From kings to groundlings, Shakespeare made his work profound for everybody. That is how it should be. There is no hierarchy in theatre. It makes everyone part of a collective. Lee Hall Read Quote
The theatre has always been voraciously omnivorous. Dramatists have always raided every medium to find grist to their mill: myths, folk tales, newspapers, novels, films, works of art of all kinds. Lee Hall Read Quote
In many ways, theatre is more rewarding for a writer. I used to think it was like painting a wall – that when the play is finished, it’s done – but now I realise it’s more like gardening; you plant the thing, then you have to constantly tend it. You’re part of a thing that’s living. Lee Hall Read Quote
I come from a tradition where the writer writes a play for the actors, rather than for himself, and the dialogue is made to work onstage, so it needs actors to help shape it. So you never get a play right straightaway. Lee Hall Read Quote
The point of theatre is transformation: to make an extraordinary event out of ordinary material right in front of an audience’s eyes. Where the germ of the idea came from is pretty much irrelevant. What matters to every theatre maker I know is speaking clearly to the audience ‘right now.’ Lee Hall Read Quote
In a way, ‘Billy Elliot’ was autobiographical. I can’t dance, but I think his dancing was me discovering about writing and literature. Lee Hall Read Quote
I only tend to think of the week ahead, to keep my eye on the ball and question whether a full stop is in the right place. It’s easy to get distracted by the wrong things. If you start thinking of grand gestures, it’s going to be a lot of hot air. You have to be logical. The theatre is a very logical place. Lee Hall Read Quote
Whether you are a writer or an actor or a stage manager, you are trying to express the complications of life through a shared enterprise. That’s what theatre was, always. And live performance shares that with an audience in a specific compact: the play is unfinished unless it has an audience, and they are as important as everyone else. Lee Hall Read Quote
I always call ‘Billy Elliot’ a fantasy autobiography because I never wanted to be a dancer, but I got a lot of stick from the other kids about wanting to be a writer and being interested in drama. Lee Hall Read Quote
Culture is something that we all share, and we are all the poorer for anyone excluded from it. Lee Hall Read Quote
