The primary function of a theater is not to please itself, or even to please its audience. It is to read more

The primary function of a theater is not to please itself, or even to please its audience. It is to serve talent.

You can throw away the privilege of acting, but that would be such a shame. The tribe has elected you read more

You can throw away the privilege of acting, but that would be such a shame. The tribe has elected you to tell its story. You are the shaman/healer, that's what the storyteller is, and I think it's important for actors to appreciate that. Too often actors think it's all about them, when in reality it's all about the audience being able to recognize themselves in you. The more you pull away from the public, the less power you have on screen.

For my part, I confess I seldom listen to the players: one has so much to do, in looking about read more

For my part, I confess I seldom listen to the players: one has so much to do, in looking about and finding out one's acquaintance, that, really, one has no time to mind the stage. One merely comes to meet one's friends, and show that one's alive.

Theatergoing is a communal act, movie going a solitary one.

Theatergoing is a communal act, movie going a solitary one.

I submit all my plays to the National Theatre for rejection. To assure myself I am seeing clearly.

I submit all my plays to the National Theatre for rejection. To assure myself I am seeing clearly.

We need a type of theatre which not only releases the feelings, insights and impulses possible within the particular historical read more

We need a type of theatre which not only releases the feelings, insights and impulses possible within the particular historical field of human relations in which the action takes place, but employs and encourages those thoughts and feelings which help transform the field itself.

The theater needs continual reminders that there is nothing more debasing than the work of those who do well what read more

The theater needs continual reminders that there is nothing more debasing than the work of those who do well what is not worth doing at all.

All of the arts, poetry, music, ritual, the visible arts, the theater, must singly and together create the most comprehensive read more

All of the arts, poetry, music, ritual, the visible arts, the theater, must singly and together create the most comprehensive art of all, a humanized society, and its masterpiece, free man

The virtue of dress rehearsals is that they are a free show for a select group of artists and friends read more

The virtue of dress rehearsals is that they are a free show for a select group of artists and friends of the author, and where for one unique evening the audience is almost expurgated of idiots.