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" Anytime you create art, you create a mess. I mean, 'Hamlet' is a mess! "

George C. Wolfe

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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. "

George C. Wolfe

" There's no place more theatrical than history. "

George C. Wolfe

" 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. "

George C. Wolfe

" 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. "

George C. Wolfe

" 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. "

George C. Wolfe

" 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! "

George C. Wolfe

" I was raised to believe that other people's suffering was my responsibility. "

George C. Wolfe

" 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. "

George C. Wolfe

" When I was little, I remember rehearsing starving so that when I got to New York I would know how to do it. "

George C. Wolfe

" 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. "

George C. Wolfe

" My first play, 'The Colored Museum,' was done in '86 at the Public Theater. "

George C. Wolfe

" 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. "

George C. Wolfe

" 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. "

George C. Wolfe

" I was obsessed with New York early on. I was watching sitcoms that were set in or around New York, like 'The Dick Van Dyke Show.' I was always very fascinated with the people who were on 'What's My Line?' and I always had an incredible obsession with the city. "

George C. Wolfe

" 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. "

George C. Wolfe

" 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. "

George C. Wolfe

" 'Jelly,' more than any black musical before it, celebrated the majesty, the purity, the joy of so many artists who are unable to fully embody these same qualities in their own lives. "

George C. Wolfe

" If you have the talent and passion and commitment, you shouldn't be locked out of the room. "

George C. Wolfe

" 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. "

George C. Wolfe

" On different projects, different pieces of you will show up. Sometimes it's surprising which piece shows up. "

George C. Wolfe

" 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. "

George C. Wolfe

" 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. "

George C. Wolfe

" Theater should address the stories of its communities, or I don't know why it's here. "

George C. Wolfe

" Surviving failure is one thing. Surviving success is... is challenging, with the consequences and what you lose along the way. "

George C. Wolfe

" Producing has empowered me as an artist in a specific way. It's forced a certain kind of maturity. "

George C. Wolfe

" Doing any kind of culture in America in which you are not trying to affirm a European aesthetic is war. "

George C. Wolfe

" When 'The Normal Heart' first appeared, the sense of urgency was so important. "

George C. Wolfe

" A lot of directors tend to manipulate actors' vulnerability to get what they want, and that can work. "

George C. Wolfe

" I'm more attracted to art that smashes than I am attracted to art that sits on a shelf and is beautiful. "

George C. Wolfe

" I think we all have a primal desire to know as much as we can to find out about where we come from. "

George C. Wolfe