George C. Wolfe Quotes
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Commercial theater, in its agenda to appeal to everybody, is often at the expense of the unique vision of the artist.
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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 interested in exploring how an individual maintains a sense of power in a world that tends to make individuals feel powerless.
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Producing has empowered me as an artist in a specific way. It's forced a certain kind of maturity.
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Theater, at the end of the day, is about ideas. It's about very large ideas. And if the play is beautifully written or smartly written and has incredible characters you follow on the journey, you take home these larger ideas. Whether it's 'Angels in America' or 'Lucky Guy' or 'Normal Heart,' you follow this moment-to-moment journey as an audience.
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I absolutely love working on musicals, but anytime I finish a project, I want to move on to something completely different.
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I'm the most democratic fascist you'll ever meet. I listen to everybody, and then I make a decision.
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It may take a while, but I think 'On the Town' has the potential for us to break down the boundaries between the traditional theatergoer who may have fond memories of the musical and those with a 'Broadway-is-not-for-me' agenda.
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I viewed black musicals before 'Jelly' as a form of cultural strip mining. The exterior remained, but all the culture that signified where the people had come from and their connection to the earth was absent.
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Growing up in the South, I was raised to be a Negro boy. I was acutely aware how other people perceived me, and that informed my behavior. That worked for a period of time, but it could also be suffocating.
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There are a lot of people who will tell you I'm very ruthless. I'm very fierce. If I feel I'm right, if I feel I've been violated, then I am like a warrior from hell!
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To me, 'Show Boat' was the first American musical, the first to have the real texture of this country.
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All the things that can happen to an artist regardless of how prepared they are and how smart they are and hard-working they are and attractive - doesn't matter. There's always somebody cuter. There just is.
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The best of any artist is in their art.
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Everybody wants to be remembered for the best of who they are.
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I love working with a set designer because, in many respects, you meet the set designer before you meet the actors. So it's a chance for me as a director to figure out what I'm thinking and to explore how the space is going to actually be activated.
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On different projects, different pieces of you will show up. Sometimes it's surprising which piece shows up.
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There is a real affection for these human beings on these stage that O'Neill really had. Out of that affection comes a lot of humor, which is unexpected when you think of 'The Iceman Cometh.'
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I like to knock down walls and allow others to enter.
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I feel like I'm edgy and I'm funny and I got this bite, this outrageousness.
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When I was on dialysis, I willed myself to do 'On the Town.' It accesses my most childlike, joyful love of theater.
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A musical is what happens when text collides with motion collides with song collides with spectacle. And spectacle can be the human heart; it doesn't necessarily have to be a helicopter crashing.
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I feel like I've been very blessed in the sense that I've had the veracity of spirit to not be stopped and, at the same time, the protective energy and the generosity of those who have come before me, who saw something inside of me and, therefore, invited me into rooms that I would not have been inside of otherwise.
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I really don't find revivals very interesting because I like new work a lot. I feel like if you're going to pay me, then let me do what I do and let me try to solve some problems. Let me try to make something fly. Why would I do something that everybody has already done the hard work on? But that's me. Tons of people do revivals really well.