Harold Prince

Profession
Producer
Date of birth
January 30, 1928

Sayings and Quotes

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.
Harold Prince
Work Future You Succeed
Collaboration is just, really, a group of people getting in a room with their eye on a very similar prize and wanting to come out with the same show. The director, ultimately, is the guy in front of whom the buck stops. So, he has to have the courage to prevail. But, he has got to have a huge amount of respect for his collaborators.
Harold Prince
Respect Courage People Eye
Criticism is valuable... and self-congratulatory experiences are not.
Harold Prince
Criticism Valuable Experiences
Throwing money at something doesn't really create - forgive me that onerous word - art.
Harold Prince
Me Art Money Forgive
When I started producing, it was George Abbott directing and he would let me do the scenery. He just wanted to know where the doors were - the entrances, the exits; the tables, the props - and then I would hire the designer. I took charge of the visuals - scenery and costumes and so on. And, the shows looked wonderful.
Harold Prince
Me Doors Scenery Know
I really don't spend time thinking about the past. I think about the future. I'm not stopping.
Harold Prince
Future Time Thinking Past
One thing is certain: We can't go back. The musical will never be the same as it was.
Harold Prince
Back Never Will Go
I don't compare shows. It's very simple. I don't live in the past. If there's any secret to my longevity, it's living in the future. And a little bit in the present.
Harold Prince
Simple Future Past Live
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.
Harold Prince
Work You Responsibility Think
Audiences are very willing to be taken somewhere, and to ask an audience beforehand what it wants is probably, I think, a mistake. Much better you should tell them what you want and hope they agree with it.
Harold Prince
Hope Mistake You Think
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.
Harold Prince
Good You Think Problem
I'm just really trying to say what I really mean, which is: 'Your eye's on the prize, your eye's on the future. It's nice to know that a lot of wonderful things have happened to your life and that so much of it has been successful. That's great, but the work is really what makes it fun - and that has to be the future.'
Harold Prince
Life Work Future Great
I've never been able to understand where great artists come from.
Harold Prince
Great Understand Never Come
You can't just keep recycling revivals. And you can't keep betting on the efforts of guys like me who've been around. You have to take the next step and bet on the next generation.
Harold Prince
Me You Step Generation
Audiences are quite happy to be astonished, and they don't care who does that astonishing.
Harold Prince
Happy Care Who Quite
I've always loved Victorian melodrama. And I've always liked larger-than-life theater, providing it's truthful and honest. I like what the theater can provide in energy and bombast - I enjoy it when it's large, and by that I don't mean in size, I mean in emotions. Shakespeare did that.
Harold Prince
Enjoy Loved Energy Emotions
The truth of the matter is that I have lasted a long time, and with it comes both good and bad things. One of the good things is that no one can ever take my career away from me. No one can ever say, 'You can't be in the theater any more.'
Harold Prince
Good Me Time You
When I was a 25-year-old kid, I raised $260,000 for my first show, 'The Pajama Game,' in such a homemade, pathetic, endearing way - a buck here, a buck there.
Harold Prince
Game Way Kid Here
I feel so much more comfortable when I'm working on material which makes other people scratch their heads and ask, 'You're going to make a musical out of that?'
Harold Prince
You People Feel Comfortable

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