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" Being a director, whether you're in rehearsal or you're in auditions or you're in a creative meeting, is so much to me about being present in the moment. There's a sense of time stopping. "

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" I'm always interested in looking - historically - at how theater can animate history and how all of that can make us engage with our lives in an enriching way. "

Diane Paulus

Looking

Way

Always

" I had this epiphany that I like the interaction with people. I wanted to make things happen at a grassroots level. "

Diane Paulus

Things Happen

Interaction

" The mission of the A.R.T. is to expand the boundaries of theater through works of the canon and the new works of tomorrow. "

" I had to drop a boulder to wake people up about the A.R.T. We've done that, and now we have audiences again who want cutting-edge work, who want to be challenged, but who also won't be falling asleep at the theater. "

" I've gotten to the point that I don't even know what tomorrow brings. When I'm teaching, obviously I'm in town for the class every week. "

" I don't want to be in an art bubble. "

" For me, the reason why people go to a mountaintop or go to the edge of the ocean is to look at something larger than themselves. That feeling of awe, of going to a cathedral, it's all about feeling lost in something bigger than oneself. To me, that's the definition of spectacle. "

Diane Paulus

Feeling

Lost

" I'm always interested in working with people who are good team players - that are selfless that way in their interests and dedication to the project. "

" We're a depraved civilization. All this technology, all the computer games and the iPhones... nobody will sit for art anymore. What a dismaying state of humanity. "

" Politics, to a degree, is about legislation, administration. You can't be there in the trenches. "

" I'm sorry, but to ask an audience these days to invest three hours in a show requires your heroine be an understandable and fully rounded character. "

" I really challenge every actor at the beginning of a process, and I always say, 'I have an idea that I'm going to bring to the table. I hope and expect that you will have an idea and bring it to the table. But the way I really want to work is that together we're going to have a third idea that is better than either of our ideas.' "

" At the core of what I'm doing is a belief in the audience, a belief that populism doesn't mean dumbing down theater, but rather giving the audience a voice and a role in experiencing theater. "

" Theatre and opera were always the twin kingdoms that I felt I had to conquer, because they were my parents' favorites. "

" It's freeing to not be caught up in your own personal baggage. "

" I knew ART was was going to give me this opportunity to expand my role as a director and finally let me have a seat at the table where I could get involved in these policy discussions and producing discussions and, frankly, the financial discussions. "

" When you're a freelance director, you are hired to create the art, and it kind of stops there. "

" In Elizabethan England or classical Athens... theater was at the center of, not culture, but society and politics and religion and civic engagement. Those things have a different audience. "

" Art cannot be looked at as an elite, sacred event anymore. It has to be embraced as an accessible, popular form, which is what I believe theater is at its roots. "

" I think every theater in America wants a younger audience... and you can't just hope to have a younger audience, you have to program things that audience is going to connect with. "

" I am always looking for what piece, what artists, what playwrights, what directors, what subject matter is going to catalyze an audience. "

" Music is rhythm, and all theater is rhythm. It's about tempo and change and pulse, whether you're doing a verse play by Shakespeare or a musical. "

" The musical theater is a glorious and distinctly American innovation in the history of theater. "

" I think in our culture there's been a tendency for people to blame the audience. There is a tendency in our industry to say, 'The audience has left the building. People don't want culture anymore.' "

" I grew up with a beautiful gold harp sitting in our living room. My older sister played it. "

" Opera is the ultimate art form. It has singing and music and drama and dance and emotion and story. "

" I listen to music, I read scripts, and I know pretty intuitively if I can unlock it in a way. It's actually very liberating when you understand that not everything is for you. "

" I think actually what keeps the intensity manageable - it's a little counterintuitive - is that it's changing all the time. Every week is different for me. "

Diane Paulus

Changing

Think

" My generation of director has no illusions that we are going to be fed and cared for by subsidized theater in America. "

" Look at where I lived! Four blocks from Lincoln Center. I used to play in the fountain. And then I started taking dance lessons. I was in 'The Nutcracker' for the N.Y. City Ballet when I was 8 and dancing in 'The Firebird' for George Balanchine when I was 9. Believe me, that's something you don't ever forget. "

Diane Paulus

Dance

City