Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Quote”
Playwright John Logan, author of the Tony Award-winning RED, wrote: Allow me share the single best piece of advice I ever got about being a writer, courtesy of my friend Scott Berg, the great biographer: “Keep your head down and do your work.” Meaning, do not be distracted by anything but your writing. Don’t worry about reviews, press, your career …
In this writing provocation, director and 2017 Bruntwood Prize jury member Lyndsey Turner asks the writer to consider the unconscious. For all the different ways a writer might approach embarking upon a play, and for all the research and planning they might undertake in order to map out their world before they begin, there will always be writers who write …
I love this advice from Goat Island Performance Group, in its “Advice to a Young Practitioner.” I’m far from young, but it resonates. “Make small plans. Temper your big dreams. Dream the smallest thing you can think of and try to perfect that. It’s good to have one tiny perfect thing in your history. This is not a small challenge. …
Tabitha Mortiboy is a UK playwright whose works include Beacons (nominated for three Off West Ends Awards including Best New Play and Most Promising Playwright), Billy Through the Window (shortlisted for the Brighton Fringe Excellence Award) and The Amber Trap, which played at Theatre503 in London. Tabitha says, “In many ways, the power of theatre is even more potent in …
“The writer has two kinds of faith: actual writing and sitting openly. Have faith in your personal effort or sweat. And faith in God, or whatever you want to call it. Then the voices will come. Faith is the big deal.” ― Suzan-Lori Parks, playwright, Pulitzer Prize winner
“I believe that in a great city, or even in a small city or a village, a great theatre is the outward and visible sign of an inward and probable culture.” – Laurence Olivier (photo of Lord Olivier and his Siamese cat. At one point, Vivien Leigh and Olivier had 16 cats.)
I subscribe to a weekly newsletter by James Clear, author of Atomic Habits. I enjoy the contents and find them valuable. This edition, he gives instructions on how to be miserable: How to Be Unhappy: -stay inside all day-move as little as possible-spend more than you earn-take yourself (and life) too seriously-look for reasons why things won’t work-always consume, never …
Winter Miller is a playwright, writer, activist, and Dramatists Guild Representative for New York City. Her plays include No One is Forgotten and In Darfur. I really like her advice regarding an important aspect of playwriting: “It’s important to breathe as you write. When you hold your breath, you hold back your feelings. Think about it—when you’re terrified, you hold …
According to Lauren Elkin, author of Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London, walking is a celebration, a creative instrument, an insurrection, a liberation, and a means toward the ends of empowerment and creativity. She writes: “Why do I walk? I walk because I like it. I like the rhythm of it, my shadow …
Sir Tom Stoppard is another of my favorite (or should I spell it “favourite?”) playwrights. I adore his wordplay, his puns, his theatricality. In a 1999 interview, Sir Tom summarised: “I think theater ought to be theatrical … you know, shuffling the pack in different ways so that it’s — there’s always some kind of ambush involved in the experience. …