George C. Wolfe Quotes
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I pride myself on being available to as many people's stories as I possibly can.
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A music serves truth up to you in a really interesting way that allows you to luxuriate in its beauty and, at the same time, to hopefully see yourself in its fragility.
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In the early '90s or so, I drove my father to Providence, Ky., his hometown, and he was pointing out, 'That's where the doctor's office was,' and 'That's where we bought ice cream.' And he was pointing to empty lots. When you lose communities, what do you have? We often survive by remembering the stories.
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I think there's an aspect of my soul, of my personality, that's very suited to directing. I like being in the room with actors; I love creating a safe space and a chaotic space for the discovery to take place. I love creating a sense of community.
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The black experience, which has nothing to do with my play 'Angels in America,' allowed me to understand the Mormon character. He was the character that couldn't come out to his mother. It allowed me to understand emotional and closeted behavior, because you're so acutely aware of how you're perceived.
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The rules I sort of live by for my theater career, which I hope to live for my film career, is that if there's something that intrigues me or fascinates me, or I don't know how to do it, then I should do it.
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I personally am a very big fan of 'Romeo + Juliet.' It had a visceral power to it that I thought was just exhilarating. It was a very arresting and very disturbing and deeply compelling version of the play.
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1985 - That was my time in New York, and I have such poetic, fond memories.
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The worst thing when you're working is to say, 'I have a question,' and the other person goes, 'No! This is what it is.' That kind of rigidity is very challenging because musicals are constantly mutating.
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Racists are deficient as human beings.
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Every single wave, when I was overwhelmed and poor and struggling in New York, there were these extraordinary people in New York who said, 'Come this way.'
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The hardest thing about a musical is making sure everybody is working on the same damn show. That is the monster.
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One of the things I learned very early on was that if you cast the show correctly, and if you've created the right energy in the room, the solution is also in the room. The solution doesn't necessarily come from someone, but if everybody is working in a very steadfast and rigorous way, then everything you're looking for is in the room.
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Surviving failure is one thing. Surviving success is... is challenging, with the consequences and what you lose along the way.
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Ultimately, theatre is about creating a sense of wonder, and I think wonder is achieved not by a kind of wide-eyed silliness but by being available to that which is most unknown, inside the material and inside yourself.
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I'm convinced whenever something opens on Broadway, it's a miracle. It's a miracle that people survived.
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When I was little, I remember rehearsing starving so that when I got to New York I would know how to do it.
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Most musicals are informed by very rigid archetypes. If you get a very sophisticated mind writing them, you sense something else, but it's a folk-art form, really, at its best. At different times, I've tried to push against it as much as I possibly could, but ultimately, it is a folk-art form.
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To want to come to New York, you have to have a sense of wonder about the world and a foolish sense of worth about yourself. And I, too, had both of those things.
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When 'Jelly's' went out on tour, no one really wanted it. It was undersold. And I knew if I gave 'Noise' to someone else, they would sell it as 'Stomp' with little dancing black boys.
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I'm perpetually interested by living in places as an artist confronting challenges I've never confronted before and approaching them with as much craft and humanity as I can.
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I was raised to believe that other people's suffering was my responsibility.
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I could program a 'fabulous, I love it' kind of hit season right now. I'm more interested in breaking boundaries, telling a story, defying a truth that has been accepted.
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I'm more attracted to art that smashes than I am attracted to art that sits on a shelf and is beautiful.