Quote

The New Yorker's' drama critics have always had a comparable authority because, for the most part, the magazine made it a practice to employ critics who moonlighted in the arts. They worked both sides of the street, so to speak.

John Lahr

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

John Lahr
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: July 12
Biographer
Critic
Journalist
LA
California
John Henry Christopher Lahr
John Henry Lahr
Speak
Critics
Art
Street
Part
Drama
Yorker
Made
Worked
Comparable
Always
Authority
Employ
Streets
Magazine
Sides
Magazines
Practice
Arts

More quotes by John Lahr

Image
Did you come of age in those sweet summers of the early nineteen-sixties, when the airwaves were full of rock and roll's doo-wop promise of joy and the nation was full of J.F.K.'s eloquent promise of a New Frontier? I did. Life seemed to be laid out before us like a banquet everything was for the taking, especially hearts.
John Lahr
Image
Criticism is a life without risk.
John Lahr
Image
Broadway shows in New York draw two times the attendance of all New York sports teams put together.
John Lahr
Image
Accustomed to the veneer of noise, to the shibboleths of promotion, public relations, and market research, society is suspicious of those who value silence.
John Lahr
Image
Like the tail fins on fifties American cars or the parabolic shapes of Populuxe furniture, 'West Side Story' incarnates the dream of momentum in the golden age of the twentieth century.
John Lahr
Image
That state of mind - of being beside yourself - is wonderful. As you get older, you're just very aware of a sense of an ending. You're grateful for every day.
John Lahr
Image
I detest literature. I abominate the theatre. I have a horror of culture. I am only interested in magic!
John Lahr
Image
Tony Awards boost Broadway attendance and sell the shows on the road. They're the sugar to swat the fly. If you needed more explanation for the yearly ballyhoo, in the metropolitan areas where a Broadway show plays, the local economy is boosted by three and a half times the gross ticket sales. So when we're talking Tonys, we're talking moolah.
John Lahr
Image
Writers don't always know what they mean - that's why they write. Their work stands in for them. On the page, the reader meets the authoritative, perfected self in life, the writer is lumbered with the uncertain, imperfect one.
John Lahr
Image
Dame Edna is that rarest sighting in our time of the absolute comic, an inspired personification of caprice whose comedy answered the primal call to take the audience for a tumble.
John Lahr
Image
In 1957, “West Side Story” had introduced the musical to the reckless dark side of teen-age life “Bye Bye Birdie,” set in Sweet Apple, Ohio, where the citizens apparently dress mostly in chartreuse, mauve, orange, periwinkle, and turquoise, was a walk on the bright side.
John Lahr
Image
I was the first critic ever to win a Tony - for co-authoring 'Elaine Stritch at Liberty.' Criticism is a life without risk the critic is risking his opinion, the maker is risking his life. It's a humbling thought but important for the critic to keep it in mind - a thought he can only know if he's made something himself.
John Lahr
Image
When Elvis made his mass-media debut on 'The Ed Sullivan Show' - his notorious gyrations filmed only from the waist up - I fell off the family chaise longue with delight.
John Lahr
Image
Nobody has ever gone broke selling escape to the American public.
John Lahr
Image
I know in an existential sense that life can change on a dime ... something has instantly and inexorably changed in American life.
John Lahr
Image
First and foremost, I'd say my father, Bert Lahr ... gave me a love of theatre--its kinetic and emotional potential and its raffish backstage fun--and also set an artistic example of the importance of corrupting an audience with pleasure.
John Lahr
Image
The history of theatre is the history of first nights.
John Lahr
Image
In Britain, the theatre has traditionally been where the public goes to think about its past and debate its future. The formation of the National Theatre, at the Old Vic, near the South Bank, in 1963, institutionalized the symbolic importance of drama by giving it both a building and state funding.
John Lahr
Image
A prose writer never sees a reader walk out of a book for a playwright, it's another matter. An audience is an invaluable education. In my experience, theatre artists don't know what they've made until they've made it.
John Lahr
Image
Most of the people dishing out judgment have no working experience of the theatre, have not written a professional play, a sketch, or even a joke have never worked in a theatre, taken an acting class, or published any extended piece of work. They are creative virgins everything they know about theatre is book-learned and second-hand.
John Lahr