John Patrick Shanley
John Patrick Shanley
John Patrick Shanleyis an American playwright, screenwriter, and theatre and film director. His play Doubt: A Parable won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as the 2005 Tony Award for Best Play. He won the 1988 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for his film Moonstruck...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth3 October 1950
CountryUnited States of America
incredibly
'The Miracle Worker' is just such an incredibly powerful play on stage, and is so kinetic, and athletic.
amazed cloth corps man marine saw
I was in the Marine Corps in 1971. The idea 'Where does authority come from?' is fascinating to me. And also, the idea of a chaplain is fascinating to me because it's a man of the cloth in uniform, and it's the uniform of a killing machine. Back when I was in the Corps, when I saw that, I was amazed by it.
hang onto
I would say that my parents were intermittently proud of me. They couldn't hang onto it, you know? It would come and go, like the flu.
exciting goes great individual last money precisely
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.
adopted disease enamored five four involved rounds theater
I adopted two children, then I got eye disease and five rounds of surgery. I went blind in one eye, then the other eye, and that went on for three or four years. I got very enamored and involved with the theater and did a lot of plays.
names dear-god bigs
dear god, whose name i do not know. thank you for my life. i forgot... how BIG... thank you. thank you for my life.
couple reading eye
All plays stem from personal experience. I was reading psychoanalytic lit for a couple of years, obsessively, in depth, and I got involved in analyzing everyone around me. . . . Eventually, all my friends' eyes began to glaze over when I started talking this way, and I got the hint that there might be something comical in it.
writing people house
If you put someone in a room with no script to direct, they're just going to sit there. Writing scripts is the execution for a show. Then the director takes that and hires people. It's like trying to build a house without any bricks. You need a great script.
doubt
I have doubts! I have such doubts!
interesting challenges trying
Trying to lead an interesting life, a fruitful life, is a big challenge.
writing thinking people
When I write a screenplay - and I think this is true for a lot of people - you direct the movie. Thats what writing a screenplay is.
enough monogamy bulbs
Monogamy is like a 40-watt bulb. It works, but its not enough.
I'd like to thank everybody who ever punched or kissed me in my life and everybody who I ever punched or kissed.
nice winning lunch
Winning the Pulitzer is a really mellow, fabulous thing. You don't sit and wait for them to open an envelope. You already know you won, and you have a nice lunch. Oscars are more stressful. I had to sit for three hours and wait for my category. I had to fly to Los Angeles. For the Pulitzer I just had to go up to Columbia. But, while the president of Columbia gave me the Pulitzer, Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck gave me the Oscar, so that was better.