George C. Wolfe Quotes
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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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A lot of directors tend to manipulate actors' vulnerability to get what they want, and that can work.
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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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Doing any kind of culture in America in which you are not trying to affirm a European aesthetic is war.
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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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I came to New York to write and direct, and when I got here, a lot of my rage came out.
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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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It's easier to be cynical and edgy and tough rather than overly emotional.
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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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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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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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The Public Theater requires one to be very public, and writing requires one to be very private.
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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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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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'You Gotta Have Heart' is one of the most ridiculously perfect, amazing musical comedy songs ever.
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My first play, 'The Colored Museum,' was done in '86 at the Public Theater.
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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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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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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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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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When 'The Normal Heart' first appeared, the sense of urgency was so important.
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I think we all have a primal desire to know as much as we can to find out about where we come from.
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If you have the talent and passion and commitment, you shouldn't be locked out of the room.