Moliere and Arthur Miller affected me at a very young age. In adulthood, I became overwhelmed by Chekhov. Those are my big theatrical influences.
— Theresa Rebeck
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.
There are times when I wonder how I ever thought that I could dramatize the death of a national discussion as a family comedy.
I was born and raised in the Midwest, where people were taught that decency and integrity and community were all important values. We were democrats with a little 'd.'
I am curious about a lot of things. I'm perplexed and engaged.
I often find it maddening to live in America, in a way that is both amusing and horrifying to me. America clings to versions of itself that are absolutely hypocritical. I can't shake my outrage at it, so I write about it.
I have always worked consistently, even in small ways and even in smaller theaters where I'll do One Acts or something.
I think that because television is shot on a really fast schedule, and it gets piped into your home on a smaller screen, it's much more about character and dialogue in a lot of cases than the movies are.
The economics of theater are painful. I still think that the theater community should be looking much more rigorously at how to let the playwright keep the money they make.
New York was the Promised Land growing up. Writers were gods! The great gods of American culture... I thought.
In television, what you are doing is trying to fit your voice into a particular mold.
Show business is a struggle. I certainly wish that I had just blasted on the scene and not had quite such a hard time. But there's a great sense of the relief in that you don't have to prove yourself anymore.
There's a thing that happens to Midwesterners - we spend a lot of time talking about having a different set of rules about manners. I don't know about ethics, but certainly about manners, what you would say and what you wouldn't say. And that is not very East coast.
Part of the problem with producing contemporary political theater in America today is that many theaters don't have flexibility or resources, be it hiring a lot of actors or staging a work that might be tough for some audience and board members.
That stupid postmodern emphasis on image over content has slammed us right into a dramaturgy that willfully leaves the audience behind and then resents the fact that they don't 'get it.'
I think it goes without saying that young would-be playwrights in developmental workshops should be so lucky as to write plays as good as 'Waiting for Godot,' 'Uncle Vanya' or 'King Lear,' none of which would have existed without a decent plot.
Theater can be elusive and poetic, but it doesn't thrive when it doesn't reach an audience.
When people tell me I'm a prolific writer, it's a nice thing to say. But I think to myself, 'Yeah, but I don't do anything else.'
I work hard. I like getting to the end of things. And I write my plays that way.
When I go to Ohio to visit relatives on holidays, I am often astonished by the level of casual dismissal offered up by way of discussion.
I let action rise out of character, really.
I remember when I was at Brandeis, Geoffrey Wolff, he was a great fiction-writing teacher. He was the writer-in-residence, and for those of us who wanted to be writers, you were so excited to be in the same hallway as him.
I like working with television. I do.
I actually think we should be trying to be rigorous in our thinking about television and the way it enters our lives and shapes the way so many people think.
Watching people toss all caution to the wind, who are ready to put their lives on the line for a dream, is something that is accessible.
I have tremendous affection for New York and my life, but I'm a satirist at heart. And it's easy to satirize New York.
I would rather work in the theater than anywhere else, and it does seem to be a place where stories can and should be told purely.
Generally, what I try to do is always have a money gig and an art gig.
I do believe that there are monsters out there - and that they are monsters.
Denver's commitment to giving contemporary storytellers the stage is crucial to the American theater. That's something embraced by 'Smash.' We should be telling our own stories.
I have huge admiration for Jesus Christ and for his incredible compassion for all people.
I seem to be constantly confronted by theater professionals who are more or less annoyed by the prospect of structure.
You have to respect who the character is. It has its own internal truth, and you can't betray that. And if you don't betray that, it will not betray you.
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.
It's one of the central problems of American culture: telling you if you're younger, more beautiful, more famous, whatever, that then you'll be happy.
I'm an impatient person.
We were told that hard work and talent and character would get you somewhere. At school, we learned it was important to share. On Arbor Day, we all planted trees.
It's so funny, I'm always stealing from Moliere, and nobody ever notices. I steal from him willy-nilly.
I make my life with New York stage actors, and I love them. They're the best actors on planet earth.
Honestly, the thing that I have found to be most useful over a long career, or maintaining a long career, is taking back the power at some point and self-producing.
The movies are all about visual, and television is all about character and dialogue.
In the theater, there's an emphasis on the singular voice. You know, it's your play. And in television, there's so much institutional involvement. So you end up having to negotiate with a lot of people, and that provides a kind of wear and tear on the spirit.
I see how the Midwest distrusts the East Coast. The Midwest sees itself as morally superior. The Coast sees itself as intellectually superior. And the two are actually the same thing.
When I was a staff writer on 'NYPD Blue,' it was truly my job to hear David Milch's voice for that show and to deliver episodes that embodied that voice.
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'm actually interested in poor behavior. I'm interested in what drives people to poor behavior.
Some of my family goes back a long way in Denver.
Sometimes I feel that my job on earth is to put Julie White through horrible things, watch her writhe and then recover.
Obviously, a theatrical masterpiece needs more than a plot; many television shows are nothing but plot, and it is doubtful that they will stand the test of time. But I also don't think that making fun of plot or acting like we're all somehow 'above' structure is such a good idea.
Theater is a public space. It is a spectacular space. It is a gathering place.
