Audience Quotes by David Mamet

My greatest fear is that the audience will beat me to the punch line.

— David Mamet

The audience perceives only what the actor wants to do to the other actor.

— David Mamet

As long as the protagonist wants something, the audience will want something.

— David Mamet

The audience requires not information but drama.

— David Mamet

If you find that a point cannot be made without narration, it is virtually certain that the point is unimportant to the…

— David Mamet

It's hard to write a good play because it's hard to structure a plot. If you can think of it off the…

— David Mamet

Art is an expression of joy and awe. It is not an attempt to share one's virtues and accomplishments with the audience,…

— David Mamet

Forget narrative, backstory, characterisation, exposition, all of that. Just make the audience want to know what happens next.

— David Mamet

Make the audience wonder what's going on by putting them in the same position as the protagonist.

— David Mamet

If the scene bores you when you read it, rest assured it WILL bore the actors, and will then bore the audience,…

— David Mamet

The audience will teach you how to act and the audience will teach you how to write and to direct. The classroom…

— David Mamet

Consider: for all the gobbledegook [film studio] executives spout about backstory, all that we, the audience, want to know is what happens…

— David Mamet

Anyone can write five people trapped in a snowstorm. The question is how you get them into the snowstorm. It's hard to…

— David Mamet

A stage play is basically a form of uber-schizophrenia. You split yourself into two minds - one being the protagonist and the…

— David Mamet

Acting is not a genteel profession. Actors used to be buried at a crossroads with a stake through the heart. Those people's…

— David Mamet