I’m going to say something rather unpopular. I don’t think any play should be presented, gone into rehearsal, procuded until it is ready to be seen. I think too many workshopped and tried out—before they’re ready.
—Edward Albee
If God had a dramaturg, would we have an armadillo? Or a horseshoe crab? There is something funny-looking that comes out of the subconscious. And if you neaten it up, you know, it’s lost.
—Timothy Mason
I have a very vague, a very abstract sense. It feels specific, but really, if I were to put it into words, what I’m seeing, it would be blue, do you know what I mean? I think it should be blue. And then, when you have a director who’s keyed in and designers who are keyed in, suddenly you see what you meant by blue. But it’s broken down into thousands of minor gestures.
—Richard Greenberg
I’ve been in situations with a director that takes the show down a certain path, and it’s a while before I realize what has been done and what’s gone wrong here. And that’s very scary. But I find that’s a hazard of the game in a way. How could you be totally open and not be vulnerable to sideswipes?
—John Pielmeier
It somewhat irritates me when you become a good writer, and you get to know writing, to see a play that has just been trashed. And you know the play is good. It was a lazy director. It was a bad direcotr. And that is an anger that is a deep-seated anger. You just say, Oh, tell her to put the damn cup down and let’s hear the lines. These are beautiful lines.
—Douglas Carter Beane
I have worked with directors who could explain the play perfectly. Then, they got onstage and they didn’t know what they were doing.
—Arthur Kopit
You have to center yourself deep inside the body of the character, so the words can rise out of that.
—Theresa Rebeck
We, as writers, talk so much about the empty page and that challenge. But for me, the challenge is that voice in my head that just makes me crazy until I finally write it down.
—Harvey Fierstein
For me, fear has to do with facing the blank page—not knowing what I am going to write about.
—Nilo Cruz
I’d been a poet for many years and nobody cared. And I wrote a play, and everybody got together and built scenery and learned their lines and put on costumes. And I said, Well, this is significantly better.
—John Patrick Shanley
