Stage And Performance Quotes & Sayings

what would happen if we left our heart on stage every time we created anything. It's a bust your ass to shine, honest to a fault, no bullshit, zero apology performance. If you look at the work of some of the most successful people in the world you'll see it as the undertone. It isn't just something they do, it's who they are. It's the kind of performance where your heart and soul bleed. — Srinivas Rao

It is immensely rewarding to work carefully with Shakespeare's language so that the words, the sentences, the wordplay, and the implied stage action all become clear - as readers for the past four centuries have discovered. It may be more pleasurable to attend a good performance of a play - though not everyone has thought so. But the joy of being able to stage one of Shakespeare's plays in one's imagination, to return to passages that continue to yield further meanings (or further questions) the more one reads them - these are pleasures that, for many, rival (or at least augment) those of the performed text, and certainly make it worth considerable effort to "break the code" of Elizabethan poetic drama and let free the remarkable language that makes up a Shakespeare text. — William Shakespeare

I studied acting and there's certainly an element of performance. I think that the songs are in many ways written to be performed. I think about what it's going to be like to sing them on stage rather than what it's going to be like to have someone at home listening to them on a CD. I guess in that way there's a connection between my acting experience and the songwriting and the way the songs are written. — Loudon Wainwright III

Everything I do on stage, I made up in saloons. I started doing it in front of people, and that became my performance. I never had writers. — Don Rickles

Bono told me how to dance in high heels and he also told me about U2's Glastonbury performance and how everything that could have possibly gone wrong went wrong, including him ripping his trousers on stage. I think he was lunging and his trousers ripped! He was telling me how he had to find a new way of performing that didn't involve moving. — Florence Welch

If I produce it, I will stage it as a performance. A small audience will be invited; rehearsals of the sections will be done in the mornings, and those sections will be recorded in the afternoons. — Bill Dixon

As far as the performance goes, I want to create an atmosphere, and use 5.1 sound and imagery and shape and form to transform the stage from one thing to another, as if you're watching a movie. — Marilyn Manson

You see, what is my purpose of performance artist is to stage certain difficulties and stage the fear the primordial fear of pain, of dying, all of which we have in our lives, and then stage them in front of audience and go through them and tell the audience, 'I'm your mirror; if I can do this in my life, you can do it in yours.' — Marina Abramovic

A world created by observation evokes insight, hence affection, for we see the hunger and fear of all beings. Life becomes a performance on a stage (ranga-bhoomi) aimed to nourish and comfort the other, while deriving nourishment and comfort from their delight. Krishna's performance (leela) leads to him being worshipped as Ranga-natha, lord of the stage. He never judges, so he sees no one as a victim. This is how he begins The Gita: — Devdutt Pattanaik

As a coach, your high standards of performance, attention to detail and - above all - how hard you work set the stage for how your players perform. — Don Shula

When I did "Top of the Pops" for the first time, Ace of Base was one of the other bands, and I have a memory of them on a small stage next to me in the TV studio. A memory of their performance is burned into my mind. Seared. — Beck

I had serious performance stage fright. I kept my singing to the confines of my shower and car, while doing the dishes, and in my basement, but I would burst out crying if anyone asked me to sing. — Michelle Chamuel

Nothing feels worse than having to break the stage down before the performance, and I mean nothing. — John Mayer

Women were still strange and inscrutable creatures. Men didn't understand them. And women didn't understand themselves either. It was always a performance of some sort. Everywhere you went, it was like there was a spotlight shining down on your head. You were on a stage when you were on the trolley. You were being judged and judged and judged. Every minute of your performance was supposed to be incredible and outstanding and sexy.
You were often only an ethical question away from being a prostitute. — Heather O'Neill

He could feel the Great Iron War coming to an end now, but he no longer had his finger on the button. The curtains of the world were about to close, and the play of life would soon be over. There would be no applause. — Dean F. Wilson

I had decided to be a magician well before I decided to be a writer. I was the little boy who would get up on-stage and do magic wearing a fake mustache, which would fall off during the performance. I'm still trying to perform those tricks. Now I do it with writing. — Ray Bradbury

And I started to wonder, Srini writes, what would happen if we left our heart on stage every time we created anything. It's a bust your ass to shine, honest to a fault, no bullshit, zero apology performance. If you look at the work of some of the most successful people in the world you'll see it as the undertone. It isn't just something they do, it's who they are. It's the kind of performance where your heart and soul bleed. I like that a lot. — Srinivas Rao

Some nights you might go through an entire performance and not feel a thing, and the audience may have a much better time, 'cause if you're enjoying yourself on stage too much, they're having a terrible time because they can't hear you. And if you're a woman your mascara's running. — Anthony Hopkins

I have been doing this since I was nine years old. So whatever the role is, I am going to do the best I can do. The only thing I am concerned with is stepping on the stage in front of that camera and giving the best performance I know I can give, day in and day out as an actor. — Darius McCrary

Sir Magnus Donners himself appeared to greet his guests at exactly the same moment. I wondered whether he had been watching at a peephole. It was like the stage entrance of a famous actor, the conscious modesty of which is designed, by its absolute ease and lack of emphasis, both to prevent the performance from being disturbed at some anti-climax of the play by too deafening a round of applause, at the same time to confirm
what everyone in the theater knows already
the complete mastery he possesses of his art. The manner in which Sir Magnus held out his hand also suggested brilliant miming of a distinguished man feeling a little uncomfortable about something. — Anthony Powell

I've worked with actors before where I was like, this is not working, and then I've seen their work on the screen and I've been like, Wow, that was a really great performance. Because there are a lot of elements with film. It's not like stage. It's not a kind of performance art anymore; it's a highly tuned kind of collaboration - a symphony. — Vincent Kartheiser

He seems, in manner and rank, above the class of young men who take that turn; but I remember hearing them say, that the little theatre at Fairport was to open with the performance of a young gentleman, being his first appearance on any stage. - If this should be thee, Lovel! - Lovel? yes, Lovel or Belville are just the names which youngsters are apt to assume on such occasions - on my life, I am sorry for the lad. — Walter Scott

In musical performances one can sense that the person on stage is having a good time even if they're singing a song about breaking up or being in a bad way. For an actor this would be anathema, it would destroy the illusion, but with singing one can have it both ways. As a singer, you can be transparent and reveal yourself on stage, in that moment, and at the same time be the person whose story is being told in the song. Not too many kinds of performance allow that. — David Byrne

If I look at the performance of another friend Sting, whenever I hear him take over a stage and share his art with millions, it's very inspiring to me. So I have a lot in my life, a lot of friends who inspire me and I'm sure it goes the other way around, or so that I inspire them. — Philippe Petit

I can be completely spontaneous, which is absolutely wonderful. I don't like it at the same time; no one wants to be nervous all the time, but that nervousness mixes with the excitement I feel on the stage, and it makes for a wonderful performance. — Sophie B. Hawkins

Though death might still the show, life would be the most critiqued act of our existence. Own your stage. — Palle Oswald

I've never been a really big fan of theatre. I don't know why. It's so much for effort. It's much more difficult for me than stage acting just because of the pressure that's piled on you and you have to learn the entire performance by heart. — Callan McAuliffe

I had this totally impossible dream of being an actress. Trust me, just because I'm lucky enough to be doing this doesn't make any of this less of a pipe dream. And nothing gets my juices flowing like a really great performance. To see someone on stage, I get really excited. — Olivia Thirlby

Whether you are a writer or an actor or a stage manager, you are trying to express the complications of life through a shared enterprise. That's what theatre was, always. And live performance shares that with an audience in a specific compact: the play is unfinished unless it has an audience, and they are as important as everyone else. — Lee Hall

And the touch of her own mask, at first cool and clammy leather, but quickly like a second skin, and the play it gives her, herself a stage, her every breath a performance, and yet (herein lies the magic) also and entirely true. Every game, every lie flirting and cruel - and the house is full of them, games and lies - is real as knives, for the masquerade has come to define the night. The false face of everyday, that hides reality beneath flesh and skin, is itself hidden beneath the fantasy that, because it is a product and reflection of the mind, is an honest facade. Sadie has lived a wary, defensive life, always urged by that self-preserving instinct to stay small, hidden, safe. She did not know she had an imp inside her until she wore it on her face.

("One Of The Hungry Ones") — Holly Phillips

I love performing outside because it's as if the heavens are open and the elements become part of the stage show as well - you know, the wind and the rain and the thunder. It's almost as if there's a sense of invocation in performance. — Florence Welch

MICHAEL: Maybe just this: A manager has got to remember that he is on stage every day. His people are watching him. Everything he does, everything he says, and the way he says it, sends off clues to his employees. These clues affect performance. So never forget you are on that stage. — Marcus Buckingham

When you go out onto the stage, all the preparation has to be forced into your subconscious. For the moment of the performance, we all have to return to a new level of unconsciousness. All the reflection and all the doubts have to be laid aside before you start. — Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

An illusion has three stages.
"First there is the setup, in which the nature of what might be attempted at is hinted at, or suggested, or explained. The apparatus is seen. volunteers from the audience sometimes participate in preparation. As the trick is being setup, the magician will make use of every possible use of misdirection.
"The performance is where the magician's lifetime of practice, and his innate skill as a performer, cojoin to produce the magical display.
"The third stage is sometimes called the effect, or the prestige, and this is the product of magic. If a rabbit is pulled from a hat, the rabbit, which apparently did not exist before the trick was performed, can be said to be the prestige of that trick. — Christopher Priest

006 [6.1] "Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don't make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won't be applauding. [6.2-4] "When you do something for someone else, don't call attention to yourself. You've seen them in action, I'm sure - 'playactors' I call them - treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. They get applause, true, but that's all they get. When you help someone out, don't think about how it looks. Just do it - quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out. — Eugene H. Peterson

In the early days, I might have gotten on stage and begun to sing as a desperate attempt to communicate, but now I found that singing was both a physical and emotional joy. It was sensuous, a pure pleasure, which didn't take away from the emotions being expressed - even if they were melancholic. Music can do that; you can enjoy singing about something sad. — David Byrne

When I perform on stage, you have to remember my performance or buy another ticket to the party! In television and film, you can see it over and over again. — Giancarlo Esposito

Spectators could, for an additional fee, sit on the stage - something not permitted at the Globe. With stage seating, audience members could show off their finery to maximum effect, and the practice was lucrative; but it contained an obvious risk of distraction. Stephen Greenblatt relates an occasion in which a nobleman who had secured a perch on the stage spied a friend entering across the way and strode through the performance to greet him. When rebuked by an actor for his thoughtlessness, the nobleman slapped the impertinent fellow and the audience rioted. — Bill Bryson

My first life fled without a fight and left nothing behind, so I doubt it was a loss worth mourning. A man I don't remember mixed genes with a woman I can't recall, and I was called to the stage. I stumbled through the curtain, squinting into the blinding light of the birth canal, and after a brief and banal performance, I died.
This is the arc of the average life - unexamined, unremarked, unremarkable - and it should have ended there. In simpler times, life was a one-act play, and when it was over we took our bows and caught our roses and enjoyed any applause we earned, then the spotlight faded and we shuffled backstage to nibble crackers in the greenroom of eternity. — Isaac Marion

That an author takes a bow is not humility but presumption. What does the paleface want on the stage afterwards? But before the performance he had even less business there
and paying him royalties is equivalent to cheating the actors. — Karl Kraus

One of the reasons I moved away from painting was because I eventually discovered that I wanted to deal more with motion, time, and performance - and that became a much bigger part of my life both as an actor and as a musician and someone who goes on stage and travels around the world and works on productions. — Jared Leto

Personality is essential. It is in every work of art. When someone walks on stage for a performance and has charisma, everyone is convinced that he has personality. I find that charisma is merely a form of showmanship. Movie stars usually have it. A politician has to have it. — Lukas Foss

I'm interested in doing anything and everything that I can to squeeze the creativity out of my brain. I guess I'm kind of a performance rat, that's what I want to do, I love being on stage if I'm not on a set. I just love putting creativity into a performance. — Dane Cook

People come up to me as I leave the stage after a performance and tell me tey saw my mother onstage with me every time I sing. I keep a sense of humor about it. — Lorna Luft

Her Majesty to the theatre. The performance took place on a stage erected in the courtyard, and Her Majesty closed in one part of her veranda for the use of the guests and Court ladies. During the performance I began to feel very drowsy, and eventually fell fast asleep leaning against one of the pillars. I awoke rather suddenly to find that something had been dropped into my mouth, but on investigation I found it was nothing worse than a piece of candy, which I immediately proceeded to eat. On approaching Her Majesty, she asked me how I had enjoyed the candy, and told me not to sleep, but to have a good time like the rest. I never saw Her Majesty in better humor. She played with us just like a young girl, and one could hardly recognize in her the severe Empress Dowager we knew her to be. — Der Ling

Every medium has its advantages and weaknesses and there are many things I can put down on paper that I might not be able to put into film or into a stage performance. In each form, one can communicate powerfully in different ways. — Lawrence Wright

She remembers the last perfect evening before everything happened, perfect even though she didn't know everything was about to change. Karaoke night. A bunch of kids from choir cheering each other on. When it was her turn, Hallelujah belted out "Total Eclipse of the Heart." She went for every melodramatic note, closing her eyes and beating her chest. She got the whole group to sing along.
She remembers Jonah taking the stage next. When he sang the opening lines to Garth Brooks's "Friends in Low Places," the room went nuts. He put on a cowboy drawl and sent the low notes reverberating through the wooden floorboards. She remembers him tipping an imaginary Stetson at her when he was done.
In a week, Hallelujah would get caught making out with Luke Willis. He would humiliate her and start spreading lies about her. She would become someone quiet and sad and resentful. But right then, performance-flushed and surrounded by friends, she couldn't stop smiling. — Kathryn Holmes

I definitely loved going on stage, I loved the nervous feeling and the performance and the doing-ness of it. It always felt kind of natural and inevitable and logical. — Sean Astin

I just want to live on the road. I can't understand artists that don't want to perform and, like, get on stage and do their songs for all their fans every night. If I'm not performing every night, I get totally depressed. I know that sounds really weird, but I hate sitting at home and not having a 1 A.M. performance now. It kills me. — Kat Graham

On bad days I talk to Death constantly, not about suicide because honestly that's not dramatic enough. Most of us love the stage and suicide is definitely your last performance and being addicted to the stage, suicide was never an option - plus people get to look you over and stare at your fatty bits and you can't cross your legs to give that flattering thigh angle and that's depressing. So we talk. She says things no one else seems to come up with, like let's have a hotdog and then it's like nothing's impossible.
She told me once there is a part of her in everyone, though Neil believes I'm more Delirium than Tori, and Death taught me to accept that, you know, wear your butterflies with pride. And when I do accept that, I know Death is somewhere inside of me. She was the kind of girl all the girls wanted to be, I believe, because of her acceptance of "what is." She keeps reminding me there is change in the "what is" but change cannot be made till you accept the "what is. — Tori Amos

Dieter once wrote in a letter: It is good that I work there. I am like that fruit. I am imperfect. Inside I am the same person, the same sense of humor, the same thoughts. But my words betray me. What should take three minutes to say is an hour of frustration. People lose patience with me. Aphasia means aloneness. But God hears me. My world is small, and quiet, and slow and simple. No stage. No performance. More real. Good. — John Ortberg

Words are harsh mistresses, to be sure. Like petulant divas, they want only those parts that play to their talents and mask their blemishes, and only when complete companies of players who love their parts are assembled will they sing in harmony. I am your director for this stage production and will employ my best wiles to create a performance both truthful, and beautiful. I know that words are tricksters who show one face to you and another to me, so I am never certain you'll hear in your head what I hear in my head. Since I deliver even this little truth with words, I acknowledge the irony. — Dennis Vickers

At the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre, Sanford Meisner said, 'When you go into the professional world, at a stock theatre somewhere, backstage, you will meet an older actor, someone who has been around awhile. He will tell you tales and anecdotes, about life in the theatre. He will speak to you about your performance and the performances of others, and he will generalize to you, based on his experience and his intuitions, about the laws of the stage. Ignore this man!' — David Mamet

The whole kiss-and-tell thing is a negative approach that often happens in a World Cup. We will see negative stories about the players and it can affect their confidence and the overall performance of the national team on the pitch, let alone the bid to actually stage the competition. — Gary Lineker

You should make an effort on stage because it's a performance. The stage should be glittery and camp, but I don't go down the shops in full stage gear. — Sophie Ellis-Bextor

I love theater work because of the immediate effect your performance has on the audience. And I love the repetition; I love getting on the same stage for more than a month and reciting the same lines, trying to make a small or large step towards an improvement in my acting. — Alfred Molina

The cast, staff, and crew of a live theater work together toward a common goal: a good performance. Thus, theater is necessarily a group effort. However, it is never a group effort of vague fellow committee members, but of associated autocrats-a playwright, a producer, a director, a stage manager, designers, and, above all, actors. Each accommodates the others, and may overlap others in function when necessary. But each autocrat assumes distinct responsibilities and accepts them completely. — Laurence Sterne

I watch the beautiful performance with an ache in my chest.
Then, just when I can't stand the sadness anymore, a dancer floats out from the side of the stage. A dancer in ragged clothes, filthy and half starved. He's not even in ballet shoes. He's just barefoot as he glides out to take his place in the dance.
The other dancers turn to him, and it's clear that he is one of them. One of the lost ones. By the look on their faces, they weren't expecting him. This is not part of the practiced show. He must have seen them onstage and joined in.
Amazingly, the dance continues without a missed beat. The newcomer simply glides into place, and the final dancer who should have danced solo with her missing partner dances with the newcomer.
It is full of joy, and the ballerina actually laughs. Her voice is clear and high, and it lifts us all. — Susan Ee

Up on the stage people appeared to be dying left right and centre, and for most of the performance I had quite felt like leaping up there and joining them. — Ali McNamara

I don't think that many performers necessarily want to see their audience empowered. I think a lot of performers, no different from priests, need the hierarchy. Modern, celebrity-driven entertainment turns the stage into an altar, and so many celebrities refuse to be removed from those altars once they manage to ascend. They will not be taken down - the Goddess is offended ... As a storyteller in the old tradition, you held an important place at the circle. Your position was fluid, not necessarily permanent, but it demanded that you respected the others witnessing your performance as much as they respected you. All storytellers, all troubadours worth their salt knew their myths. — Tori Amos

A man had said that to her once at the stage door. She'd been leaving after a theatre session, buzzing still with the high of performance, and he'd stopped her to say how much he'd enjoyed it. "You've a great talent for observation," he'd said. "Ears, eyes, and heart, all at once. — Kate Morton

I love stage actors. There's something special about all people who have to do a performance eight shows a week, and musical people, especially, are so much fun. — Kelly Bishop

The Earth Is My Stage And The Sun Is My Spotlight — Joshua Teya

The thing you have to remember about artists...is never to trust their immediate response. Whatever the news, their reaction will be self-protective. The mask goes on, and you see only what they let you see. These creatures carry their emotions around in a violin-case, reserving their only honest expression for the public stage. In private, they turn emotion on and off at will. Never believe an artist when he weeps or declares love. It's all a grand performance. Treat their upsets as you would a child's tantrums. Console, then instruct. Show compassion when it's called for, firmness when it runs out. Give them an illusion of your love for them - but never love itself, or they will devour you. — Norman Lebrecht

In my photographic work I'm generally attracted to places that contain memories, history, atmospheres and stories. I'm interested in the places where people have lived, worked and played. I look for traces of the past, visual fingerprints, evidence of activities - they fire my imagination and connect into my own personal experiences. Using the analogy of the theater, I would say that I like to photograph the empty stage, before or after the performance, even in between acts. I love the atmosphere of anticipation, the feeling in the air that events have happened, or will happen soon ... — Michael Kenna

Evaluate every performance on: stage presence, concentration, delivery, material and lessons learned. — Franklyn Ajaye

The world of the stage and the performance on the stage usually does not tend to translate very well - it doesn't tend to hold very well - once cameras are on it; it's not like it's terrible or embarrassing or bad anything, but, I, as an actor, would perform a role differently for an audience than I would for just cameras. — Jason Alexander

During an early performance of 'Spamalot,' I left my regal gloves in the fridge to cool down and didn't remember them until I was on stage. They needed to be thawed overnight. — Sanjeev Bhaskar

I don't really unwind after a performance. I'm still pumped up and just want to get back on stage. — Hollie Cavanagh

As a business, the funeral industry has developed by selling a certain type of "dignity." Dignity is having a well-orchestrated final moment for the family, complete with a well-orchestrated corpse. Funeral directors become like directors for the stage, curating the evening's performance. The corpse is the star of the show and pains are taken to make sure the fourth wall is never broken, that the corpse does not interact with the audience and spoil the illusion. — Caitlin Doughty

Film is mostly a visual medium, and so the director has much more control in terms of painting pictures and painting a performance. For theater, the director does everything he can and then says, 'Out you go,' and the actors are in charge of that stage every night. — David Lindsay-Abaire

I'm one of those pathetic actors who will say yes to every play reading just because I do miss the stage so much. What I really miss about the theater is that in the end, it's yours to give. In television and film, it's yours to do and someone else's to take and someone else's to give. As much as I love television - the biggest luxury of all is to know that you have a job to go to - I do miss that connection and having that power over my own performance on stage. — Julianna Margulies

I belong on the stage. I love how the day's events, whatever you read in the newspapers or watch on the TV, are reflected in the performance and how it's received. — Mandy Patinkin

My skirt fell off on stage during a performance of Hairspray on Broadway, revealing my fat suit over my own natural fat suit. I turned to the audience and said, 'Now you know why I spent six years in a square.' — Bruce Vilanch

For me, the world is a stage, and we are all playing the character we have chosen to play on that stage. It is the job of the photographer to capture the drama of the performance. — Alix Smith

I am very pleased to be involved with the Daniel Pearl Music Days committee because its message resonates with me on a very personal level, My own career is an example of the universal power of music, especially the power of Hip Hop, to bring people of different backgrounds together for a common purpose. I hope that my commitment to the Daniel Pearl Music Days committee will encourage all music lovers - both amateurs and professionals - to get involved with the Music Days performance network and contribute to the 'Harmony For Humanity' e-Stage. — Russell Simmons

Unless an action is rightly thought out and its steps rightly planned, every stage of its performance will probably remain vague and therefore unsatisfactory for the doer and all those concerned. — Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

When I play, I open up. I'm in the heat of the performance and it's a healing thing. It's great! It's like a spiritual elevation that occurs when you're playing and becoming one with the instrument or players on the stage. It takes on this incredible feeling of levitating and the molecules spin differently in the moment. — Matt Nathanson

From the very early stage when I started doing performance art in the '70s, the general attitude - not just me, but also my colleagues - was that there should not be any documentation, that the performance itself is artwork and there should be no documentation. — Marina Abramovic

It is something we have always excelled at and prided ourselves at - the excellences of our stage performance. — James Young

I didn't really have an act per se - a theatrical performance, as opposed to just: here I am, folks, and you're all supposed to be dead quiet while I sing eight or nine songs, then get off the stage. — Mel Torme

I spent a long time in London on the stage, and you knew exactly what you were going to be doing. You not only knew the performance, but you also knew exactly where you would stand. — Daniel Sharman

I love being on stage if I'm not on a set. If I'm at home, I'm usually in my office editing or reconstructing my website or whatever it may be. I just love putting creativity into a performance, so if the right script comes along, and I certainly am reading comedies and dramas now, then I'm ready willing and able to give it a shot. — Dane Cook

Too many churches have become entertainment halls where star speakers strut and swagger for their fans. For too many houses of worship, the platform has become a performance stage for musicians - and I mean that in the most ignoble sense. Even when they shout and sing the name of Jesus Christ, somehow the focus of attention is upon them and public praise stays with them. — Charles R. Swindoll

I had a high school girlfriend whose mother gave us theater tickets, so I saw the second night performance of 'A Streetcar Named Desire.' My girl and I could not get up during intermission, we were so stunned. To this day it's the only thing I've seen on stage that's 100 percent real and 100 percent poetic simultaneously. — Mike Nichols