Performing on Broadway is an honor and a challenge for any artist.
It's a very tough time for the playwright. Broadway has become almost a musical comedy theme park with all these long-running shows.
Both my parents have done considerable work in theatre and I have grown up with that culture, but I still felt that I needed formal training.
I appreciate good criticism and I think it's really important. I don't like it when it's consumer advocacy, like how you should spend your $60. Great criticism is a kind of literature. I've written some criticism, and I really enjoy it because I think it's important for people to know that theatre is vital. Criticism is really unevenly distributed in this town. Obviously the power of the Times is discouraging. It's killing new plays, demolishing one after another.
I owe a great deal to Harold Hobson, doyen drama critic of the 'U.K. Sunday Times,' who championed me as Shakespeare's Richard II at the 1969 Edinburgh Festival.
Shakespeare put no children in his plays for a reason," Sir Godfrey muttered, glaring at Alf and Binnie. "You're forgetting the Little Prince," Polly reminded him. "Who he had the good sense to kill off in the second act," snapped Sir Godfrey.
Ah, 'Kismet,' or Carry On Camel, as we called it. I thought the show was shocking. It was the worst designed production ever but it's got a fantastic score. It's not an awfully good book though. You really have to work hard to eke out any laughs from that script.
I'm allergic to the word 'important' in film and theatre. Cancer research is important.
Drama criticism ... is a self-knowing account of the way in which one's consciousness has been modified during an evening at the theatre.
'Dancin' was exceptionally significant. I was in an original Broadway show and nominated for a Tony.
It seems to me that the surest way to remove from the stage really undesirable plays, is for the public to refuse to go to see them. Censorship by law has always seemed to me too difficult and complicated where art of any kind is concerned.
I had studied at the NYU School of the Arts under Lloyd Richards, who also worked with the Negro Ensemble Company.
Theatre outings are my favourite thing to spend money on. The most influential play I saw was 'Bent,' which starred Ian McKellen. And I loved the original performance of 'The Rocky Horror Show,' with Richard O'Brien and Tim Curry at the Royal Court, when I was about 15.
I think, by and large, the level of acting is mediocre. When I go to the theatre, I get so angry. I don't go.
There aren't that many great female roles in Shakespeare - none that I'd be desperate to play.
I write the occasional entry for the 'Times' Theatre blog, especially when I'm in London and seeing two shows a day, but I don't tweet. I don't want to have to express my opinion in 140 characters. That's like writing haiku. You need a certain amount of legroom to review a play properly.
I've always been inspired by Patti LuPone.
I would hate to think of the theatre world without critics. Without them, we'd not have the record of each season.
There are many actors who'll make their living in other areas, and they'll say they don't like theatre. What they're saying is that they're afraid of theatre because they know it will separate those who can from those who can't.
I take the theater seriously in that I loathe it, I'm bored by it.
Like most playwrights, I hate talkbacks with a passion that can burn a hole through hell.
Theatre can be so patronising. So often, it's just proselytising for the theatre.
Theatre director: a person engaged by the management to conceal the fact that the players cannot act.
I don't see enough theatre.
I see a ton of theatre whenever I'm not working to stay inspired. I love feeling like I'm a part of the theatre community and following the work of actors and writers I admire. I'm a big reader, too.
