Crafts Quotes - Page 28

• . . . as far as the regime is concerned, well, the play is sheer terror for them. Because they feel, How dare - how dare anybody lift his or her voice in criticism against us? We have the guns. Their level of paranoia and power-drunkenness is unbelievable.

  Wole Soyinka

  Gun, Play, Voice

  24 Copy quote

• One of the things about what . . . I do - writing plays - is that a poll is not taken before you say, Well, I'm going to write this because I think that you're going to like this and therefore you'll buy a ticket for this.

  Wendy Wasserstein

  Taken, Writing, Thinking

  7 Copy quote

• The first several scenes are about sexual addiction. They're not specifically political at all... I didn't sit down and think, ''I am going to write something about the religious right.'' I started out by writing something about sexual addiction, and it evolved... I don't look at a calendar and say: ''Oh! There's going to be an election in 1996. I think now, in 1993, I'll start writing a play that'll be ready for it.''

  Christopher Durang

  Religious, Writing, Thinking

  "Of Plays About Politics And Politicians at Play". Interview with Wendy Wasserstein, www.nytimes.com. October 6, 1996.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• [Henry] James is much more complex than Jane Austen. That's why it's not so easy to adapt him. People expect a nice period piece, but that's not always the case. There's a deep human mystery in his work.

  Agnieszka Holland

  Nice, People, Pieces

  5 Copy quote

• [Using humor to explore serious issues] disarms people. It's a way in. It's gentle, but at the same time it's subversive, and I like that duality.

  Lisa Loomer

  Issues, People, Way

  5 Copy quote

• I now know that to do a worthwhile family history I must interpret the past without falling into either demonizing or unquestioning acceptance. . . . As a playwright, what I object to right now is any form of fundamentalism, whether it's nationalistic, religious or ethnic. . . . I think it is ridiculous - and fundamentalist, by the way - to say that I am not changed by the culture around me.

  David Henry Hwang

  Religious, Fall, Acceptance

  4 Copy quote

• The most important playwright's gift is to hit your time and speak to your time.

  David Hare

  Important, Speak, Playwright

  9 Copy quote

• On their own, each [character] is a victim of no importance. But when you bring them together, they become a dangerous weapon. Jeanne is the vowel and Sophie the consonant. Psychologists know this phenomenon well. Each individual is harmless, but together they create an explosive chemical reaction. It's like Bonnie and Clyde, like Thelma and Louise.

  Claude Chabrol

  Character, Together, Sophie

  4 Copy quote

• I was not interested in doing the plot of Oedipus in blackface. I did wonder, what would these people have been like if they hadn't been in that situation?... One could look at Oedipus, or at my character Augustus, as a cynical schemer who did everything because he was hungry for power. But that's just too easy. I'm more interested in how humans can embody conflicting goals and emotions.

  Rita Dove

  Character, Oedipus, People

  "The darker face of the earth". American Theatre, November 1, 1996.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• At best, the relationship between drama critic and playwright is a pretty twiggy affair. When I'm asked whom I write for, after the obligatory, I write only for myself, I realize that I have an imaginary circle of peers - writers and respected or savvy theatre folk, some dramatic writers and some not, some living, some long gone. . . . Often a writer is aware as he works that a certain critic is going to hate this one. . . . You don't let what a critic might say worry you or alter your work; it might even add a spark to the gleeful process of creation.

  Lanford Wilson

  Hate, Drama, Writing

  "The Critic On My Shoulder" by Lanford Wilson, www.nytimes.com. December 29, 1996.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I thought if I can do something more playful and light like my play BEYOND THERAPY, it might be a money maker. I think one of the reasons BEYOND THERAPY has legs - it's been very successful for me around the country - is because it's a friendly play, rather sunny.

  Christopher Durang

  Country, Successful, Thinking

  7 Copy quote

• I'm back in fashion again for a while now. But I imagine that three or four years from now I'll be out again. And in another fifteen years I'll be back. If you try to write to stay in fashion, if you try to write to be the critics' darling, you become an employee.

  Edward Albee

  Fashion, Writing, Years

  4 Copy quote

• And how deeply do I let business considerations affect [screenwriting] choices that might otherwise be more or less esthetic? . . . Do I choose the upbeat rather than the downer ending because I know it will score better at the preview? Can the idea be sold in a single sentence? Can it compete with space aliens and tornadoes and missions impossible?

  Edward Zwick

  Ideas, Space, Choices

  4 Copy quote

• The fear of a work becoming dated is one of the most effective tools for keeping people from writing political work.

  Tony Kushner

  Writing, People, Political

  5 Copy quote

• I am not a historian. I happen to think that the content of my mother's life - her myths, her superstitions, her prayers, the contents of her pantry, the smell of her kitchen, the song that escaped from her sometimes parched lips, her thoughtful repose and pregnant laughter - are all worthy of art.

  August Wilson

  Mother, Song, Art

  August Wilson (1997). “Seven Guitars”, p.10, Penguin

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• If this were a [Hollywood] studio film, I wouldn't have pushed my father into a table, I would have beat him up. My father wouldn't have kissed my girlfriend; he would have raped her.

  Noah Wyle

  Girlfriend, Father, Hollywood

  9 Copy quote

• What was once a cottage industry dedicated to the discovery and development of new voices and works has become instead the raison d'etre for many a playwright's existence . . .. And since readings have become playwrights' main source of exposure, the nature of playwriting has changed to fit readings' needs. Investigation into what is eminently theatrical has been substituted - more and more these days - by what can simply come across and read well.

  Caridad Svich

  Reading, Discovery, Voice

  4 Copy quote

• Work with good directors. Without them your play is doomed. At the time of my first play, I thought a good director was someone who liked my play. I was rudely awakened from that fantasy when he directed it as if he loathed it. . . . Work with good actors. A good actor hears the way you (and no one else) write. A good actor makes rewrites easy. A good actor tells you things about your play you didn't know.

  Terrence McNally

  Writing, Play, Way

  6 Copy quote

• Lots of my friends and family belong to churches, and some of them are part of the so-called Christian Right. In this preacher, I wanted to show a good man struggling to reconcile his commitment to the community with the political agenda of his church. He does not see that as a dilemma, but I do.

  Lanford Wilson

  Christian, Struggle, Commitment

  8 Copy quote

• I'm giving up acting. . . . I'm 66 and there are a number of celebrations I've got to get down on paper, and acting doesn't allow me to do that. It was a hell of a drug, performance. It's a great thrill, especially for a storyteller. But it can go. Directing can go. Writing can't go. And in terms of what lies ahead, I want to have a burning focus - almost like smoke coming up from the paper as I write.

  Athol Fugard

  Giving Up, Lying, Writing

  12 Copy quote

• Some can just knock it out and some have to lock themselves in a room and get to a fever pitch of self-loathing before they turn in a first draft. . . . each writer's process is screwed up in its own way.

  Warren Leight

  Self, Locks, Fever

  6 Copy quote

• This is about the daily ins and outs of a marriage. I don't want to give away the ending, but they are trying either to make the marriage work or make the separation work. Our job is to make that interesting.

  Rob Reiner

  Jobs, Giving, Interesting

  4 Copy quote

• I went in right up front and said, This can't be about some guy in bandages. I didn't even want to do a horror movie. I took the concept and made a romantic adventure film. I like action heroes who don't take themselves too seriously. I wanted to make everyone take the mummy seriously, but it couldn't just be a guy in bandages. But the main thing was to build in surprises. That's one of the great things you can do with special effects.

  Stephen Sommers

  Hero, Adventure, Guy

  8 Copy quote

• People think I write fantasy, but I don't; some things may be exaggerated or distorted in the same way that painters distort and alter things, but they're realistic figures. They're perfectly recognisable.

  Joe Orton

  Writing, Thinking, People

  "The Complete Plays".

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• I work sometimes from outlines, which are immediately abandoned. Sometimes, when I'm trying to find the characters, I'll sketch things out a bit. Sometimes, outlines help me aim a little bit, but I tend to find it's usually much more interesting, especially with the first draft, to spew it onto the page. I used to get very nervous that, if I write this first rough draft and I die that night, whoever finds it might think that I thought it was good. For me, it's much more important to get some general shape onto the page and later take all the time I need to refine it, fix it, and rewrite it.

  Paul Rudnick

  Character, Writing, Night

  6 Copy quote