When I write a screenplay - and I think this is true for a lot of people - you direct the movie. That's what writing a screenplay is.

Back when you were doing plays like 'The Miracle Worker,' you had 20, 25 people in the cast. When you go to make the film, that's not such a stretch. But when you're doing plays like 'Proof,' it's just five people or something in the thing, and it gets to be a really difficult re-conception.

The modern economics of the theater is such that we write plays with fewer and fewer characters.

John Patrick Shanley Quotes