For seven years I did very little theatre, and I have to make up some time.
There was no real fringe theatre in London until way after the war, so either a play was done secretly with a club licence or it was done openly and had to be assessed along with everything else.
Films take up so much time, and with theatre, you do have to plan a period of time that you can be free.
But men must know, that in this theatre of man’s life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.
I did commercials and voice-overs as a kid, and it just lead to musical theatre opportunities.
It was in New York, and I’ve always wanted to film in New York. And the writer was a teenage friend of mine. We did youth theatre together when we were 16 and always had a dream of making a film together. And ten years later, we’ve done it. So it’s great.
Through school, I saw plenty of theatre my parents weren’t necessarily up on. They would prefer a football game to watching ‘The Nutcracker,’ and that’s fine. I enjoy both.
This is a group effort. This is group theatre. This is no big star turn. You could do things with it to do that but it would just be out of kilter. This is one reason I like this play. This is a unit.
To maintain one’s individuality, integrity, and true personality in the theatre is a big task.
I’d like to do some more classical work if I do some more theatre.
I think I’m always running away from somewhere, and to me, theatre’s always felt like a good place to run away to.
Before I worked on film, I studied the theatre, and I expected that I would spend my whole career in theatre. Gradually, I started writing for the cinema. However, I feel grateful towards the theatre. I love working with spectators, and I love this experience with the theatre, and I like theatre culture.
I was so scared of going back to the theatre after ‘Hamlet.’ I didn’t know if I’d do a play again because I was afraid of the power of it.
I think in the old days, everybody used to act really quickly because Hollywood was built by theatre people.
A good drama critic is one who perceives what is happening in the theatre of his time. A great drama critic also perceives what is not happening.
As much as the mystery element is all a lot of fun, when you do go to ‘Edwin Drood,’ you’re going to a theatre to see a show about going to a theatre and what that relationship between actors and audiences has been for years.
The first time I came to London on my own, I was 15. I was absolutely oblivious to so many things. I had no expectations, no fears. I just came to do a National Youth Theatre season one summer. It was just brilliant.
I seldom feel comfortable in a theatre. I always feel like I own a cinema. I feel equally happy in an empty one as a full one. Probably happier in an empty one!
I like simple things. I like to sneak in the theatre and watch movies. I’m a movie buff.
If you’re sixty-something, pushing 70, the chances of you getting a tremendously fascinating part in the movies are very low, as to be almost negligible, or even in television. But in the theatre, there are still things to do, very interesting, very profound things.
Theatre is immediate, it’s alive, you’re there with the audience, it can’t be done again and again and again and again, it’s organic.
I did loads of student films and fringe theatre. I worked for free a lot.
My approach to ‘Eastenders’ is the same as my approach to film and the same approach to theatre. Whatever I do, I use the same skills and tools.
From there, I tried out for a community theatre play, joined an improv group… it all started opening up.
Inside I never said I wanted to do theatre or be an actor.
I’ve always found it not only easy, but enjoyable. It’s necessary for us to reach out and I’m speaking for myself here. I certainly have a sense of responsibility to reach out to these people in the theatre who might look to someone like me for some guidance.
I was very lucky. I left college, and Richard Eyre was in charge of the National Theatre. I was offered the lead in ‘The Seagull’ with no experience and went on to do five plays there.
At the turn of the century theatre does not have to be prescriptive.
My college training was primarily in theatre, with an eye to becoming a director, actor, or producer.
People always make that mistake when they talk about theatre – the notion of the ‘theatrical’ meaning something separate from life. If it doesn’t relate to life, it doesn’t relate to anything.
The 10 years of theatre prepared me not only as an actor but also as a human being. It gave me the habit of reading, watching, and preserving.
This film business, perhaps more so in America than in Europe, has always been about young sexuality. It’s not true of theatre, but in America, film audiences are young. It’s not an intellectual cinema in America.
Edinburgh is my favourite city. We’ll be doing a lot of children’s theatre and galleries.
I had to leave school at 14 because my father got injured in the mines and I had to support my family. I was an undertaker’s assistant, then a plasterer, before doing my military service in the RAF. All the while, I was doing amateur dramatics and dreaming of getting a scholarship to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
I wrote my first play when I was nine. It was performed at Hampstead Theatre.
When I was at drama school I wanted to do classical theatre. It just so happened that I did a film when I came out and I moved that way.
The first rule of good theatre is ‘Show, don’t tell.’ It applies to good political action as well.
I had great faith in Irish actors, that they’d be hip to the whole theatre thing, and they are. I had no illusions of coming over here as some kind of big shot. It’s been a learning experience for me too.
I like the detail work of telling a story in small pieces, as is done in movie-making, and also the long leap of faith needed to see a theatre performance through each night. Both require focus and self-discipline.
All of my scripts are based on other people’s novels. Generally, I consider myself as one who writes for theatre. I do not see film work as a continuation of writing for theatre. It is more of an interruption of the writing process.
It’s quite rare for a group of people to come together for a live event that isn’t loud music. A live event that enables thinking to take place, to take place collectively. It’s unique to theatre. It’s a quality I never want to see diminished.
After my schooling in Meerut, I was sent to Allahabad for further studies to become an IAS officer. It was there that I got the freedom to do whatever I wanted to, and it was in Allahabad that I first did theatre.
I don’t even think places like the National Youth Theatre (NYT) are necessarily about wanting to be an actor when you grow up. They’re about meeting people from different backgrounds and different religions and different cultures, and mixing with people that you wouldn’t ordinarily meet.
I grew up overseas in Indonesia, and my school had a great art, music, and theatre program.
I love the theatre and theatre people.
My parents started with very little and were the only ones in their families to graduate from college. As parents, they focused on education, but did not stop at academics – they made sure that we knew music, saw art and theatre and traveled – even though it meant budgeting like crazy.
Theatre can’t be done again and again and again and again – it’s organic.
When you combine the men and women deployed from our military installations with activated reservists and members of the National Guard, Georgia is contributing more personnel to the theatre than any other State in our Union.
Whether you are a star kid or not, it all depends on the actor and how he/she can get the audience to the theatre.
Because I like theatre and I love a challenge. With ‘ZEBRA!’ I’ve found a new Australian play where I can create a character first – that’s what I live to do.
Theatre is live content, and you can tell if you have worked your audience.
But, you see, the theatre is not always art in America.
Apparently, my mother still thought I had too much energy so she signed me up for a local theatre group, marking the beginning of my career.
I was never the class clown or anything like that. When I was growing up and doing theatre in Seattle I was always doing very dramatic work. Now I can’t get a dramatic role to save my life!
The point of theatre is transformation: to make an extraordinary event out of ordinary material right in front of an audience’s eyes. Where the germ of the idea came from is pretty much irrelevant. What matters to every theatre maker I know is speaking clearly to the audience ‘right now.’
I’ve made a point of trying not to play the same part, and of moving between theatre and film and TV. The idea is that by the time you come back, you have been away for a year and people have forgotten you. If you like having time off, which I do, that’s a good career strategy.
My father is a visual artist, so I was influenced by him, and my mother is an English teacher who forced me to read a lot of books and poetry and get involved in theatre. I developed a varied taste for different arts.
Well the least favourite question is the one that one’s asked particularly about in Japan is what’s the difference between theatre and cinema and I think, well, that’s about eighty bucks.
