I find I have to walk a little faster in public these days, but it's very easy to remember when nobody had any idea who I was.
If it's well written and well directed and you've got good actors to work with, acting is easy. But making sure all the ducks are in a row is the hard part. It's very rare
Look at the darkest hit musicals - Cabaret, West Side Story, Carousel - they are exuberant experiences. They send you out of the theater filled with music
It's a very tough time for the playwright. Broadway has become almost a musical comedy theme park with all these long-running shows.
The Broadway audience is made up of a greater percentage of tourists now. There's not nearly as much variety and danger and challenge in what's being offered.
I can't imagine doing an hour-long dramatic series because it's so much work. A sitcom is a wonderful gig. You work from 10 to 4 every day, it's fun, and you get to live at home.
I'd sleep under a Vermeer.
Shakespeare is like mother's milk to me.
There's nothing like spending an evening with an audience every night.
Up there with my awards, I have a great big statue of Groucho Marx, just to put everything in perspective.
What you aspire to on a sitcom is the feeling of live comedy.
Instead of being a theater actor who sometimes does movies I became a movie actor who sometimes does theater.
Growing up I didn't want to be an actor. I sort of didn't want to go into the family business; the main reason being there was something I wanted to do far more, which was be an artist.
Having grown up in the theater family, having done a huge amount of acting from a very little boy to precocious teenager in Shakespeare festivals that my father produced, I went off to college and fell in with the theater gang. I was already an experienced actor. I became a kind of campus star. I heard all this applause and laughter.
One of the things that gives me a lot of pleasure about both the solo show and the book is that it tells people about my dad. He really was an important man. He was a kind of pioneer of regional theater. He was the first American producer to ever produce all of Shakespeare plays.
I Need a Good Book I need a good story. I need a good book. The kind that explodes Off the shelf. I need some good writing, Alive and exciting, To contemplate all by myself. I need a good novel, I need a good read. I probably need Two or three. I need a good tale Of love and betrayal Or perhaps an adventure at sea. I need a good saga. I need a good yarn. A momentous and mightily Or slight one. But with thousands and thousands And thousands of books, I need someone to tell me The right one. -John Lithgow
