Stephen Karam Quotes

I think 'Speech & Debate' surprised people because it's a play about teenagers that took the teenagers very seriously. They are very real. People wanted to see if they identified with one of the kids, that loneliness, that yearning for something bigger. That feeling of being stuck, it's very adolescent, but those kinds of feelings linger on.
I think that I'm going to write a bigger thing, and then I end up writing about people, and the bigger thing recedes into the background, and hope that it's still there.
I think the best directors aren't afraid to ask questions.
I was not exposed to a lot of culture. The shows we saw in high school, like 'Phantom of the Opera' and 'Miss Saigon,' were thrilling. But my love affair with theater started with seeing a production of 'Little Shop of Horrors' that my sister was in.
I was sending off my plays almost like an 8-year-old would send letters to Santa Claus. So it was a bit of a miracle when the Blank Theatre Company actually called and selected a terrible little play that I wrote.
I was talking to so many teenagers for so long that I started to feel like, 'I have my own story I want to tell, and I need to do it soon.' So I started to store away pieces that eventually became 'Speech & Debate.' I felt this burning need to write it while I still had not only all of the ideas but the passion to do it.
I was the worst-dressed person in Scranton. I was a total nerd. Obviously, I got picked on, but I was also able to find my own cluster of friends, and I think when that happens, you get by just fine.
I worry that I will lose control over the projects I get to work on.
If there's ever a moment when I am an Anglophile, it's when I see so many theatres in this country that have what I would call federal funding.
If you fail on your own terms, that's a pretty good way to go down.
I'm drawn to writers with skill sets I don't have.
In terms of smaller changes over time, I think good plays are like poems. Every syllable counts. So I wrestle with word choice, rhythm in final drafts.
In writing 'The Humans,' I obsessed over the financial district and the architecture.
I've always viewed 'Sons of the Prophet' as the first part of a larger trilogy - not three plays dependent on each other but three stand-alone plays connected by theme and, likely, further adventures of the Douaihy family.
Janet Carroll and Robert Pine, Chris Pine's dad, were in my first play, and they were so astonishingly good, I felt it raised my game instantly.
My own journey as a writer has been the discovery of different theatrical voices. Chekhov was a revelation. Tennessee Williams was another one. We read 'The Glass Menagerie' in high school, and I still remember the cover.
Sometimes you realize you don't give people in your hometown enough credit.
'Sons of the Prophet' is a dark comedy about human suffering. The play explores the particularly messy portions of life - the times where you find yourself coping with multiple life issues, and before any of them can be resolved, two more show up on your plate. We've all been there, I'd wager.
That the best piece of art a person is capable of making is the one that only they could create.
The best thing about being nominated in a category like best new play is realizing there were enough new plays to make a category.
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