatre in 'The Crucible.'

~ Gina Bellman

Then I heard this genius teacher Stella Adler - I recommend you read anything you might find about her and if you have anyone interested in theatre, you get them one of her books.

~ Harvey Keitel

Feudal societies don't create great cinema; we have great theatre. The egalitarian societies create great cinema. The Americans, the French. Because equality is sort of what the cinema deals with. It deals with stories which don't fall into 'Everybody in their place and who's who,' and all that. But the theatre's full of that.

~ Brian Cox

I am musical and I enjoy theatre, but I never wanted to just do theatre. I always wanted to go into film. I love film. I loved growing up in the theatre, but I always wanted to do film all along. But, I still pursue music separately.

~ Sabrina Lloyd

I've gotten to go wonderful places, meet interesting and intelligent people, and I started of course in the theatre and continue to work in the theatre where there is some intelligence involved in it.

~ Jeffrey Jones

There is a lot of interest in the arts, music, theatre, filmmaking, engineering, architecture and software design. I think we have now transitioned the modern-day version of the entrepreneur into the creative economy.

~ John Baldacci

I started in theatre. I was at Cleveland and I went to London for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth.

~ James Cromwell

As far as I'm concerned, Cate Blanchett is a goddess, but she's really down to earth. She's got all those Oscars, she's made all those amazing films and she could spend her whole life doing that, but what does she also do? She gives birth to three boys and creates her own theatre in Sydney.

~ Sylvester Mccoy

There are ways in which you can make sure that even if people come to the theatre because they know an actor or actress, by the end, they've forgotten that, and they leave going, 'Wow - what an amazing play.'

~ Kevin Spacey

In the theatre you can change things ever so slightly; it's an organic thing. Whereas in film you only have that chance on the day, and you have no control over it at all.

~ Judi Dench

The deaf community is in a favorable position because they have a national theatre and training groups of their own to get them started. Deaf actors have often acquired very valuable skills and experience before they get their break.

~ Richard Masur

I'm really passionate about pantomime because it is often the first introduction for a child to theatre, and if that child has a great experience at a pantomime they will continue to come year after year.

~ John Barrowman

I used to be one of the lead actors of a theatre group called Hetu when I was in medical school. Prithvi Theatre was our stomping ground. I'd got many positive reviews.

~ Vikram Patel

The word theatre comes from the Greeks. It means the seeing place. It is the place people come to see the truth about life and the social situation.

~ Stella Adler

The theatre was created to tell people the truth about life and the social situation.

~ Stella Adler

All I'm saying is that there are many different kinds of political theatre and many plays I greatly admire: 'Antigone,' 'Mother Courage,' 'All My Sons.' But, if I tackle a political theme, I have to do it in my own way.

~ Harold Pinter

I never imagined I'd go into acting, but I always loved drama, and when I was 16, I discovered the Library Theatre up the road. So I plucked up courage and asked if I could watch rehearsals. It was like Heaven.

~ Lesley Nicol

Great theatre is about challenging how we think and encouraging us to fantasize about a world we aspire to.

~ Willem Dafoe

By the time I was seven, I did a sonnet at Shakespeare's Globe theatre for Shakespeare's birthday because my dad had been at the first season of the Globe and was friends with the artistic director. Somehow, that lead to me doing a sonnet!

~ Alfred Enoch

A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission and the babysitter were worth it.

~ Alfred Hitchcock

Make them laugh, make them cry, and hack to laughter. What do people go to the theatre for? An emotional exercise. I am a servant of the people. I have never forgotten that.

~ Mary Pickford

I guess I've been extremely keen on theatre, on getting on to the stage, taking on different roles, enacting vocations, personalities, people, situations, and I guess that's the interest that has driven me to work in movies.

~ Amitabh Bachchan