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Sometimes You Have To Protect The Life Of The Play. It Seems Like Spelling Out Mysterious, Musical Details Can Destroy A Play By Making The Motivations Too Clear, Too Simplex.

-John Guare

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Sometimes You Have To

John Guare

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Sometimes You Have To Protect The Life Of The Play. It Seems Like Spelling Out Mysterious, Musical Details Can Destroy A Play By Making The Motivations Too Clear, Too Simplex.

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The Only Riots Were The People Trying To Get Tickets.

The Atlantic Ocean Was Something Then.

Oh, I Never Use A Seat Belt. I Don't Believe In Gravity.

People Rewrite The Play So Much To Make It Palatable To The Audience, To Make Something Clear, That They Just Deaden It. Like It Was Left It In The Oven Too Long.

Sometimes You Have To Protect The Life Of The Play. It Seems Like Spelling Out Mysterious, Musical Details Can Destroy A Play By Making The Motivations Too Clear, Too Simplex.

The Power Of The Past To Still Dominate Our Thinking Today.

Like A Dog, A Playwright Lives In An Eternal Present And A Play Is Never Closed.

Eugene O'neil Created An American Theater, And Tennessee Williams Taught It How To Sing.

You Cannot Write To Resonate Twenty Or Thirty Or Forty Years From Now. You Only Can Write For That Very Day, But Whatever Happens Is All Gravy.

I Think A Playwright Must Be His Own Dramaturg. I Believe In A Theater Where The Director And The Playwright Work Together To Create What They Need.

Working Together

Everyone Talks About America, This Great Country. You Hear, "i'm More Patriotic Than You Are. No, I'm More Patriotic!" But How Few People Know The History Of This Country And How We Came Into Being. That's The Part That Just Amazed Me.

I Mean New York City Is The Financial Capital Of The World. It's Where All The Money Passes Through, The Dow Jones, Whatever, That's Where All The Money Goes.

Does The New York City Ballet Affect Other Places? Yeah, It Lets People Know They Should Come To New York.

Does Any Art Have A Practical Value? People Love To Talk About How Expensive A Painting Is. That's The Only Way We Can Talk About Paintings In This Century.

What We're Dealt With Hopefully Is Two Arms, Two Eyes, Two Legs, A Head, A Heart. The Variations, The Extensions, The Possibilities Of The Human Body, What That Can Do

The Great Risk Is Always Saying, "how Will I Communicate What I'm Trying To Get Across To A Room Full Of Strangers Sitting In The Dark Watching A Stage?"

James Joyce Wrote The Definitive Work About Dublin While He Was Living In Switzerland. We're All Where We Come From. We All Have Our Roots.

Show Business Offers More Solid Promises Than Catholicism.

However, The Moral Center Of New York City, I Believe, Is The New York City Ballet.

You Don't Push The Button That Says "now I Will Write Something That Resonates In Time." You Don't Know. It's What Happens After A Play Is Finished.

You Can't Kind Of Take Away, You Either Do Or You Don't. If You Kind Of Take Away Something You're A Failure.

The Rich Live Hand-to-mouth Too-just On A Higher Level.

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I Believe That The Imagination Is The Passport We Create To Take Us Into The Real World. I Believe The Imagination Is Another Phrase For What Is Most Uniquely Us.

I'm An American Playwright. Tennessee Williams Got In All Our Dna.

I Think That Some Of These Plays Are Lost In This New Horror Called Development, Which Is A Place For Dramaturgs To Say "let Me Tell You What Your Play Means," And The Life Gets Sucked Out Of A Play.

Every Play Is So Important. It's A Record Of What Life Was Like At The Time You Wrote That Play Or That Book.

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I'm Sure There Are Some Good Dramaturgs But I've Never Worked With One.

And It Is Always Easter Sunday At The New York City Ballet. It Is Always Coming Back To Life. Not Even Coming Back To Life - It Lives In The Constant Present.

It's Amazing How A Little Tomorrow Can Make Up For A Whole Lot Of Yesterday.

I Think A Playwright Must Be His Own Dramaturg.

What I Hate About Kitchen-sink Dramas Is [this Idea] That The Set Is Real, Therefore You're Going To Be Seeing Truth. You Have To Earn Truth. Truth Can't Be A Part Of The Fact That People Appear To Talk That Way And Live In That Room. You're Looking For The Poetry In Something, And I Don't Mean Poetry In The Fancy Sense. Naturalism Believes By Just Replicating A Thing You Give The Truth, Rather Than Earning The Truth.

There's No Such Thing As A Perfect Play. Sometimes You Have To Protect The Life Of The Play.

The Imagination Says Listen To Me. I Am Your Darkest Voice. I Am Your 4 A.m. Voice. I Am The Voice That Wakes You Up And Says This Is What I'm Afraid Of. Do Not Listen To Me At Your Peril.... The Imagination Is Not Our Escape. On The Contrary, The Imagination Is The Place We Are All Trying To Get To.

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Ballet Is Always About The Realm Of Possibilities, The Realm Of What The Human Body Can Do, What The Human Spirit Can Do. And It's About Listening, It's About Listening To Remarkable Music And How We Respond To That.

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All The New York City Ballet Does Is Hit Beautiful Home Runs.

How Much Of Your Life Can You Account For? My Life Is A Collage Of Unaccounted For Brush Strokes; I Am All Random”.

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New Orleans Was A Thrilling Place Of All Kinds Of Races, It Was A Dangerous Place. It Was Really And Truly The Only International City On The Continent Of North America. There Were All Different Races And Everything Was Celebrated, And It Was A Place Of Difference, And Everybody Was Different And It Was So Odd, The Minute That America Took Over, The Minute That The Louisiana Territory Became Part Of The United States Of America, Instantly You Were Either Black Or White. There Was No Nuance. And So A Free Man Of Color Who Could Own Property Was Suddenly Not Allowed To.

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