Playwriting is the last great bastion of the individual writer. It's exciting precisely because it's where the money isn't. Money goes to safety, to consensus. It's not individualism.
Interpretation
Playwriting represents a pure expression of individual creativity, flourishing in an environment that often shuns commercial gain.
In this quote, John Patrick Shanley highlights the unique position of playwriting as a form of art that allows writers to express their individual voices and perspectives. He contrasts the world of playwriting with other forms of writing where monetary gain often influences content, suggesting that true individualism can thrive in the relatively less lucrative field of theater, where artists can take risks and innovate without the pressure of conforming to popular consensus.
In practice
In a speech at a local theater festival, one might quote this to underscore the value of artistic integrity.
I am not a courageous person by nature. I have simply discovered that, at certain key moments in this life, you must find courage in yourself, in order to move forward and live. It is like a muscle and it must be exercised, first a little, and then more and more. All the really exciting things possible during the course of a lifetime require a little more courage than we currently have. A deep breath and a leap.
I think that certainty is a closed door, It's the end of the conversation. Doubt is an open door.
I started making work that I assumed would be far too garish, far too decadent, far too black for the world to care about. I, to this day, am thankful to whatever force there is out there that allows me to get away with painting the stories of people like me.
Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.
I equate composing with orchestrating. I think my music in terms of an orchestra.
Dai Vernon, the greatest sleight of hand figure in the history of the art, rarely performed. But he invented magic and had an enormous influence on the whole range of sleight of hand. And so often, the magic he was doing was to fool other magicians.
Photography in our time leaves us with a grave responsibility. While we are playing in our studios with broken flowerpots, oranges, nude studies and still lifes, one day we know that we will be brought to account: life is passing before our eyes without our ever having seen a thing.
I'm a storyteller who wants to tell untold, meaningful, universal stories in unforgettable ways. I want to do it all, study it all, and find my place in it.
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