Top 33 Live Theater Quotes

Live theater is an amorphous art, constantly shifting and evolving with every performance.

What I love about doing live theater and the same material night after night is… you can live inside the same words. There comes a great joy in that, in making it so clear because you’ve had the time to define it.

I have a company in the U.K., a performance-capture studio. We’re looking to push the boundaries of performance-capture technology in film and video games, but also in live theater, using real-time performance capture with actors onstage, and combining that with holographic imagery.

Live theater is just an incredibly powerful medium, and I think anyone who goes, whether they know about it or not, if they see something that sort of fits with them, it’s kind of hard to deny that they had a good time.

I love the idea of live theater the best because you are sitting there with the community in the dark, looking at the light, and that’s really – you can’t get any higher than that.

We’ve all had that moment, the first time you’re exposed to live theater, and it’s shocking in the best possible way. You see something and say to yourself, ‘I didn’t know this could exist.’

When I was around 13 or 14, there were visits to the theater, which really ignited my passion. Going to see live theater is when I properly got the bug and hoped I’d be able to do it for a living one day.

In theater, the show must go on, so you train yourself to be able to nail it every single time because that’s what the audience deserves, and that’s the magic of live theater.

Live theater is my favorite of all the mediums that I have worked in, so I have every intention on coming back to Broadway.

There are no taking days off. There are no distractions. If I had that, I physically wouldn’t be capable of going onstage and performing live theater. It’s extremely demanding. I have to be in ballet class every day.

There’s something about a live theater performance: You can’t fake it.

I want to be back on Broadway one day. That’s a dream of mine. There’s nothing like live theater, and I think it’s so important for me to be able to be on stage with an audience that responds.

From the time that I was in high school, my life really revolved around live theater, so it almost feels genetic.

I enjoy all forms of writing, but playwrighting is what made me what I am. Not only working with the ghosts of Chekhov and Ibsen and Shakespeare, but what it is to be a playwright, to be interacting with human beings in the live theater and affect people on such a direct, emotional level.

Unlike film and TV, theater is a luxury object, but one that ordinary middle-class people can still afford. Above all, it isn’t a mass medium: Live theater is a small-scale, handmade art form. Intimacy is what makes it special.

On a soap opera, you’ll do an episode and a half a day, and in prime time television, you’re hustling to get an episode done in eight days. That’s a little bit frustrating sometimes. But there’s also something exhilarating about it. It’s kind of like live theater in a way, where you get one crack at it.

So I’ve done my fair share of theater. I have also been very fortunate in that I’ve been able to come to New York two or three times a year just to see as many shows as possible. I think the live theater culture here is incredible.

I’ve never been bored in live theater.

Playing in front of an audience was just such a turn-on for me, and you have 200 people in the audience and it’s like doing live theater. And filming something that goes to millions of people several weeks later, it’s an interesting dynamic.

The energy of live theater is indescribable. You are just in the moment for an hour and a half.

I like roles that are on the extreme ends of the spectrum, and there’s special appeal in exploring these slightly forgotten plays that people might think of as subjects for academic term papers instead of live theater.

I want to do stage again, because there just aren’t words for how great it is. People say that all the time, ‘There’s nothing like live theater, blah blah,’ but it’s really true. I see a show and I know how they feel, and it feels great.

I went into performing for the community. Being backstage with your company of fellows is the best part of working in live theater. That energy, that combined focus, the synergy – it’s addictive.

We didn’t have a lot of live theater in Oklahoma. I didn’t visit New York when I was growing up. I watched movie musicals, and I believed in an idealistic, idyllic version of Broadway.

Live theater makes me nervous. I feel like I have to fake emotions, because the actors can see me.

Unlike film, live theater is an anti-naturalistic medium in which character is mainly illuminated through speech and movement.

There’s nothing like the buzz of live theater. You put it out there and receive an instant reaction: laughing, crying, yelling, applauding.

For my part, I like live theater best when it’s taut, concentrated and intimate.

Theater in Chicago will always be my first love. It started careers for me and about 50 of my friends. We all love coming back. As soon as the TV show is over, I’ll be back in Chicago, doing live theater.

As a student studying acting, I was always broke, so going to see any live theater was almost impossible.

There’s a romance and power to live theater.

I went to a theater arts school, so I’m interested in many different projects, whether it be film, television or even live theater. I’m a performer. That’s what I do. That’s what I want to do.

I love live theater. I get my rocks off by doing stand-up, and I am the only actor. But to show up eight times a week and not have that time for myself; to do someone else’s lines? When I work for Wendy Wasserstein or Terrence McNally, Neil Simon or even Shakespeare, I do not have the right to change the lines.