Playwriting is the last great bastion of the individual writer. It's exciting precisely because it's where the money isn't. Money goes to safety, to consensus. It's not individualism.
Interpretation
Playwriting represents a pure expression of individual creativity, flourishing in an environment that often shuns commercial gain.
In this quote, John Patrick Shanley highlights the unique position of playwriting as a form of art that allows writers to express their individual voices and perspectives. He contrasts the world of playwriting with other forms of writing where monetary gain often influences content, suggesting that true individualism can thrive in the relatively less lucrative field of theater, where artists can take risks and innovate without the pressure of conforming to popular consensus.
In practice
In a speech at a local theater festival, one might quote this to underscore the value of artistic integrity.
I am not a courageous person by nature. I have simply discovered that, at certain key moments in this life, you must find courage in yourself, in order to move forward and live. It is like a muscle and it must be exercised, first a little, and then more and more. All the really exciting things possible during the course of a lifetime require a little more courage than we currently have. A deep breath and a leap.
I think that certainty is a closed door, It's the end of the conversation. Doubt is an open door.
If the King loves music, it is well with the land.
I have learned that there lies dormant in the souls of all men a penchant for some particular musical instrument an an unsuspected yearning to play on it, which are bound to wake up an demand attention someday. Therefore you who rail at such that disturb your slumbers with unsuccessful and demoralizing attempts to subjugate a guitar, beware! For sooner or later your own time will come.
When I wrote my fictional novels, they always had a starting point of something real. Those images that are not real are exactly the same strength and power of the real ones, and the line between them is completely blurred.
Acting is mostly about listening. If you just focus in on what the other person is saying, acting takes care of itself to quite a large extent.
I have had the good fortune of being able to sing with many of the finest voices in the world, and for someone who loves voices as I do, this is an enormous privilege.
I'm a witch woman--high on tobacco and holy water. I'm a woman delighted with her disasters. They give me something to do. A profession of sorts...I have the magic of words. The power to charm and kill at will.
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