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James Lapine

43 quotes in 173 categories

[Wikipedia] James Elliot Lapine is an American stage director, playwright, screenwriter, and librettist. He has won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical three times, for Into the Woods, Falsettos, and Passion, as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Sunday in the Park with George. He has frequently col

Quotes by James Lapine

I am an off-Broadway, nonprofit kind of guy.

Am

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Most musicals are real crowd pleasers.

Crowd

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Fairy tales, which teach a moral lesson, are about ourselves. Myth deals with forces greater than ourselves.

About

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I really enjoyed writing the adaptation of 'Into The Woods.' I thought it was wonderful to not be the director, frankly. I…

Director

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I'm a hippie child of the '60s. What drives me crazy about mass media entertainment is that it's so often devoid of…

Children

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I'm a very laid-back person.

Person

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I'm never so into the three-act movie thing. I know that's the form that people talk about, but it seems to me,…

Forward

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I just don't really think of career. I've never been driven by career.

Been

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Good musicals, a strange world, seem so easy. People say, 'Ohhh, it's magic.' Nothing's magic. A thing doesn't jell. Adapt. Change the…

Change

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I did 'Impromptu,' which was a thrill and a horror all at once - my first movie and having to do it…

Adventure

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I designed a theater magazine that was full of plays and essays about the theater, and then I worked at a theater…

Being

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I love the visual aspect of the theater. But I like what people have to say, too.

I love

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I've grown more and more appreciative of good writing, and I now really hope I can become a better and better writer.

Better

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If you're like me and nosy, you're always eavesdropping on other people's conversations.

Always

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The music is the emotional substance of the show; the book just sets it up. Nobody goes to a musical to hear…

Book

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I don't do movie junket-y things, because I don't really do movies that much.

Movie

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Something I like to do is watch someone else do their thing.

Like

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I love photography... I'd like to write a show about photography.

I love

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The nice thing about the theatre is you can always change it. With a movie, once it's there, you're stuck with it.

Always

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I was a youngish man entering fatherhood when we wrote 'Woods,' a patchwork of classic fairy tales with an original tale sewn…

Daughter

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Sometimes good news is hard to absorb.

Good

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The one thing you don't want to do is go off and keep rewriting. If something's not quite right, it's often about…

Go

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I'm drawn to dreams.

Drawn

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We live in an era of reinvention: Madonna and everybody desperately trying to change their persona.

Change

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I'd like to just say that there's nothing darker than 'Old Yeller' and 'Bambi' and some of the early Disney stuff.

Darker

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