Opening Night Quotes

• Notwithstanding these setbacks, the dream of a beautiful American orchestra goes on, and I share Dr. King's faith that each year we move inexorably closer to a magnificent opening night.

  Adam Schiff

  Beautiful, Faith, Dream

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• [To actors on opening night:] You have had good equipment to work with. You've had a theater with everything you needed, and you are involved with the play; but all the way through you have been handicapped. One essential has been denied you. Tonight the audience is there; now they are sitting out front; you have everything you need.

  Hallie Flanagan

  Night, Play, Essentials

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• Opening Night: The night before the play is ready to open.

  George Jean Nathan

  Night, Play, Theatre

  George Jean Nathan (1917). “Bottoms Up: An Application of the Slapstick to Satire”

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• He [Charlie Chaplin] was always playing as if it were to the camera, if you've seen the live shots of him when he's going to an opening night or something like that. And the skills that he had were beyond my ability to throw together. You just couldn't really compete with him. He was too athletic at that.

  Eddie Izzard

  Night, Skills, Athletic

  "Eddie Izzard on Powers, playing piano at Live 8, and having fun on Hannibal". Interview with Will Harris, www.avclub.com. March 24, 2015.

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• Premiering a new opera is probably one of the hardest things in the world to do, and opening nights of any opera are always pretty stressful.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Night, World, Opera

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• Life is not a dress rehearsal - every day is opening night.

  Peter J. Daniels

  Night, Dresses, Rehearsal

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• Something that had the quality of a dimly lit stage set just before the curtains rise on opening night. There was a rhythm to it, a beckoning, and a bittersweet tear in time.

  Chris Abani

  Night, Quality, Tears

  Chris Abani (2014). “The Secret History of Las Vegas: A Novel”, p.124, Penguin

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• Theater is all about the rehearsal process. In fact, I think a lot of times opening night there's a mixed sadness because you're finished with a lot of people's favorite part of the process, which is finding the character and discovering it, and then you get to live it.

  Debra Winger

  Character, Sadness, Night

  "Why are Debra Winger and Sam Elliott doing a multi-cam sitcom for Netflix?". Interview with Alan Sepinwall, uproxx.com. March 30, 2016.

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• I work for perfection, for perfection's sake. I don't care what the external reasons are. And it's much more like a ballerina on opening night. You've done what you've got to do. When you go out, the purpose is to turn a perfect turn. You are not thinking about the future of the company, you are not thinking about your future, you're not thinking about the critics, it is you and the perfect turn.

  Story Musgrave

  Future, Science, Thinking About You

  "NASA Distinguished Service Medal". The Academy of Achievement, www.achievement.org. May 22, 1997.

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• So he was opening night... I was out of a job, and I'd been to every producer in Hollywood trying to get a job singing. But nobody wanted to know me.

  Barry McGuire

  Jobs, Night, Singing

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• Am reserving two tickets for you for my premiere. Come and bring a friend - if you have one. Telegram inviting Winston Churchill to opening night of Pygmalion. Churchill wired back: Impossible to be present for the first performance. Will attend the second - if there is one.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Friendship, Night, Pygmalion

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• I remember when I was doing The Crucible on Broadway with Laura Linney, and Arthur Miller had been in rehearsal with us and was on stage on opening night. She turned to me during the curtain call and said, Lets make sure we remember this.

  John Benjamin Hickey

  Night, Crucible, Broadway

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• [John] Cassavetes, "Killing of a Chinese Booker", "Opening Night" are my favourites.

  Nan Goldin

  Night, Chinese, Killing

  Source: foggysapphires.wordpress.com

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• Everyone's taste is different. But I think the best way to defend against regrets after opening night is to try your best to tell the story you want to tell. In terms of smaller changes over time, I think good plays are like poems. Every syllable counts.

  Stephen Karam

  Regret, Night, Thinking

  Source: www.broadwayworld.com

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• I will tell you that we're all human beings, and we all care about what people think of us. But in general, their outlook is, "We're not looking at opening night numbers. We're not looking at opening night box office. We want this to be part of the reason you come to our service."

  Mitchell Hurwitz

  Thinking, Night, Numbers

  Source: collider.com

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• But you certainly don't have perspective. And there's so much pressure going into that opening night because you know there's journalists, tons of acquisitions people, and the fate of your film in some ways, if not decided, is really affected by how it screens that night.

  James Ponsoldt

  Fate, Night, People

  Source: collider.com

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• As an actor, you're always at the service of somebody else's vision. In a play, it's more of the director's vision, and he or she's got their hands on you all the way up to opening night, and if it's a film, there are even more people.

  Jeff Daniels

  Night, Hands, Play

  Interview with Ben Evans, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 01, 2011.

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• The earliest memories I have from my childhood are of my mum getting ready to go on stage. I must have been about five and I would watch her vomiting backstage on opening night, and then the next minute she became Isabella, the Queen of Spain. At the time I remember thinking, 'What kind of schizophrenic job is this?' Now it all makes sense.

  Javier Bardem

  Jobs, Queens, Memories

  Interview with Peter Symth, www.mirror.co.uk. March 30, 2008.

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• There have been two [career highlights]. Waking up in New York to hear I'd been nominated for Best Actor for a Tony Award on Broadway, for An Ideal Husband. The other one was waking up the morning after the opening night of A Man For All Seasons and reading the reviews.

  Martin Shaw

  Morning, New York, Husband

  Source: www.mirror.co.uk

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• The only time I have a good hunch the audience is going to be there is when I make the sequel to 'Jurassic Park' or I make another Indiana Jones movie. I know I've got a good shot at getting an audience on opening night. Everything else that is striking out into new territory is a crap shoot.

  Steven Spielberg

  Night, Jurassic Park, Territory

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• I was seventeen and the star of my high school play. I was supposed to kiss my leading man, but I couldn't stand the guy. I really didn't want to kiss him. All during rehearsals, I refused to kiss him. Then my drama teacher told me, "If you don't kiss him on opening night, you'll flunk drama class. So I kissed him, and that was my first kiss.

  Donna Mills

  Teacher, Stars, Drama

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• I went to see 'Listen to My Heart: The Songs of David Friedman.' I have been a fan of his music for years, and I was invited to opening night because I know one of the producers.

  John Edward

  Song, Heart, Night

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• My junior year, I was in a play at school and five days before opening night, I still didn't know my lines. Opening night was a disaster. I was so embarrassed. The director made me work backstage for the rest of the performance.

  Katie Leclerc

  School, Night, Years

  "When I Was 17: Katie Leclerc" by Emily Laurence, www.seventeen.com. May 26, 2012.

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• The opening-night audience is mostly friends of the cast and backers of the show, and they cometo applaud their money.

  Al Hirschfeld

  Night, Casts, Shows

  1988 In the NewYork Times, 21 Jun.

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• Since I have an aversion to movies in which people say grace at the dinner table (not to the practice but to how movies use it to establish the moral strength of a household), the opening night montage of Sunday-night supper in one home after another in Waxahachie, Texas in 1935 - a whole community saying grace made me expect the worst.

  Pauline Kael

  Home, Sunday, Night

  "Mirrors". Review of "Places in the Heart" on October 15, 1984. "State of the Art". Book by Pauline Kael, p. 246, 1985.

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