Quotations: Volume 35

Here are some of the educational, inspirational, and humorous quotations from my classes and rehearsals this week:

(Disclaimer: quotations are often taken out of context and may not accurately reflect the way they were originally intended)


"Naughty, but that's how the theatre industry works. Lie, and make friends."
- Ella Hickson

"That sounds great! Come on in. Someone totally unreliable. That's exactly what we need."
- Tom (one of the actors in Eight), paraphrasing how he was hired for a job under ridiculous circumstances because of being an actor

"Put a lot of faith laterally in your own generation."
- Ella Hickson

"If you get enough people to say you're a good writer, then you're a good writer."
- Ella Hickson

Ella Hickson: Spend an unhealthy amount of time on the internet.
(the entire 2nd-year class looks at Angela)
Angela: Oh, I'm all over that one.

"There's no point to you impersonating what they already have two billion of."
- Ella Hickson, on why Americans shouldn't fake British dialects when auditioning in the UK

"[O.D.], your cues are very sluggish. What do I have to do? Should I bring in my cattle prod? I'll bring in my cattle prod. I save it for special cases."
- Acting Professoressa

"You are trying to raise the wretched child's confidence. You're bringing her up the evolutionary ladder a rung or two."
- Acting Professoressa, to Angela regarding Andromache's relationship with Hermione

"She doesn't know how to behave. She needs to go back to human school."
- Acting Professoressa, to Angela regarding Andromache's relationship with Hermione

"You are an intractable 'don't' 'not' jumper... onto."
- Acting Professoressa, to Angela

"The phrase is friend of mine. It is not friend of mine. Not 'your' friend as opposed to other people. Like Jimmy Carter's friend."
- Acting Professoressa

"I am [Acting Professoressa]. I am not Lucy Bananas who works down at Carr's making sandwiches."
- Acting Professoresa, demonstrating to O.D. how Peleus needed to be more declarative with his status

"When you're in grad school that's the first thing to go, is perspective."
- Acting Professoressa

"[Newbie], it's better, but there are some places where you're bleeding bitch. That's my phrase for when you're too knowing."
- Acting Professoressa

"I love sheep. They're so cute, but they smell funny. Have you ever smelled a sheep?"
- Two-Shots-Up

(when talking about decidedly non-school things at the top of class, someone mentioned not knowing what our schedule was for the week as a result of the Ringling International Arts Festival)
"I'd like to talk about this. Okay. There is class today. Despite what is happening right now."
- Voice Professor

(after a maintenance guy brought in a ladder to the Voice studio, saying he intended to remove the blue gels currently covering the fluorescent light that we can't turn off)
D-Train: I think we should burn his ladder.
Voice Professor: That's a hard thing to burn.
D-Train: Well, it has to disappear.

"I'm not quite sure that we needed more s*** in this room, either."
- Iceman, on the ladder that the maintenance guy had left adding to the clutter in the Voice studio from rehearsals of The Greeks and Mystery Plays

"I love what you've done with the piano, by the way. It just keeps getting better and better."
- Voice Professor, on how the piano in the Voice studio is currently covered with weird props from The Greeks

D-Train: I'm glad we didn't do scansion today. (beat) F*** scansion. (beat) That's a dactyl.
Voice Professor: (laughs) Yes, it is.

"There's a teacher in you. There's a tormentor in you. There's an imaginative sadist in you. [...] You have to be able to make a connection with, shall we say, your dark side in addition to your light side. And if someone comes up to me and says, 'I'm sorry, Ms. [Acting Professoressa], but I couldn't possibly imagine killing my mother,' then I'm sorry, but you can't be a classical actor."
- Acting Professoressa

"'I am a murderer.' It's a discovery. It's, 'Oh my God... I'm an Episcopalian.'"
- Acting Professoressa, explaining that one of Orestes' lines cannot be a statement even though it's a fact, because he's just now coming to terms with it

"See, yes, this is the problem I've been having. What level of gayness are we talking? Blow torch? Flame-thrower? Napalm? Just how flaming am I?"
- Big Show, on one of his characters in The Mystery Plays

"Delicious mountain air doesn't attack you; it hugs you."
- Director JW, to Newbie during Mystery Plays rehearsal

"You've got a pad and paper, good good, and you've got a tripod, and you've got a memory. We're all set up."
- Director JW, during Mystery Plays rehearsal

"When you gays were doing it, like, not gay at all, I was like, 'It's gayer!'"
- Newbie, about a scene in Mystery Plays between D-Train and Big Show

"Assume that everyone in the audience is a gay man. 'Oh! Men's Health! We know what that means, don't we.'"
- Head of Program, to D-Train during Mystery Plays rehearsal

"You straight boys have this problem: you think that smiling at people makes you look gay. It doesn't."
- Head of Program, to D-Train and Big Show during Mystery Plays rehearsal

"When I get sent to jail for murder, I gotsta take up visual art. It's either that, or take up bodybuilding and white supremacy, and I hate working out."
- Director JW, making a joke during Mystery Plays rehearsal


ETA:

"We have so many jokes. So many stupid jokes. And new ones every day. I would say, as a rule, if you don't have new stupid jokes every day, maybe you've gotta change up something."
- Mike from Elevator Repair Service, on how to survive as an ensemble

"Whoever refuses to go away."
- Kate, on who becomes a part of Elevator Repair Service