Quotes & Sayings About Rehearsals

Any man who undertakes to write a play is either a damned fool or a hero, I don't know which. When you write a book, you pull it out of the typewriter and that's that. When you write a play you've got to go on with the producer and the director and the actors and the rehearsals and the ... — Rex Stout

I love rehearsals and I love creating a character, sticking with it until you have something to tell. It's always different though. Sometimes a director will tell you from day one what they want. Then you throw in your idea. — Gael Garcia Bernal

That's opera! I just love it. It just thrills me! And it's very different than theatre, and sometimes it can be frustrating because when you come in the first day of rehearsals obviously you're an opera fan, right? — Jason Graae

Rehearsals and practice times by myself are like these little islands of 'Okay' in a vast sea of 'Holy Crap! — Jordan Sonnenblick

I was performing in this burlesque group, and we would go to dance rehearsals every day. You'd use every part of your body. Even though some of it is slow, it takes a lot of muscle to be able to dip down and come back up. — Carmen Electra

You can only know how confident you are when you kick-start. True confidence is not found in excessive rehearsals; it comes from experience. Plan, prepare, but will willing to make it happen! — Israelmore Ayivor

When I go into 'You're the Worst,' I'm very glammed up, and my hair and makeup is va-va-voom. Now what I'm having fun with in 'Grease' is, honestly, I go to rehearsals with zero makeup. When I get pimples, I get excited about it, like 'Yay! It helps the character!' The frumpier and uglier and grosser, the better with Jan. — Kether Donohue

Maybe in life, most of us feel inferior because we compare our dress rehearsals to [Janelle Monae's] final performance.
page 113 — Bill Konigsberg

As a kid who wasn't into sports, at school I felt almost alienated at times, whereas in the theatre community there was this amazing sense of camaraderie. Early on, we would go to rehearsals with my dad and I was like the mascot for the backstage crew. That was a big part of my childhood, so I dreamed of one day doing a play in London. — Zach Braff

Life is like playing a guitar and meditation is like music. Small session of rehearsals daily won't show much but would make you ROCK in the long run. — Vikrmn

The great myth is the manager as orchestra conductor. It's this idea of standing on a pedestal and you wave your baton and accounting comes in, and you wave it somewhere else and marketing chimes in with accounting, and they all sound very glorious. But management is more like orchestra conducting during rehearsals, when everything is going wrong. — Henry Mintzberg

I love the performance of a craft, whether it is modest or mean-spirited, yet I walk away when discussions of it begin - as if one should ask a gravedigger what brand of shovel he uses or whether he prefers to work at noon or in moonlight. I am interested only in the care taken, and those secret rehearsals behind it. Even if I do not understand fully what is taking place. — Michael Ondaatje

It's madness to hand in a script to a director, leave them alone, and for the director not to want the writer there with rehearsals and the shoot. — Peter Morgan

I started off writing TV adverts. I saw those as rehearsals for a feature film. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

When Sam's having a hard time and being a total baby about the whole thing, I feel so much frustration and rage and self-doubt and worry that it's like a mini-breakdown. I feel like my mind becomes a lake full of ugly fish and big clumps of algae and coral, of feelings and unhappy memories and rehearsals for future difficulties and failures. I paddle around in it like some crazy old dog, and then I remember that there's a float in the middle of the lake and I can swim out to it and lie down in the sun. That float is about being loved, by my friends and by God and even sort of by me. And so I lie there and get warm and dry off, and I guess I get bored or else it is human nature because after a while I jump back into the lake, into all that crap. I guess the solution is just to keep trying to get back to the float. This morning Sam woke at 4:00, so — Anne Lamott

Going to rehearsals of school plays got me out of science. It became clear what inspired me and what dampened my spirit. The only other thing I could do at school was trampolining - it didn't seem to have much future in it. — Tamsin Greig

I've worked with actors who treat the first two takes like rehearsals. And that's okay. If the camera is on you and we're doing a scene where I'm off camera, I'm treating that as a rehearsal. — Alfred Molina

Ivo van Hove is directing The Crucible, and rehearses in quite an unusual way. We started rehearsals last week and dived straight into the first act, like, five minutes after we all turned up. No warm-ups. We were very intensely immersed in that whole world on day one. It was quite surreal because I've never done any theater before. — Saoirse Ronan

'Five, Six, Seven, Nate!' opens on my 13-year-old protagonist packing up a duffel bag and bidding his Midwestern town goodbye, heading off to start rehearsals for his New York City debut in 'E.T.: The Musical.' — Tim Federle

Comedy is not funny. Comedy is hard work and timing and lots and lots of rehearsals. — Larry Hagman

I wasn't into anything at school. I used to get really embarrassed. I used to get asked to do performing things, and I'd go to all the rehearsals, and then I'd pretend to be ill on the day I had to actually perform. I was very unhappy at school. — Lily Allen

Rehearsals are set up so that you find out all the nuances about your character. You never want to beat yourself up. It's about finding the right direction, and most of the time, the right direction is not what you think is the right direction. That's why the director's there: to guide you there. — Djimon Hounsou

We are all from different cultures. Heath's [Ledger] Australian, really. I'm from here. Ang's [Lee] from China. But I think Ang gets very close in preproduction and rehearsals. And then he allows his actors - I don't think scared of actors, but I think he's scared of getting in on the scenes he's watching. The space he's watching. So he just totally disconnects from you while you're shooting. — Jake Gyllenhaal

After Sophie had scraped the last of the makeup off her face, she was aware of the first sharp pangs of something that felt like homesickness. They'd already been told that the BBC wanted another series, but that was months away; and anyway, the last episode of the first series made her realize that one day there would be a last episode, and she didn't know whether she'd be able to bear it. And it didn't help, telling herself that when it was time for the last episode, she'd have had enough, because she couldn't bear that either. She wanted to stay like this forever. She changed her wish quickly: not like this, not exactly ... She wanted it to be the Monday just gone, with a whole week of rehearsals to look forward to, and then a recording. That's where she would like to stop. She was already afraid that she'd never be happier than now-then-and it was already over. — Nick Hornby

I don't have much to compare it to because I really didn't know much about theater. After I signed on, I started reading a lot of Sam Shepard plays just to brush up on my history and do some research. What's great is that Sam's been here and he's been in rehearsals with us. Sometimes you don't even notice him come in; he's just sitting there in the theater seats watching you. — Taissa Farmiga

I switched to thoughts of the play. It was by far the healthiest item to concentrate on. Rehearsals were only days away; there is something wildly exciting about a company assembling for the first time on stage. There is also something strangely sexy about it. I can't pin it down, there just is. — James Kirkwood Jr.

I think that sometimes in theater, I don't prepare much beyond going to the rehearsals. — Ben Whishaw

I must be the only person in 'Strictly' history who's actually put on weight during rehearsals. — Abbey Clancy

Artie travels all the time. The rehearsals were just miserable. Artie and I fought all the time. He didn't want to do the show with my band; he just wanted me on acoustic guitar. — Paul Simon

Lady Gaga? She's cool! She works really hard. When we would have our dance rehearsals, she wasn't the singer that was like, 'Oh, I'll just stand in front.' She wanted to learn everything - she was doing the dance moves. She's a good dancer. — Caity Lotz

I feel a bit like when we came through the doors on the first day of rehearsals of that play, from that minute on, my whole life changed. — James Corden

Rehearsels, actually." "Rehearsals?" "For the-" Oh,no. "-musicale." The Smythe-Smith musical.It finished off what the Crusades had begun.There wasn't a man alive who could maintain a romantic thought when faced with the memory-or the threat-of a Smythe-Smith musicale. — Julia Quinn

If I'm not mistaken, I believe it was written beforehand. And it just happened in rehearsals Basically giving each person their vocal-line and I ended up getting that line! I'm so grateful I did because it was really special to sing that and you feel something when you sing it it's a very distinct piece that fits perfectly in the production. — Kendra Kassebaum

We had to do a lot of rehearsals to get it so that it was playable. What it did was make you practice. That's good for any musician to have that kind of pressure. It brings things out of you that might not come out if you don't have to reach for something all the time. — Ray Brown

There is something about the live performance of an orchestra that makes it very different to a film. With a film, you can rewrite it in a way with the material you have, and in rehearsals, you're really trying out different things. In an orchestra, you can't do that. They separate as soon as the performance factor comes into play. — Gael Garcia Bernal

Rehearsals at the Silver Slipper's Burlesque Review had been brutal because of the physical toll on the body. Rehearsals for Cristos the Incredible were brutal because Cristos was an ass. — Kristen Painter

Rehearsals and this band are two words that don't really go together, kinda like Military Intelligence. — Jerry Cantrell

I saw a lot of operas from backstage and watched a lot of rehearsals - my parents were singers. — Rosamund Pike

Ang Lee is very precise. He will show you everything, and will let you know what he is thinking about the whole project. There are a lot of rehearsals before shooting, and you already reach a certain standard. Then he will ask for more. — Tony Leung Chiu-Wai

Most of the great directors I've worked with - De Palma, Spike Lee - like rehearsals. — John Leguizamo

You could get in rehearsals, pre-production, anything that would actually contribute to the understanding of how a film gets made. I actually find those things increase people's interest in a movie and like that better than worrying about showing the tricks behind the curtain. — Jay Roach

Of all the forms of exercise that I have done, Power Plate training is the most concise. If I start my session at 9.30am, I know I can be at my desk by 10.15am and I can even fit in a workout before rehearsals. Power Plate exercise is not at all intimidating, and I know that in a short session I have had a complete workout. — Maureen Lipman

I've been quoting the book [on Peter Sutcliffe] constantly in rehearsals. Some members of the cast have stated their disapproval that it should even have been written. Some of the women have expressed more - disgust and anger. What are they saying? They'd prefer not to know, not to understand? They'd prefer certain areas of life to be censored? Isn't that partly what breeds the Sutcliffes and the Nilsens? — Antony Sher

To me, it's my job not to laugh, no matter what's said. By the time we shoot, I'm ready for all that's coming. I probably do most of my breaking in rehearsals, when I know that I can. — Ice Cube

With a stage play, they can't cut a word; you can be in rehearsals every day, you cast it, you cast the director, too; the amount of control for a playwright is almost infinite, so you have that control over the finished product. — Martin McDonagh

I love rehearsing because in rehearsals there are no mistakes, nothing is wrong, some things apply or lead you to focus on the character and the things that don't apply are equally valuable because they lead you to towards what does. — Jim Jarmusch

And gradually it dawned on him, if a dawning can take place in total blackens, that his life had consisted of a run of rehearsals for a play he had failed to take part in. And that what he needed to do from now on, if there was going to be a now on, was abandon his morbid quest for order, and treat himself to a little chaos, on the grounds that while order was demonstrably no substitute for happiness, chaos might open the way to it. — John Le Carre

On indies it's hard to do, but in rehearsals, you make mistakes in rehearsal. It's really hard rehearsing a play or what rehearsal you get on any movie. That's where you get to make your mistakes, and you make big ones. So when you shoot [the movie] or you finally get the play in shape and do it, the mistakes are out of the way. If you're not afraid to make mistakes, then there is no writer's block or actor's block. — Jeff Daniels

Big storms are the humble rehearsals of the Apocalypse. — Mehmet Murat Ildan

My dreams are my dress rehearsals for my future. — David Copperfield

Years ago - I used to be an actor - I was in a production of Vaclav Havel's 'Temptation,' and when we started rehearsals, he was in prison. When we closed the show, he was running for president. And it felt incredibly timely and important and also this lucky thing. — Kelly Sue DeConnick

Fantasies are more than substitutes for unpleasant reality; they are also dress rehearsals, plans. All acts performed in the world begin in the imagination. — Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

collaborative teams think of common formative assessments as academic scrimmages or dress rehearsals. — Robert Eaker

I miss that process of getting the script and reading it and working on it. Every actor has their own way of memorizing their lines, and the whole process of starting to work with the other actors and the director, and doing rehearsals, and going to the location, and going through wardrobe. — Pauly Shore

There is nothing harder than working 50 pages a day, working 16 hours a day, trying to be good with only shooting rehearsals. — Robert Kazinsky

Rehearsals are one of my favourite things in the world. — Martin Freeman

It's very difficult to find the time or the money for people to organize rehearsals for some movies. It staggers me how little preparation often goes into these scenes which are difficult and complicated. You think, "God, it's crazy. I've never met this person before and here I am having to work at how to do a whole performance on the set." It was great to have a few days of just talking to Michael [Caine]and Daniel [Barber] and thinking about the characters and the relationship between them before we started shooting. — Emily Mortimer

When I'm working, I try to be serious and rest where I can. I just mark in rehearsals. I still train. I warm up. And I still take lessons from this unbelievable teacher in New York, Joan Lader. I try to be stretched and ready to go. — Max Von Essen

There is no definitive list of the duties of a stage manager that is applicable to all theaters and staging environments. Regardless of specific duties, however, the stage manager is the individual who accepts responsibility for the smooth running of rehearsals and performances, on stage and backstage. — Laurence Sterne

In film, I find it very useful always to do some preparation before you start rehearsals or start shooting, because there's so much that's against you on a film set. — Ben Whishaw

After a couple of rehearsals and a couple of takes, Sydney Pollack says, "Come here. Why are you not nervous?" And I [say], "Do you think it would be better if I was nervous?" And he says, "No, it's just I can't understand it - how you would be first time on a set, you're acting, when he flubs his line you make up a new line. It's very interesting." It's not that I think I'm great; that's what I knew I wanted to do. — Geena Davis

I've a long time trying to love
a brother whose only way of touching me is pain.
A long time escaping into music.
Practice, lessons, rehearsals that protect me
from the hurting parts of life.
I've been winning awards, applause,
acclaim for my trumpets since I was in grade school.
But love?
The word catches in my throat.
Do I love anything?
Have i forgotten how? — Stasia Ward Kehoe

We had a lot of rehearsals for the original Twilight to get the family to learn each other and experience each other, so we could all be like a family. We spent a lot of time together. — Peter Facinelli

I'm very fast on teaching guys. Like, when I came over here, I only had two rehearsals with the band. I wondered when I first got here ... but it sure came up great. — Ike Turner

It surprised him to see that the play which he had known at rehearsals for a disjointed lifeless thing had suddenly assumed a life of its own. — James Joyce

At St. Francis de Sales in Atlanta, we do not have an organ. We do not have rehearsals during the week. We do not have a professional choir. — Richard Morris

It was amazing that during rehearsals, without any of the costume on, the character was there complete. It just happened. Half the time, I didn't know I was doing it. — Peter Mayhew

I never used to want rehearsals, because I was like, 'Oh, no. I'm more spontaneous. I'm a natural. I'm a one-take person.' But that was because I didn't have any training. I was going off instinct. — Robin Wright

You know, radio was a really easy way to do the shows. You'd come in, do a read-through, there'd be a few rehearsals, then you'd come the night of the show and do it in front of the audience and then go home. — Harry Shearer

Whenever I've been in rehearsals, it's really fun, there's always laughing. — Adam Rapp

Open rehearsals reach people who might not otherwise hear the Philharmonic - people on fixed incomes, people who can't move easily at night, students. — Zubin Mehta

I'm not someone who enjoys long talks, long rehearsals. I'm very technical: I tell my actors, you come in, you sit down, you pick up a coffee, you look here, you say the line. We try it with the cameras rolling, and if it doesn't work, we adjust it until it does. It's very simple. — Michael Haneke

It was Ernie Haller, who had photographed Bette Davis in Jezebel and Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind, who was solely responsible for the visuals in Mildred Pierce, said Crawford. "Ernie was at the rehearsals. And so was Mr. [Anton] de Grot, who did the sets. I recall seeing Ernie's copy of the script and it was filled with notations and diagrams. I asked him if these were for special lights and he said, 'No, they're for special shadows.' Now, that threw me. I was a little apprehensive. I was used to the look of Metro, where everything, including the war pictures, was filmed in blazing white lights. Even if a person was dying there was no darkness. But when I saw the rushes of Mildred Pierce I realized what Ernie was doing. The shadows and half-lights, the way the sets were lit, together with the unusual angles of the camera, added considerably to the psychology of my character and to the mood and psychology of the film. And that, my dear, is film noir." "Mildred — Shaun Considine

The virtue of dress rehearsals is that they are a free show for a select group of artists and friends of the author, and where for one unique evening the audience is almost expurgated of idiots. — Alfred Jarry

Rehearsals make a huge difference. — John Leguizamo

I loved having a crew. I loved being the person who woke at six in the morning and knew where to put the camera. I loved watching the actresses cry, and to know that if you were clever and didn't do too many rehearsals, that it just came that way. — Jane Birkin

Good diet and exercise are key, but abject fear has its own rewards. And arriving on the first day for rehearsals for 'Spamalot' and seeing all these much younger, much fitter people, who I was going to be on stage with, became a catalyst for cutting out the more unhealthy aspects of my life. — Sanjeev Bhaskar

The larger loneliness of our lives evolves from our unwillingness to spend ourselves, stir ourselves. We are always damping down our inner weather, permitting ourselves the comforts of postponement, of rehearsals — Carol Shields

We had about seven real cats at any one time on the set, and two animatronic, (one that sits and one that lays down) and two stuffed animal type cats that we used for rehearsals or any sort of silly torture we had to instill on the poor guy. — Melissa Joan Hart

An ex-ABT ballerina, while staging a ballet for the company, once followed a dancer into the bathroom to deliver notes through the stall door. She was known to bark - literally, like a dog - during private rehearsals. — Sascha Radetsky

It's better not to try to learn all the lines by rote. It's a very bad idea, in fact. You have to do it by using the process, and as I say, the process is to learn during rehearsals, and that's how you'll do it. — Angela Lansbury

Sometimes, rehearsals are not worth it if you do not have an accurate cast, and that is one of the most difficult parts about a film. — Javier Camara

To set out for rehearsals in that quivering quarter-hour is to engage conclusions, not beginnings, for one walks past the guilded hallucinations of poverty with a corrupt resignation touched by details, as if the destitute, in their orange-tinted back yards, under their dusty trees, or climbing into their favelas, were all natural scene designers and poverty were not a condition but an art. Deprivation is made lyrical, and twilight, with the patience of alchemy, almost transmutes despair into virtue. In the tropics nothing is lovelier than the allotments of the poor, no theater is as vivid, voluble, and cheap. — Derek Walcott

I love going into rehearsals day after day for three, four weeks, trying stuff, coming back the next day, building on that. So many times I'd drive home from the studio [after] shooting and I'd be thinking about a certain moment, and I'd think, "Oh, I know what to do!" — Anthony Heald

I find theatre easier than films, because it gives you an environment of a dark hall, the audience concentrating with you ... whereas, film sets are not conducive to long rehearsals, and it is difficult to pick up the emotions amidst all that is going on around you. — Randeep Hooda

I don't think of it so much as the shows I did or the film sets. I mean, sometimes you'll get a nice location, but it's more, 'Who am I meeting on a day-to-day basis?' Often the rehearsals are a lot more fun than the show itself. — Joshua Sasse

No one could have predicted on day one of rehearsals, that a year and a half later we would have shot a film and all be living in New York. It was surreal. — James Corden

You know, Nirvana used to start rehearsals with the three of us just jamming. For, like, a half an hour, just noise and freeform crap - and usually it was crap. But sometimes things would come from it, and some songs on Nevermind came from that, and 'Heart Shaped Box' and stuff on 'In Utero' just happened that way. — Dave Grohl

I always check my harness before I do a stunt; I test-drive the cars I have to race or explode; I'm present at all pyrotechnical rehearsals; and I walk through everything step-by-step. No man should put their life in someone else's hands unless they have covered their own safety from all angles. — Akshay Kumar

We will have close to 3 months of rehearsals to learn about 30 songs. Frank usually rehearsed a band for at least 3 months. If it took him that long to be comfortable we probably would need double the amount, but It's just not financially possible to do so. — Dweezil Zappa

There is always a sacred hour in the theatre - after rehearsals and before performances, in the afternoon, between three and five o'clock. Normally the theatre is empty then, and this is a wonderful hour. — Henning Mankell

You've got to be like a fan at your show, just wild out. I make eye contact. I get in the crowd and kick it with 'em, stage dive, mosh. I make 'em laugh. I go out there and turn up, have fun. There's no set list; I don't have rehearsals. — Schoolboy Q

I'm heavily involved in the creative with choreographer Christopher Scott. I go to rehearsals with 'Glee' and then practice with LXD till about midnight. — Harry Shum Jr.

A few moments after he found himself on the stage amid the garish gas and the dim scenery, acting before the innumerable faces of the void. It surprised him to see that the play which he had known at rehearsals for a disjointed lifeless thing had suddenly assumed a life of its own. It seemed now to play itself, he and his fellow actors aiding it with their parts. When the curtain fell on the last scene he heard the void filled with applause and, through a rift in a side scene, saw the simple body before which he had acted magically deformed, the void of faces breaking at all points and falling asunder into busy groups. — James Joyce

I like to go for a certain over-the-top opulence when naming the drone pieces whereas the song titles are all about concision, I guess. I mean, if I were truly a purist, I'd call things, "Long Piece #27" or "Newest Fast Song", but I enjoy titling and it is helpful at rehearsals or when making set-lists. — David First

I don't really think about dance except just before rehearsals start. I put it off. I don't live my life thinking about dance. — Paul Taylor

The truth is that I don't like rehearsals. I get embarrassed hearing my own work. I assume that the cast is embarrassed to sing the stuff. — Stephen Sondheim

When you did impressions on 'MADtv,' the producers gave you a Walkman that played huge sections of whatever movie was being parodied, with your character's catchphrases recorded on a loop. You'd wear this thing around during rehearsals and for a week listen to the voice you had to impersonate over and over again. It drove all of us crazy. — Artie Lange

When we start shooting I don't have rehearsals with characters at all. So, rather than pulling them towards myself, I travel closer to them; it's very much closer to the real person than anything I try to create. So I give them something but I also take from them. — Abbas Kiarostami

Deliberately, on every historic occasion, we piously fake events for the benefit of photographers, while the actual event often occurs in a different fashion; and we have the effrontery to call these artful dress rehearsals authentic historic documents. — Lewis Mumford