George C. Wolfe Quotes
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I think I am the first person of color to direct a major white play on Broadway. In 1993? That's astounding to me. And horrifying to me.
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Our lives are connected in ways we can't imagine. They're connected even before we know they're connected.
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Each actor, every single time you work with an actor, you have to come up with the language that's going to serve them. And that's what allows them to give the performance that you want to nurture inside of them and what you think they're capable of giving.
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In Los Angeles, wealth and poverty are separated by the freeways. In New York, they're next to each other.
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My absolutely favorite time of working on a project is the time I spend not knowing what it is. Because the longer you live inside that period, the likelier you are to discover something new.
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I love Kabuki, Noh theater and bunraku.
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I love working with actors who will just go, 'Oh O.K., let's try it and see where it goes,' and 'Let's see what we can discover.'
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It's easier to be cynical and edgy and tough rather than overly emotional.
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There is a strange kind of parental pride when 'Topdog' ends up on Broadway, or 'Elaine Stritch.'
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'You Gotta Have Heart' is one of the most ridiculously perfect, amazing musical comedy songs ever.
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Musicals spring forth from minstrelsy, vaudeville, melodramas; it was all these things combined to create the form.
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AIDS is a shared truth - it's not selective in its wrath.
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Certain things come to me; I just become intrigued by them and want to live inside them.
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The world doesn't see a lot of gray. The world sees black and white, and then it understands.
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You can go see ballet in its purity; you can go to a recital to hear music by itself. But what the American musical does so thrillingly is bastardize these forms into something that is exhilarating and compelling and deeply moving.
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A lot of '20s musicals were a hodgepodge of melodrama, mixed with operetta and romance, and then some sense of modernism and some sense of irreverence.
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Something that can be so vital at one point can be inconsequential at another. I'm just intrigued by that phenomenon.
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When 'The Normal Heart' first appeared, the sense of urgency was so important.
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If you have the talent and passion and commitment, you shouldn't be locked out of the room.
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There's no place more theatrical than history.
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Theater should address the stories of its communities, or I don't know why it's here.
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The Public Theater requires one to be very public, and writing requires one to be very private.
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When you're writing, in theory, everybody is serving you. When you're directing, you're serving everybody - in the guise of acting like everybody's serving you. But you're really serving the materials. You're serving the actors. You're in charge, but it's not free.
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I want to create a theater that looks, feels, and smells like America.