The thought of someone spending $20 to come and see me and saying, 'Oh, I prefer the record and she's completely shattered the illusion' really upsets me. It's such a big deal that people come give me their time.
AdeleRead
A playwright must be his own audience. A novelist may lose his readers for a few pages; a playwright never dares lose his audience for a minute.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A playwright must constantly engage his audience, unlike a novelist who can afford to lose reader attention temporarily.
This quote highlights the critical importance of audience engagement in the art of playwriting. Unlike novelists, who have the luxury of capturing their readers' attention over longer periods, playwrights must maintain the focus and interest of their audience continuously throughout the performance, since a live audience is directly experiencing the story in real time.
Themes
PlaywrightAudienceEngagementTheaterPerformance
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the challenges of theater compared to literature.
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