Playwright Quotes

“The truth is not simply what you think it is; it is also the circumstances in which it is said, and to whom, why, and how it is said.”
― Vaclav Havel

“Actors are all about entrances, but writers are all about exits.”
― Vincent H. O'Neil, Death Troupe

“That's what I love most about writers--they're such lousy actors.”
― Vincent H. O'Neil, Death Troupe

“Ethereal or promiscuous, she is stigmatized by the awesome drive behind her desire, the restlessness of her soul on earth, the mercilessness of her passion, [...] Her desire is grandiose and amoral, beyond the timidity she practices and the conscious morality she knows. She is stigmatized by her capacity for passion, not unlike artistic genius, the great wildness of a soul forever discontent with existing forms and their meanings; but she, unlike the artist, has no adequate means of expression.”
― Andrea Dworkin, Intercourse

“Don Juan: I feel like God is punishing me and I don't know what for.

Nurse 2: God's not punishing you. Life is Hell for all of us. You're not special.”
― Duncan MacMillan, Don Juan Comes Back from the War

“The words of his various writing instructors and professional mentors over the years came back to him at times like these, and he found a new understanding in their advice: Writing is rewriting. The rough draft is just that. You can’t polish what you haven’t written.

Things that made for a normal life—like a daily routine that followed the sun—took a back seat to times like these, and he exulted in that change because it served as proof that his writing was indeed the most important thing in his life. It wasn’t a conscious choice on his part, like deciding to repaint the bathroom or go buy the groceries, but an overarching reallocation of his existence that was as undeniable as breathing. Day turned into night, breakfast turned into dinner, and the laptop or the writing tablet beckoned even when he was asleep.

He would often awake with a new idea—as if he’d merely been on a break and not unconscious—and he would see the empty seat before the desk not as his station in some pointless assembly line, but as the pilot’s seat in a ship that could go anywhere.”
― Vincent H. O'Neil, Death Troupe

“Sometimes the world feels so heavy that I crave the limelight - where the curtain rises, and the darkness becomes art.”
― Laura Chouette

“You either surrender voluntarily to Shakespeare's genius or delay the inevitable collision with that cultural colossus later.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Ryanna Raines: And why did you choose "Desire Under the Elms?"

Jordan De Carlo: It's ferocious. A full-throttle rage machine. Rage over land, over family, over sexual lust.”
― L.R. Dorn, With a Kiss We Die

“But this is ruin! New waves breaking in
To wreck us, ere we are righted from the old!”
― Euripides, Medea

“I was catching a plane. A psychic predicted that I would not get on this flight but that y lover would. The plane would crash and he would be killed. I didn't know what to do. If I missed the flight I would be fulfilling the prophecy so risking my lover's death. But in order to break the prophecy I would have to get on a plane which seemed destined to crash”
― Sarah Kane, Crave

“I was catching a plane. A psychic predicted that I would not get on this flight but that my lover would. The plane would crash and he would be killed. I didn't know what to do. If I missed the flight I would be fulfilling the prophecy so risking my lover's death. But in order to break the prophecy I would have to get on a plane which seemed destined to crash”
― Sarah Kane, Crave

“The self-hatred that destroys is the waste of unfulfilled promise.”
― Moss Hart

“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

“The greatest redemption is between the war of two evils, their very retaliation reveals their goodly nature.”
― Michael Lieber, The War Hero

“With Death Troupe, we come as close to the never-ending rehearsal as we can without going full improv. Your characters can’t become set because the culprit is different in every version of the play. Your lines can’t become rote recitation because the execution of those lines has to leave you ready to believably shift your character in any number of different directions.

And even if we reach the point where every one of you could perform every variant of the play perfectly in your sleep, there’s an audience just feet away, working against you, trying to figure you out, trying to catch you in a slip JUST ONCE.”
― Vincent H. O'Neil, Death Troupe

“So here it is: A month of heartbreaking, gut-wrenching work that, if we do it right, leads to no definite conclusion. Eighteen-hour days and eighteen-hour nights. For you new members, this will feel like some kind of endurance race.

We’ve got one month to break down this awful script, rebuild it, learn every one of its variations, and then rehearse the result until you can do it in your sleep.

But even then we won’t be finished, because there’s a hostile crowd out there just dying to be the first ones to solve the mystery—which we will not let them do.

Let’s get to work.”
― Vincent H. O'Neil, Death Troupe

“Write this play like a composer. I’ve always said that the best members of this troupe came from musicals, and I stand by that. To do what we do, you gotta be able to hear the music—even when it isn’t there.”
― Vincent H. O'Neil, Death Troupe

“Shakespeare's strengths and there are many include his unique ability to vastly improve pre-existing plots and turn them profoundly dark and tragic or lightly comedic and romantic at will. There is also The Bard's lyrical, complex dialogue encoded with hidden meaning that works both in context and out, his towering, unforgettable characterisations, and the variety and depth of his female characters.”
― Stewart Stafford

“The audience was highly pretentious and somewhat vain at gazing deeply into what was fundamentally shallow; so in this vein with thoughts flowing, and past that vane with minds blowing, it completely missed the point.”
― Criss Jami

“As an artist, I will rise up and make change”

“It is unacceptable that women still don’t have rights; it’s unacceptable that the poor stay poor.
Now is the time for art, for change, for beauty, and for human rights; I won’t take no for an answer.”
― Catherine Filloux

“She wanted a passion larger than what she perceived as mere physical sex, a passion less commonplace (less vulgar); and though Tennessee Williams frames her as a model of repression, [...] in fact the character he created is too immense and original for that to be true, John too small and ordinary.”
― Andrea Dworkin, Intercourse

“Scripts are not always written. They are even drawn at times to be seen and composed to be heard.”
― Niloy Roy

“I display my truth through pen and curtain” — Yvonne Padmos, The Freedom of Passion”
― Yvonnepadmos

“*“I will not speak your script anymore” — Yvonne Padmos, This Is My Life and Stage Playwright”
― Yvonnepadmos

“For 20 years, I lived the stage — Yvonne Padmos, Playwright Life Is a Stage”
― Yvonne Padmos

“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird who cannot fly.”
― Langston Hughes

“I grow more intense as I age.”
― Florida Scott-Maxwell

“The whole business of marshaling one's energies becomes more and more important as one grows older.”
― Hume Cronyn

“Το κοινό δεν το ενδιαφέρει σε ποια σχολή ανήκαν οι ηθοποιοί ή ποιες είναι οι αρχές τους· ούτε νοιάζεται για τη φυλή, το φύλο, το γένος του συγγραφέα. Το μόνο που θέλει είναι να ψυχαγωγηθεί.”
― David Mamet, Theatre