Harold Prince Quotes

The musical has always been in jeopardy - until - or was in jeopardy until it was realised that it is probably the safest living theatre art form.

I don't look back. I look forward and plan new shows. That's really feeding the most important part of working in the theater.

Audiences are quite happy to be astonished, and they don't care who does that astonishing.

I got successful awfully quick, and I wanted it... But I do think there is responsibility to move the musical theater form forward. I think you always have to be aware of the work that came before and build on that.

I have a terrible memory because I'm not interested in the past. It's done, it's done.

A star may guarantee business, but the tradeoff is a very short run.

I was there when the quote-unquote golden age of musical theater was flourishing. I met everybody who worked in theater or was famous in theater from the '40s on.

Criticism is valuable... and self-congratulatory experiences are not.

It's a terrible shame if you're born the brightest guy in your class. If you're not, then you have to hustle-and that's good.

I wouldn't want to be just pigeonholed as an extravagant director.

The idea that I have to be on the same side of the fence as Dan Quayle is cruelly depressing to me, but the truth is, I believe in family values.

I'm always glad to see somebody rethink something rather than reproduce something I did.

We've got to find a way to protect the process of making musical theater.

The perfect expression of receiving a lifetime award is to be working when they're handing it out.

Most of the big money people don't know what would interest an audience if you did it. They only know what interested the audience last time.

Despite the successes, you remember the failures - rather lovingly.

You think, 'Musicals, they must always be romantic' - You'd be surprised how few of them historically have ever been romantic.

I would like to see more new productions of new material by new composers/lyricists/book writers. I would like to see people take more chances. I think because everything costs so much they're not taking the chances they used to.

I'm a pragmatic man. I'll veer on the dangerous side, because I love dangerous subjects, but I won't shoot a show in the foot.

I saw 'On The Town' about nine times. I discovered it. I loved it. I was in college.

I was nine. I saw Orson Welles in 'Julius Caesar.' It was involving, emotional, imaginative. I've never forgotten it.

The idea is to work and to experiment. Some things will be creatively successful, some things will succeed at the box office, and some things will only - which is the biggest only - teach you things that see the future. And they're probably as valuable as any of your successes.

Artistic self-indulgence is the mark of an amateur. The temptation to make scenes, to appear late, to call in sick, not to meet deadlines, not to be organized, is at heart a sign of your own insecurity and at worst the sign of an amateur.

I like to do everything you can possibly do before you go into rehearsal, because once we are in rehearsal or on the stage there will be a problem I didn’t anticipate. It’s really good to think we got it all nailed - of course you’ve never got it all nailed.

I don't like abrasion while I'm working. I don't thrive on chaos. I enjoy what I'm doing, and it seems to work better when I am enjoying it.

Nothing is staged exactly as it was, because I can't remember - and I consider that an advantage.

I always had a good time in theatre, even when shows don't turn out as well as I'd like.

I remember when people actually wore coats and ties to theatre every night. They don't anymore. It's very different.

There are wonderful composers and librettists out there. It's the lack of creative producers that is troubling.

I don't think there's a defined contemporary American musical, do you?

It's nice to stay up nights worrying about the material, and not about the investors who gave you $10 million to do your musical.

What's missing in the musical theater is producers willing to nurture new work, raise the money and put it on.

The truth is, for some absurd reason, no one is willing to admit that the interests of the producers and the theater owners are not the same.

Producers want to put their music behind revivals but I don’t think that’s a good trend for the theater at all.

I'm crazy about Dublin. If you went back 3,000 years in my ancestry you wouldn't find a drop of Irish blood in the veins, but I love the place.

I didn't go into the theater to be a producer, I went into the theater to be a director.

I love big, bold, truthful theater - the tradition of Victorian theater.

When I was a producer, the fun of the show was waking up with a hit and enjoying the period after the show opens. The fun of a director stops the day it opens. No matter if it's a success or a failure, it's not a whole lot of fun anymore.

I really wish people - maybe it's naive - wish people had priorities and were willing to be artistic patrons.

I really don't spend time thinking about the past. I think about the future. I'm not stopping.

I've never been able to understand where great artists come from.

I've seen a lot of 'Show Boats,' but I've never seen the one that thoroughly satisfies me.