Show business is a struggle. I certainly wish that I had just blasted on the scene and not had quite such a hard time. But there's a great sense of the relief in that you don't have to prove yourself anymore.
Theresa Rebeck
When people tell me I'm a prolific writer, it's a nice thing to say. But I think to myself, 'Yeah, but I don't do anything else.'
Generally, what I try to do is always have a money gig and an art gig.
Some of my family goes back a long way in Denver.
In America, the average playwright makes less than a receptionist in a non-profit theatre. We don't have decent health insurance - or any health insurance at all.
I do believe that there are monsters out there - and that they are monsters.
My son is a musician who next year will be attending the LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts in New York City, which his mother helped him get into by making him practice all the time.
I write a lot because, if I don't, I start to panic, and I calm down when I write.
I have huge admiration for Jesus Christ and for his incredible compassion for all people.
Art is great. At its best, it engages the intellect and challenges the spirit; it connects us across history and reminds us of our humanity.
I think it goes without saying that young would-be playwrights in developmental workshops should be so lucky as to write plays as good as 'Waiting for Godot,' 'Uncle Vanya' or 'King Lear,' none of which would have existed without a decent plot.
I was born and raised in the Midwest, where people were taught that decency and integrity and community were all important values. We were democrats with a little 'd.'
We have this powerful ideological basis to the country that I don't think any other country in the world quite can brag about. It's a very complicated nation, and it's very fertile.
There's a thing that happens to Midwesterners - we spend a lot of time talking about having a different set of rules about manners. I don't know about ethics, but certainly about manners, what you would say and what you wouldn't say. And that is not very East coast.
I like to write. Prolific is part of who I am.
I like working with television. I do.
The economics of theater are painful. I still think that the theater community should be looking much more rigorously at how to let the playwright keep the money they make.
I think, with most writers, their neurosis is finishing things. I have a different neurosis. I'm terribly anxious when it's not finished. Then I become really difficult to live with.
When I go to Ohio to visit relatives on holidays, I am often astonished by the level of casual dismissal offered up by way of discussion.
Sometimes I feel that my job on earth is to put Julie White through horrible things, watch her writhe and then recover.
Watching people toss all caution to the wind, who are ready to put their lives on the line for a dream, is something that is accessible.
The stage gives you more control over your own work; in television, there's a distressing amount of communal writing. Unless it's your show, you have no control over that. You're at the mercy of whoever's running the show.
I see how the Midwest distrusts the East Coast. The Midwest sees itself as morally superior. The Coast sees itself as intellectually superior. And the two are actually the same thing.
There are times when I wonder how I ever thought that I could dramatize the death of a national discussion as a family comedy.
I have always worked consistently, even in small ways and even in smaller theaters where I'll do One Acts or something.
Moliere and Arthur Miller affected me at a very young age. In adulthood, I became overwhelmed by Chekhov. Those are my big theatrical influences.
I am curious about a lot of things. I'm perplexed and engaged.
The movies are all about visual, and television is all about character and dialogue.
Theater can be elusive and poetic, but it doesn't thrive when it doesn't reach an audience.
In television, what you are doing is trying to fit your voice into a particular mold.
I let action rise out of character, really.
One thing I won't do in television is a sitcom. I find that world to be so neurotic and bizarre.
It's not my responsibility to write plays about the way the world should be.
Spielberg read the 'Understudy' and decided that was the voice he wanted to write 'Smash.' He wanted a story that had humanity and humor and high-stakes dreams.
I have admiration for people who can do it well - the guys who wrote 'Cheers' and 'Frasier.' They created sort of a blissful comedic universe.
I find a lot of input from other people very stressful.
I think we have a cultural difficulty with looking at our problems.
I'm not ashamed of being American; I'm very proud.
Why is being a female having an agenda any more than being a misogynist - which David Mamet most certainly is?
I think it's straight men who are oblivious to goodness or badness to dates. That's probably unfair. Maybe they just don't complain as much.
The ridiculous way that workplace politics are conducted completely gets in the way of excellence in America.
I had such a good experience doing 'The Understudy' with the Roundabout, and people were really enthusiastic about the work.
I sincerely believe that for the New York theatre to remain relevant, all our major producing institutions should be presenting new American plays.
A lot of times, I think people feel that new plays are suspect, and actually, I don't know where that came from. I completely disagree with it!
I think new plays are vastly more surprising and challenging and inspiring; I hear from audiences all the time that they are delighted when they see plays about the world we live in now, at this moment.
The audience just doesn't care. They are just as interested in women-centric stories as they are in stories about men.
Everyone pays lip service to this whole idea of doing more new plays, and nobody ever does it.
People kept saying, 'You've made it!' and I was like, 'What have I been doing all this time?' I've always felt successful.
Because I'm an American woman, and I write straight plays, it's always been sort of assumed I would never be done on Broadway. But that was never the goal.
There are so many people from many different classes and ways of life who converge in one space to make a musical.
