Shakespeare Performance Quotes

It's incredibly moving to hear some of our greatest actors performing Shakespeare.

When I saw Paul Scofield do 'Love's Labor's Lost at Stratford,' that's when I saw the potential of the level of truth that could go on up there on a stage. I said, 'This is what I want to do.'

When I was prepping for my Broadway debut as Romeo, it really hit me that I had never done that. I had trained at drama school for three years in my late teens to early 20s, and I'd studied Shakespeare, of course, but I hadn't actually performed it. So to do something like Romeo for my first Broadway role was a challenge.

Some of the finest Shakespeare has been done recently by college theater programs. I'll tell you what these young kids have: They have a natural authority in Shakespeare. They feel a right to do it. And once they honor the humanity of it, the rhythm of the verse comes with it.

I had never done Shakespeare before, but I don't think you can be an actor and not do it. There were moments when I thought, I'm just not going to be able to pull this off.

When I was 15 years old, I saw my first production of a Shakespeare play at the British pavilion at the Century of Progress World's Fair in Chicago.

Doing Shakespeare once is not fair to the play. I have been in Shakespeare plays when it's not until the last two or three performances when I even understand certain things. In the old days star actors would travel the world doing the same parts over and over again.

I was raised with the idea that the arts were a doss - but the arts are vital. If you see Mark Rylance perform Shakespeare at the Globe, you know it's a spiritual act.

There's something about doing Shakespeare with a single gender, whether it is all-male or all-female, that opens up certain possibilities. You are able to throw the behavior of the men into a particular relief and be playful within a slightly larger-than-life way with it.

I think there's something about a sylvan setting; you want grass and nature with outdoor Shakespeare.