Theresa Rebeck
I have huge admiration for Jesus Christ and for his incredible compassion for all people.
I'm not afraid of just cranking it out and seeing what comes out of my subconscious. Because I don't always know what I'm feeling. I do a lot of rewriting later. But that first blast feels like a spigot - like it's coming from somewhere else.
I think, with most writers, their neurosis is finishing things. I have a different neurosis. I'm terribly anxious when it's not finished. Then I become really difficult to live with.
I write a lot because, if I don't, I start to panic, and I calm down when I write.
I like to write. Prolific is part of who I am.
It's not my responsibility to write plays about the way the world should be.
Spielberg read the 'Understudy' and decided that was the voice he wanted to write 'Smash.' He wanted a story that had humanity and humor and high-stakes dreams.
I have admiration for people who can do it well - the guys who wrote 'Cheers' and 'Frasier.' They created sort of a blissful comedic universe.
The stage gives you more control over your own work; in television, there's a distressing amount of communal writing. Unless it's your show, you have no control over that. You're at the mercy of whoever's running the show.
I find a lot of input from other people very stressful.
One thing I won't do in television is a sitcom. I find that world to be so neurotic and bizarre.
I think we have a cultural difficulty with looking at our problems.
I'm not ashamed of being American; I'm very proud.
We have this powerful ideological basis to the country that I don't think any other country in the world quite can brag about. It's a very complicated nation, and it's very fertile.
Why is being a female having an agenda any more than being a misogynist - which David Mamet most certainly is?
I think it's straight men who are oblivious to goodness or badness to dates. That's probably unfair. Maybe they just don't complain as much.
The ridiculous way that workplace politics are conducted completely gets in the way of excellence in America.
I had such a good experience doing 'The Understudy' with the Roundabout, and people were really enthusiastic about the work.
I sincerely believe that for the New York theatre to remain relevant, all our major producing institutions should be presenting new American plays.
A lot of times, I think people feel that new plays are suspect, and actually, I don't know where that came from. I completely disagree with it!
I think new plays are vastly more surprising and challenging and inspiring; I hear from audiences all the time that they are delighted when they see plays about the world we live in now, at this moment.
The audience just doesn't care. They are just as interested in women-centric stories as they are in stories about men.
Everyone pays lip service to this whole idea of doing more new plays, and nobody ever does it.
People kept saying, 'You've made it!' and I was like, 'What have I been doing all this time?' I've always felt successful.
Because I'm an American woman, and I write straight plays, it's always been sort of assumed I would never be done on Broadway. But that was never the goal.
There are so many people from many different classes and ways of life who converge in one space to make a musical.
It's sort of a mystery where ideas come from.
I actuall have to defend realism in theatre because I think TV does it badly - so corrupted by layers of bureaucrats who want to leave examination or psychology.
Rarely do I try to pull a creature out of life and make it a character.
So in case there was any doubt, I am here to report that having a play on Broadway does not suck.
Why on earth is the 'New Yorker' publishing puff pieces about pretty girls who go to parties? Does the 'New Yorker' ever run photos of cute boys just because they're cute and they come from money and they go to lots of parties?
Heath Ledger's recent death, like that of River Phoenix, was handled with great care by the press. Anna Nicole Smith's not so much.
Not so long ago, my feminist education taught me to ask the question, 'Is the gaze male?' The answer, apparently, is yes, which is why so many movies and television shows are about men and not women.
Our distorted media culture sees men as subjects and women as objects; in films, Woody Allen gets older and older and still dates 20-year-old babes; movies about women are called 'chick flicks,' and men make fun of them.
Art is great. At its best, it engages the intellect and challenges the spirit; it connects us across history and reminds us of our humanity.
Does art have to have high foot traffic to get funded in a recession? A lot of people, I am sure, would say absolutely not. And those postmodern art-loving loners surely would argue that even if one person likes a piece of art, that would make a museum worthwhile.
Some people think big audiences are crass and that, say, a comedy that appeals to a wide audience is pandering. Other people would argue that you could say that about Moliere.
I go to museums. I buy art, even. You should see my house; we don't have any wall space left.
My son is a musician who next year will be attending the LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts in New York City, which his mother helped him get into by making him practice all the time.
In America, the average playwright makes less than a receptionist in a non-profit theatre. We don't have decent health insurance - or any health insurance at all.
Is the American theatre allowing itself to become irrelevant? The problem isn't that playwrights aren't being paid enough. It's that theatres all over America are looking towards New York to tell them what new plays to do.
We need theatre that is contemporary, lively and relevant, and the only way to do that is to take care of our playwrights and produce their plays.
I have two sensational kids who I have raised with my husband, hoping and working every day to help them become healthy, happy, and decent human beings.
I have a dog whose name is Banquo.
Nothing sounds as crazy as telling people you're not crazy.
Why is it so hard for men to identify with women as fellow travelers on this good Earth?
I have spent my whole life working in the theater, and most of the people I know have done the same. And we are pretty interesting people.
The myth that theater isn't for everybody is total nonsense. In the 18th and 19th centuries, everybody in America used to go to the theater all the time. The shows they went to see were big, crazy melodramas that had careening storylines and houses burning down and pretty girls in danger and comedy and death and destruction.
Theater can be elusive and poetic, but it doesn't thrive when it doesn't reach an audience.
Theater is a public space. It is a spectacular space. It is a gathering place.