George C. Wolfe Quotes
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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.
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As a person of color, I was trained from very early on to see 'Leave It to Beaver,' 'Gilligan's Island,' or 'Hamlet' and look beyond the specifics of it - whether it be silly white people on an island or a family living in Nowheres or a Danish person - to leap past the specifics and find the human truths that have to do with me.
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I like to knock down walls and allow others to enter.
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I love and I'm intrigued by what history does to people and to subjects that matter.
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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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One thing I tend to do is ask actors tons and tons of questions to try to get at what they're thinking but also to expose to them whatever box they've placed their characters in - to blow up that box so the journey can begin.
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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 don't go, like, 'Hmm, I'm now going to create something for the black community.' I just feel this compelling urge. I just feel myself drawn to stories that I feel have a potency and immediacy.
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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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A lot of directors tend to manipulate actors' vulnerability to get what they want, and that can work.
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Certain events make people come out of their little boxes and become part of the whole.
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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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Generally, the realm in which black playwrights have been allowed to achieve success has been social realism or musicals.
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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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Always, when I do a play, there's got to be an equation of risks and potential failure. When you're working on a new play, it's like, 'How the hell do I do this, and do we have the time?' All of these huge questions engage, hopefully, the smartest part of me. And then when you're doing a revival, I went, 'Well, somebody's already solved it.'
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Confidence comes in going on personal journeys in a public arena and feeling as though you have a right to do that. You have to give yourself permission to discover what you need to discover and not worry about how pretty the journey is. If you're aware of the pretty, you're not going to dig into the mess.
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You adjust what you do depending on the actor. You evolve a vocabulary and a way of language and talking with each actor.
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The wonderful thing about theater is that it has so many people involved in the creation of it. The worst thing about theater is that it has so many people involved in the creation of it. That dynamic is thrilling and challenging every time you make a show.
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You've got to make the rehearsal room very safe. You can't bully people, because if you bully people, they're going to freeze and lock up.
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At the end of the day, 'Shuffle Along' is about people coming together and making something extraordinary - and history not necessarily being kind to them. It's about the love of necessarily being kind to them. It's about the love of doing, regardless of the consequences.
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Every play is rhythmic control. If you want an audience to go on a journey, it's rhythmic control. You're crafting when they lean in, when they push back, when they breathe, when they surrender.
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Broadway was very vital back in the '20s. There were probably close to hundreds of productions that opened up through the course of the year and through the course of a Broadway season.
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I've always tried to do shows in a filmic way. I like it when forms smack up against each other.
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If you love theatre, do theatre wherever you can, because theatre is theatre, and you can experience it anywhere.