One of the paradoxes of acting is that repetition is essential, but repetition is deadly. A play may run for weeks, months, or years. The actor says the same words, crosses to the same places, picks up the same glass, opens the same door. Yet the audience must never feel they are watching something repeated. More importantly, the actor must never feel it. The challenge is to play the same scene for the first time, every time. [more]

A great costume doesn’t decorate a performance. It makes decisions before the actor does. It tells the body where to hold tension, how much space to take up, what to hide, what to flaunt, whether to sit, slouch, glide, stomp or vanish into wallpaper. A corset can create pride or panic. Bad shoes can invent a limp. A too-tight jacket can make a character irritable before the first line lands. [more]

There’s a specific kind of silence that only happens after theatre. Not applause. Not the rustle of coats or the scramble toward parking garages. The other silence — the one that arrives later, when you’re home and brushing your teeth and suddenly realize someone fictional is still standing in the room with you. [more]