Harold Prince quotes
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“A star may guarantee business, but the tradeoff is a very short run.”
-- Harold Prince -
“It's nice to stay up nights worrying about the material, and not about the investors who gave you $10 million to do your musical.”
-- Harold Prince -
“Most of the big money people don't know what would interest an audience if you did it. They only know what interested the audience last time.”
-- Harold Prince -
“Producers want to put their music behind revivals but I don't think that's a good trend for the theater at all.”
-- Harold Prince -
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“The idea that I have to be on the same side of the fence as Dan Quayle is cruelly depressing to me, but the truth is, I believe in family values.”
-- Harold Prince -
“The musical has always been in jeopardy - until - or was in jeopardy until it was realised that it is probably the safest living theatre art form.”
-- Harold Prince -
“The truth is, for some absurd reason, no one is willing to admit that the interests of the producers and the theater owners are not the same.”
-- Harold Prince -
“There are wonderful composers and librettists out there. It's the lack of creative producers that is troubling.”
-- Harold Prince -
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“We've got to find a way to protect the process of making musical theater.”
-- Harold Prince -
“What's missing in the musical theater is producers willing to nurture new work, raise the money and put it on.”
-- Harold Prince -
“You think, 'Musicals, they must always be romantic' - You'd be surprised how few of them historically have ever been romantic.”
-- Harold PrinceSource : "Hal Prince, ‘Phantom Of The Opera’ Director, Opens Up On The Show’s 25th Anniversary". Interview With Amy Lee, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 30, 2011.
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“Artistic self-indulgence is the mark of an amateur. The temptation to make scenes, to appear late, to call in sick, not to meet deadlines, not to be organized, is at heart a sign of your own insecurity and at worst the sign of an amateur.”
-- Harold Prince -
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“I got successful awfully quick, and I wanted it... But I do think there is responsibility to move the musical theater form forward. I think you always have to be aware of the work that came before and build on that.”
-- Harold Prince -
“I like to do everything you can possibly do before you go into rehearsal, because once we are in rehearsal or on the stage there will be a problem I didn't anticipate. It's really good to think we got it all nailed - of course you've never got it all nailed.”
-- Harold PrinceSource : "Hal Prince, ‘Phantom Of The Opera’ Director, Opens Up On The Show’s 25th Anniversary". Interview with Amy Lee, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 30, 2011.
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“I was there when the quote-unquote golden age of musical theater was flourishing. I met everybody who worked in theater or was famous in theater from the '40s on.”
-- Harold Prince -
“I would like to see more new productions of new material by new composers/lyricists/book writers. I would like to see people take more chances. I think because everything costs so much they're not taking the chances they used to.”
-- Harold Prince -
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“The idea is to work and to experiment. Some things will be creatively successful, some things will succeed at the box office, and some things will only - which is the biggest only - teach you things that see the future. And they're probably as valuable as any of your successes.”
-- Harold PrinceSource : Interview with Pat Cerasaro, www.broadwayworld.com. October 24, 2010.
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“It's a terrible shame if you're born the brightest guy in your class. If you're not, then you have to hustle-and that's good.”
-- Harold Prince -
“I've seen a lot of 'Show Boats,' but I've never seen the one that thoroughly satisfies me.”
-- Harold Prince -
“I've never been able to understand where great artists come from.”
-- Harold Prince -
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“Audiences are quite happy to be astonished, and they don't care who does that astonishing.”
-- Harold Prince -
“Criticism is valuable... and self-congratulatory experiences are not.”
-- Harold Prince -
“Despite the successes, you remember the failures - rather lovingly.”
-- Harold Prince -
“I always had a good time in theatre, even when shows don't turn out as well as I'd like.”
-- Harold Prince -
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“I didn't go into the theater to be a producer, I went into the theater to be a director.”
-- Harold Prince -
“I don't like abrasion while I'm working. I don't thrive on chaos. I enjoy what I'm doing, and it seems to work better when I am enjoying it.”
-- Harold Prince -
“I don't look back. I look forward and plan new shows. That's really feeding the most important part of working in the theater.”
-- Harold Prince -
“I don't think there's a defined contemporary American musical, do you?”
-- Harold Prince -
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“I love big, bold, truthful theater - the tradition of Victorian theater.”
-- Harold Prince -
“I really don't spend time thinking about the past. I think about the future. I'm not stopping.”
-- Harold Prince -
“I really wish people - maybe it's naive - wish people had priorities and were willing to be artistic patrons.”
-- Harold Prince -
“I remember when people actually wore coats and ties to theatre every night. They don't anymore. It's very different.”
-- Harold Prince -
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“I saw 'On The Town' about nine times. I discovered it. I loved it. I was in college.”
-- Harold Prince -
“I was nine. I saw Orson Welles in 'Julius Caesar.' It was involving, emotional, imaginative. I've never forgotten it.”
-- Harold Prince -
“I wouldn't want to be just pigeonholed as an extravagant director.”
-- Harold Prince -
“I'm always glad to see somebody rethink something rather than reproduce something I did.”
-- Harold Prince -
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“I'm crazy about Dublin. If you went back 3,000 years in my ancestry you wouldn't find a drop of Irish blood in the veins, but I love the place.”
-- Harold Prince -
“The perfect expression of receiving a lifetime award is to be working when they're handing it out.”
-- Harold Prince
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