Play is a subset of voluntary behaviour involving a selective mechanism which reverses the usual contingencies of power so as to permit the subject a controllable and dialectical simulation of the moderately unmastered arousals and regulations of everyday life, in a way that is alternatively vivifying and euphoric.

Obviously VIA DOLOROSA is completely artificial. It is as highly wrought as any of my plays. But basically all the artifice is to disguise itself so you don't feel it's there. You're attempting to make the artifice like a pane of glass that simply leads you through to the subject - not to decorate the bloody glass.

It is as dangerous for people unaccustomed to handling words and unacquainted with their technique to tinker about with these heavily-charged nuclei of emotional power as it would be for me to burst into a laboratory and play about with a powerful electromagnet or other machine highly charged with electrical force.

1. Find your own style and have the courage to stick to it. 2. Choose your clothes for your way of life. 3. Make your wardrobe as versatile as an actress. It should be able to play many roles. 4. Find your happiest colours - the ones that make you feel good. 5. Care for your clothes, like the good friends they are!

Speaking about myself, I've been pleasantly surprised that my older plays are still being performed. Most important is that they still have something to say to today's audience, in particular the young people who enjoy my plays. That's the best I could hope for, that the plays aren't single-use products of one era.

He went out with a variety of women, slept with some of them, hated the whole meaningless process. Drinks, dinners, plays and concerts and gallery openings ... He grew to despise the rigid formality of dating, missed the easy familiarity of simply being with someone, sharing friendly silences and unforced laughter.

Human bodies are designed for regular physical activity. The sedentary nature of much of modern life probably plays a significant role in the epidemic incidence of depression today. Many studies show that depressed patients who stick to a regimen of aerobic exercise improve as much as those treated with medication.

I was really looking forward to doing the thing that I do - I basically appear just at the beginning and at the end of the 'The Glory of the World' play - but when I got to opening night, I started to get really sad that that was the last time I was going to see the play as a spectator without actually being in it.

I find that in California I can't find guys that have enough energy. They play a little bit and that's about it. They play less. If I start a tune and then the pianist has to solo, I am looking to everybody to get to a certain climate and then I come back in while the energy is up high. Somehow that doesn't happen.

Natural talent means to have the ability to transform, to evolve, to play and role-play with the photographer and the stylist. And really be an actress rather than just a mannequin. So that involves a tremendous amount of confidence and your ability to expose yourself to anything that will make a better photograph.

When I have a match to play, I begin to relax as soon as I wake up. Everything I do, I do slow and easy. That goes for stroking the razor, getting dressed, and eating my breakfast. I'm practically in slow motion. By the time I'm ready to tee off, I'm so used to taking my time that it's impossible to hurry my swing.

Dependent Origination is the teaching (that life) is not the mere play of blind chance, but has an existence that is dependent upon conditions. That, precisely with the removal of these conditions, those things that have arisen in dependence upon them-thus also all suffering-must perforce disappear and cease to be.

I find often in Hollywood there are many people who play themselves really beautifully. And certain parts are not that dissimilar from who you are as a person. And there are other parts where you would like to think that you have nothing in common with those characters, but you probably do have more than you think.

I've always wanted to be a DJ so I could play the music I love for other people. That feeling hasn't changed, but my sets are always evolving. In terms of tailoring to a specific crowd, certainly I do play differently depending on the situation. It's a different feel, for example, in a small club versus a festival.

I think people were not expecting us [with Robert Ben Garant] to, they were just like, "Well here come the writers," but we both were coming out of a sketch comedy background, so when we pitch a movie, we play every character in the film. You act it out, you perform it - you do a 10-minute performance of the movie.

There are these fantasies among people who watch movies where they're like, "Oh, there's a chemistry between them - something going on." And sometimes there is. But for me, it's more like, I go to work, I do a job, I play a role, and then I go home. I don't wear a cape at home. I'm not an invulnerable alien at home.

When you're working on a television show with actors, what you hope you're doing is playing jazz with them all the time. You see what they're giving you, so you try to write back to that, and then they play with that, and you get a sense of what is going on. That's just a natural way in which TV series usually work.

Before 9/11, I was playing a wide range of characters. I would play a lover, a cop, a father. As long as I could create the illusion of the character, the part was given to me. But after 9/11, something changed. We became the villains, the bad guys. I don't mind to play the bad guy as long as the bad guy has a base.

What most of us must be involved in--whether we teach or write, make films, write films, direct films, play music, act, whatever we do--has to not only make people feel good and inspired and at one with other people around them, but also has to educate a new generation to do this very modest thing: change the world.

Can we get back to how we’re going to kill Nick? And what’s this about a dead body? You’d better start talking quick, Ivy, ’cause I’m not going to play hide-and-seek with a dead guy in my trunk. I did that in college, and I’m not going to do it again.” A smile quirked Ivy’s mouth. “Really?” she asked, and I flushed.

Most of the time I sit down with my guitar or at the piano, and I play for awhile until I get a new riff or groove that I like a lot. Then I'll concentrate on building around that line of thought by adding words and textures. At first I'm only trying to please myself, and hopefully what I like will appeal to others.

Men whose only concern is other people's opinion of them are like actors who put on a poor performance to win the applause of people of poor taste; some of them would be capable of good acting in front of a good audience. A decent man plays his part to the best of his ability, regardless of the taste of the gallery.

Whatever it is, if you draw, you paint, you're a carpenter, you play football, the more you do it, you're a journalist, the more stories you write, the more people you interview and navigate your way through these different personalities to get your story, the better you're going to get at it. Acting's no different.

I've always been skeptical of people who say they lose themselves in a part. Someone once came up to Spencer Tracy and asked, "Aren't you tired of always playing Tracy?" Tracy replied, "What am I supposed to do, play Bogart?" You have to develop a style that suits you and pursue it, not just develop a bag of tricks.

Explaining belief has alwayas been difficult. How do you explain a love and a logic at the heart of the universe when the world is so out of whack? Explaining faith is impossible - vision over visibility - instinct over intellect - a songwriter plays a chore with the faith that he will hear the next one in his head.

Campaign finance and ethics reform only works if it curtails all special interest groups equally and does not carve out any exceptions to benefit one party or another. 'Pay to play' reform was passed to limit the influence of big spending contractors over the public officials from whom they are trying to obtain work.

Some bands blow it before they even play. The most important moment of any show is when a band walks out with the red amp lights glowing, the flashlight that shows each performer the way to his spot on the stage. It's crucial not to blow it. It sets the tempo of the show; it affects everyone's perception of the band.

I haven't deliberately set out to play the blonde bombshell in my movies. In fact, it's probably been quite the opposite. After the success of The Mask, I wasn't offered all that many blonde bombshell parts, to be honest. I think people believed from the beginning that I could actually walk and talk at the same time.

I spoke to Tom's [Hardy] manager and said, "While we're talking about Taboo, do you mind if I also mention this film project that I've got, which is called Locke, and I need Tom to play the lead." And we spoke about both in that meeting and in the end the deal was that I would do Taboo if he did Locke and vice versa.

We are not what we seem. We are more than what we seem. The actor knows that. And because the actor knows that hidden inside himself there's a wizard and a king, he also knows that when he's playing himself in his daily life, he's playing a part, he's performing, just as he's performing when he plays a part on stage.

Well, I'd never done an animated movie before, which is why I was so excited about doing it. It was one of the little boxes as an actor that I wanted to tick off. I wanted to do an animated film. So, after my mum got over the fact that I was never going to play Shrek's sister, this was the nearest I was going to get!

In 1600 the specialization of games and pastimes did not extend beyond infancy; after the age of three or four it decreased and disappeared. From then on the child played the same games as the adult, either with other children or with adults. . . . Conversely, adults used to play games which today only children play.

In ten minutes they will have arrived on campus. George will have to be George; the George they have named and will recognise. So now he consciously applies himself to thinking their thoughts, getting into their mood. With the skill of a veteran, he rapidly puts on the psychological makeup for this role he must play.

Generally, that's what happens-a fundamental rotting of the idea. They woke up with the wrong idea. It's just like music: If you don't have an innate love or calling for it, then no matter how much you study or how well you can play by looking at the score, it doesn't mean that you're going to make really good music.

I had another idea of getting a traveling medicine wagon with a dropdown side and traveling around England. That might sound crazy to you, but over there it's so rural you can do it. Just drop down the side and play through big battery amps and mixers and it can all be as temporary or as permanent as I want it to be.

If I have to describe the India-US relationship in a single word, I will say we are natural allies. I think the relationship between India and US, and the two countries in themselves, have played an enormously important role and continue to play an important role in strengthening democratic values all over the world.

I play these sort of comical instruments I invented, like the electric rake and the electric plunger. I do a lot of almost stand-up comedy material. Just the juxtaposition of the different styles in itself sometimes is funny. Like, I do sort of an acoustic version of 'Purple Haze' that has some bluegrass licks in it.

When you see all of the pandas in this movie [Kung Fu Panda 3], they are rolling because that is exactly what they do. Not only were we able to watch the pandas play but we had free range to walk around and get a feel for the architecture and get a sense of where they lived ,so there's a lot of firsthand exploration.

Oh my god, Jenny McCarthy is the coolest chick. She's the kind of girl you can play volleyball with and she's diggin' it out in the dirt. She's the girl that's playing softball - not worrying about breaking a nail. She's out there breaking nails and diving at second. And then, she's going to out-drink you at the bar.

I don't pretend to understand him, but I can enjoy him as a poet and comedian. I liked the idea of the eternal return. Sometimes I think that being on tour year after year is an eternal return; you play a certain club in Copenhagen and then ten years later you are back again, traveling the same roads year after year.

The play is really a kind of nightmare. It ought to flow rapidly and effortlessly from one moment to another. In London, we had difficulty with the set, which required too much effort to move around. Having gotten the benefit of seeing it done once, I wanted to work on the script, to make it sharper and more pointed.

I'm there [on Moana] with the other actors, so you play off one another. It's not just your idea of what the character is and what the world is like it would be in an animated [film], where it all sort of exists in your head. It's all right there, and if Diego's performance is doing what it's doing, it affects yours.

When I first was trying to play the clubs around Houston to start playing my own songs, songwriters like Eric Taylor and Vince Bell and Townes Van Zandt and Don Sanders were just really encouraging to me and would let me sit in with them during their sets and introduce me to the person that owned and booked the club.

Okay, I get kicked off the drums when I try and...the notes just keep coming at you and I'm like "Ahhhhh!" I can't do it. I have literally gotten booed off the stage way too many times. It's terrorizing. The rest of my band mates just are...they tell me to get off. I'm like, "I can play bass. Dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk."

I don't really look at other people's moves because, when I'm on the field, I'm not going to remember them. It's just something that has a lot to do with instinct and vision and all those running back aspects you have. You put them all into a basket, and you just use them on the field and go out there and make plays.

If someone else was in the room, I wouldn't feel comfortable doing what I wanted to do. I would try to play something that the other person or people would love or would like, at least. Nothing was true because I was not playing what I wanted, and they were not listening to anything that was coming from anywhere true.

Playing God is actually the highest expression of human nature. The urges to improve ourselves, to master our environment, and to set our children on the best path possible have been the fundamental driving forces of all of human history. Without these urges to ‘play God’, the world as we know it wouldn’t exist today.

It's really quite an interesting dynamic. I wanted to play to the truth of who Manute was in the first film, while it's also a prequel and the originator [of the story]. It was an interesting dynamic to work with, definitely. I haven't seen the film yet, but the way it felt when I was doing it, it felt like it worked.

The mind is the enemy of intuition, according to many New Age adherents, but I don't buy that. I look at everything in terms of polarities - two ends of the same continuum. Young/old, male/female, individuality/conformity, work/play, freedom/constraint, right/left, day/night, life/death, rational/emotional, and so on.

Acting is about giving something away, handing yourself over to whatever role you are asked to play. I'm not hiding or escaping or seeking anonymity. I reserve the right not to have a rubber stamp on my forehead saying this is who I am. Because who I am gets in the way of people looking innocently at the parts I play.

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