Quote of the Day (Terrence McNally, on Why People Go to the Theater)

“I believe that people’s nervous systems are more open to emotion in the theater with their fellow human beings. When a play is going well, the audience breathes as one. They stop breathing. They breathe together because they're getting this from other live people. And that doesn’t happen watching Netflix. You talk during it. The phone rings. People are in the theater for one reason: to hear this story and meet the people in it. That’s a human need. If you want to change minds, write a great editorial for the Op-Ed page. But if you want to get people to feel differently, reach them through the theater.”—Tony Award-winning playwright Terrence McNally, quoted in Philip Galanes, “‘The Fierce Need to Matter’: A Conversation With Terrence McNally,” T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Apr. 14, 2019

(Photo of Terrence McNally taken Nov. 11, 2013, at an event in New York City by ReadingReed43.)