There's nothing like a play. It's so immediate and every performance is different. As an actor, you have the most control over what the audience is seeing.
quote by David Schwimmer
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Related quotes
The Play
I am the only actor.
It is difficult for one woman
to act out a whole play.
The play is my life,
my solo act.
My running after the hands
and never catching up.
(The hands are out of sight -
that is, offstage.)
All I am doing onstage is running,
running to keep up,
but never making it.
Suddenly I stop running.
(This moves the plot along a bit.)
I give speeches, hundreds,
all prayers, all soliloquies.
I say absurd things like:
egss must not quarrel with stones
or, keep your broken arm inside your sleeve
or, I am standing upright
but my shadow is crooked.
And such and such.
Many boos. Many boos.
Despite that I go on to the last lines:
To be without God is to be a snake
who wants to swallow an elephant.
The curtain falls.
The audience rushes out.
It was a bad performance.
That’s because I’m the only actor
and there are few humans whose lives
will make an interesting play.
Don’t you agree?
Anonymous submission.
poem by Anne Sexton
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Claude Rains was what we call an actor's actor. He was very involved with himself and his performance.
quote by Gloria Stuart
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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As an actor you become that lighting rod between the person who made the play and the audience.
quote by Christopher Walken
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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An actor really is a kind of intermediary between an audience and the piece, whether it's a play or movie.
quote by Christopher Walken
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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A performance is only as good as the audience you are playing to. A lot of times you feed off of the audience, and we always try to give them all we've got and sometimes you don't get a lot back, but we've never been dead whenever we've performed.
quote by Kelly Jones
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Actor Of Love
Hold on
I have found something I longing for
To fill the hollowness of my heart
But why I'm feeling more of sorrow
Before
I am the one who said: 'Oh, I'll control'
But now I realize you are my world
And it's waiting to break apart
I'm an actor of love
I'm trying to perfect
But I'm just fooling around
I'm an actor of love
I want to be your hero
But I've made myself a clown
I'm an actor of love
I need you by my side
But now you leave me alone
I'm an actor of love
I beg your forgiveness
But you refuse me so cold
Sometimes
We wonder why we should be together
Do we really dream of love forever?
Or we afraid to be alone
I'm an actor of love
I want to protect you
But I always hurt you bad
I'm an actor of love
I want to be your shield
But may turn someone you hate
I'm an actor of love
We kiss in the morning
But in night we have a war
I'm an actor of love
We care for each other
But we only circle round
If this love only makes me crazy
Take the story and just let it be
Tragedy or comedy
Or anything it wants to be
poem by Maria Sudibyo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Performance art can involve the audience with taste, smell and sounds not available with electronic media and not practical with conventional theater. This is due to the usually small audience.
quote by Jack Bowman
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Theater is the most enriching and thrilling thing to do as an actor. It trumps movies and all that other stuff. People say, "You must love the instant feedback," and we're all attention whores for sure - that's why we choose this profession. But it goes beyond that: There's something magical about a shared experience in a theater, with actors and an audience. I don't know if the audience members realize just how huge a part they play in a production. How they are determines how we are, and when it all works, it's magical.
quote by Paul Rudd
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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If you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable. You must reach the emotional and intellectual level of ability where you can go out stark naked, emotionally, in front of an audience.
quote by Jack Lemmon
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Performance
We are all performers
on a daily stage,
each of us having a part
to play the best we can
from waking in the morning
to sleeping late at night.
Every performance
is watched from on high
and he sends us a message
when we get our performance wrong.
He tell us in his own way
how to mend the performance
that we gave,
then we go out and start
all over again,
only this time
to right the wrongs we made.
5 February 2008
poem by David Harris
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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All the dialogue on tape, and we'd play the tape in performance. Then I thought it'd be interesting if the actor's repeated what they heard on the tape, but at a slower speed, so we'd get a web of language.
quote by Richard Foreman
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Two Ways To Play
Somethin' crossed my mind again
You were in my eyes
It was somewhere out by Bombay
And I'm tellin' all those lies
I've been there and you've been there
And there ain't no mistake
We could take it anyway
But the one thing we can't fake
There's just two ways to play
Just two ways to play
And I don't want to stay
There's just two ways to play
And I'm gonna play it right, this time
Yeah
There's always the easy numbers
There's those hard ways too
There's those cheaters blunders
It's either one of two
But fortune telling's mezmorizing
In the game of chance
But rollin' dice ain't sympathizing
When you play romance
There's just two ways to play
Just two ways to play
And I don't want to stay
There's just two ways to play
I can't control the numbers
I can't control your sexy ways
I can't control my inner thunder
It makes me want????????
Two ways to play
There's Just two ways to play
There's just two ways to play
There's just two ways to play
I'm gonna play it right this time
There's two ways to play
There's just two ways to play
Two ways to play
There's just two ways to play
And I don't want to stay
There's just two ways to play
song performed by by ZZ Top
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Private Theatricals
A quite convincing axiom
Is, 'Life is like a play';
For, turning back its pages some
Few dog-eared years away,
I find where I
Committed my
Love-tale--with brackets where to sigh.
I feel an idle interest
To read again the page;
I enter, as a lover dressed,
At twenty years of age,
And play the part
With throbbing heart,
And all an actor's glowing art.
And she who plays my Lady-love
Excels!--Her loving glance
Has power her audience to move--
I am her audience.--
Her acting tact,
To tell the fact,
'Brings down the house' in every act.
And often we defy the curse
Of storms and thunder-showers,
To meet together and rehearse
This little play of ours--
I think, when she
'Makes love' to me,
She kisses very naturally!
. . . . . .
Yes; it's convincing--rather--
That 'Life is like a play':
I am playing 'Heavy Father'
In a 'Screaming Farce' to-day,
That so 'brings down
The house,' I frown,
And fain would 'ring the curtain down.'
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I try to get the best performance an actor can give.
quote by Taylor Hackford
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Music is a performance and needs the audience.
quote by Michael Tippett
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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An emotional performance is usually more instinctive to an actor.
quote by Alan Bates
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Inside was the second LP album of a comedian's performance before an audience.
quote by Shelley Berman
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The actor depends wholly on himself. He gives his performance in what, to him, seems the most effective manner.
quote by Bela Lugosi
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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When a performance isn't working, it's usually because the actor is trying to do something and they're not able to express their idea very well. It's a muddled expression.
quote by Casey Affleck
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Actors should be overheard, not listened to, and the audience is 50 percent of the performance.
quote by Shirley Booth
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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