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There's no such thing as a perfect play. Sometimes you have to protect the life of the play.

John Guare

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John Guare
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: February 5
Actor
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
New York City
New York
Perfect
Play
Sometimes
Thing
Life
Protect

More quotes by John Guare

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Every play is so important. It's a record of what life was like at the time you wrote that play or that book.
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.
John Guare
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Like a dog, a playwright lives in an eternal present and a play is never closed.
John Guare
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Feydeau's one rule of playwriting: Character A: My life is perfect as long as I don't see Character B. Knock Knock. Enter Character B.
John Guare
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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.
John Guare
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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.
John Guare
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We live in a world where amnesia is the most wished-for state. When did history become a bad word?
John Guare
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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?
John Guare
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1975 is as much a historical document as 1803.
John Guare
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I'm sure there are some good dramaturgs but I've never worked with one.
John Guare
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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.
John Guare
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And what would be great numbers in a Broadway show are now on stage of the New York City Ballet.
John Guare
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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.
John Guare
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However, the moral center of New York City, I believe, is the New York City Ballet.
John Guare
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You can't be a sort of pioneer.
John Guare
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The power of the past to still dominate our thinking today.
John Guare
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All the New York City Ballet does is hit beautiful home runs.
John Guare
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I think a playwright must be his own dramaturg.
John Guare
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Avoiding humiliation is the core of tragedy and comedy.
John Guare
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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.
John Guare