(21 quotes found)
“A playwright . . . is . . . the litmus paper of the arts. He's got to be, because if he isn't working on the same wave length as the audience, no one would know what in hell he was talking about. He is a kind of psychic journalist, even when he's gre”
Arthur Miller
“All playwrights should be dead for three hundred years.”
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
“I'm a playwright and a novelist and a journalist. It's a weird Salinger-Mailer-Miller combination. When the series starts, he--like a lot of liberal New Yorkers--are starting to realize something is very wrong in the gay community. My investigation into what becomes called AIDS is going to be a big part of the show.”
Bill Pullman
“[Though Wilson was the most notable playwright of his generation, he doesn't seem to have influenced younger writers. He doesn't have obvious imitators.] It would almost amount to arrogance to try to imitate him, ... His writing is so personal, with its musical rhythms.”
Daniel Sullivan
“[Some playwrights are obvious influences on younger writers. Arthur Miller (realistic, politically engaged dramas) and Christopher Durang (satirical dark comedies) are examples.] But August stands apart, ... He has his special way of seeing things. I remember he and I were at one of those fancy benefits the Rep has. The gay men's chorus was singing, and I was very proud to have brought them into a Rep event. And August says, 'You know, I don't see any black people up there.' That was his focus: the lives of black people.”
“I think there are perhaps four playwrights of the 20th century that we could not have done without: Chekhov, Pirandello, Brecht and Beckett. If you've got those four, you've got the century covered.”
Edward Albee
“When ghosts begin resolving realistic plays, you can be sure the playwright has failed to master his material, ... The Piano Lesson.”
Robert Brustein
“It's really important that those two [Shakespeare and contemporary playwrights] are both under the same umbrella, ... By putting Shakespeare there, you are holding him up as a model of how big a playwright's ambitions can be.”
Oskar Eustis
“We talked to her about moving some of the monologues around. It's really nice to have contact with the playwright, it's a really rare experience. It's been fun talking with her.”
Jen Waters
“He's one of the most important American playwrights ever,”
Rocco Landesman
