A good actor always sets you straight. If you've written a false moment and thought it was probably pretty great, the actor's gonna show you when he gets to that moment. They're the great test of the validity of the material.
Sam ShepardRead
When you write a play, you work out like a musician on a piece of music. You find all the rhythms and the melody and the harmonies and take them as they come.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing a play is a creative process similar to composing music, where one discovers various elements like rhythm and harmony.
In this quote, Sam Shepard illustrates the art of playwriting by comparing it to music composition. Just as a musician discovers rhythms, melodies, and harmonies, a playwright finds the essential elements of their story as it develops, suggesting that creativity involves a natural exploration of ideas and emotions integrated into the narrative.
Themes
PlaywritingMusicRhythmCreativityTheater
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on playwriting, a teacher quoted Shepard to inspire students about the creative process.
More from Sam Shepard
All quotes →I stay away from heavy-handed stuff, the good guy and the bad guy. It just doesn't interest me; all it does is create more fences between people, I think.
Sam ShepardRead
I hate endings. Just detest them. Beginnings are definitely the most exciting, middles are perplexing and endings are a disaster. … The temptation towards resolution, towards wrapping up the package, seems to me a terrible trap. Why not be more honest with the moment? The most authentic endings are the ones which are already revolving towards another beginning. That’s genius.
Sam ShepardRead
There are places where writing is acting and acting is writing. I'm not so interested in the divisions. I'm interested in the way things cross over.
Sam ShepardRead
Democracy's a very fragile thing. You have to take care of democracy. As soon as you stop being responsible to it and allow it to turn into scare tactics, it's no longer democracy, is it? It's something else. It may be an inch away from totalitarianism.
Sam ShepardRead
On stage, you're not limited at all because you're free in language: language is the source of the imagination. You can travel farther in language than you can in any film.
Sam ShepardRead
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His laughter tinkled among the teacups.
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