Theresa Rebeck

“Show business is a struggle. I certainly wish that I had just blasted on the scene and not had quite such a hard time. But there's a great sense of the relief in that you don't have to prove yourself anymore.”

“When I go to Ohio to visit relatives on holidays, I am often astonished by the level of casual dismissal offered up by way of discussion.”

“Generally, what I try to do is always have a money gig and an art gig.”

“Because I'm an American woman, and I write straight plays, it's always been sort of assumed I would never be done on Broadway. But that was never the goal.”

“Part of the problem with producing contemporary political theater in America today is that many theaters don't have flexibility or resources, be it hiring a lot of actors or staging a work that might be tough for some audience and board members.”

“Nothing sounds as crazy as telling people you're not crazy.”

“I had such a good experience doing 'The Understudy' with the Roundabout, and people were really enthusiastic about the work.”

“Does art have to have high foot traffic to get funded in a recession? A lot of people, I am sure, would say absolutely not. And those postmodern art-loving loners surely would argue that even if one person likes a piece of art, that would make a museum worthwhile.”

“I often find it maddening to live in America, in a way that is both amusing and horrifying to me. America clings to versions of itself that are absolutely hypocritical. I can't shake my outrage at it, so I write about it.”

“We have this powerful ideological basis to the country that I don't think any other country in the world quite can brag about. It's a very complicated nation, and it's very fertile.”

“I have two sensational kids who I have raised with my husband, hoping and working every day to help them become healthy, happy, and decent human beings.”

“I make my life with New York stage actors, and I love them. They're the best actors on planet earth.”

“I have a dog whose name is Banquo.”

“Some of my family goes back a long way in Denver.”

“The ridiculous way that workplace politics are conducted completely gets in the way of excellence in America.”

“I actually think we should be trying to be rigorous in our thinking about television and the way it enters our lives and shapes the way so many people think.”

“I write a lot because, if I don't, I start to panic, and I calm down when I write.”

“We need theatre that is contemporary, lively and relevant, and the only way to do that is to take care of our playwrights and produce their plays.”

“Heath Ledger's recent death, like that of River Phoenix, was handled with great care by the press. Anna Nicole Smith's not so much.”

“It's not my responsibility to write plays about the way the world should be.”