Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" 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

Yourself

Journey

Confidence

Related Quotes:

" When I was on dialysis, I willed myself to do 'On the Town.' It accesses my most childlike, joyful love of theater. "

" It's easier to be cynical and edgy and tough rather than overly emotional. "

" 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. "

" Certain things come to me; I just become intrigued by them and want to live inside them. "

" 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. "

" Racists are deficient as human beings. "

" 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. "

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

" 1985 - That was my time in New York, and I have such poetic, fond memories. "

" A musical is what happens when text collides with motion collides with song collides with spectacle. And spectacle can be the human heart; it doesn't necessarily have to be a helicopter crashing. "

" It may take a while, but I think 'On the Town' has the potential for us to break down the boundaries between the traditional theatergoer who may have fond memories of the musical and those with a 'Broadway-is-not-for-me' agenda. "

George C. Wolfe

Memories

Down

" 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. "

" Commercial theater, in its agenda to appeal to everybody, is often at the expense of the unique vision of the artist. "

" 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. "

" I've always tried to do shows in a filmic way. I like it when forms smack up against each other. "

" If you love theatre, do theatre wherever you can, because theatre is theatre, and you can experience it anywhere. "

" The Public Theater requires one to be very public, and writing requires one to be very private. "

" 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! "

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

" 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. "

George C. Wolfe

American

You

" In the early '90s or so, I drove my father to Providence, Ky., his hometown, and he was pointing out, 'That's where the doctor's office was,' and 'That's where we bought ice cream.' And he was pointing to empty lots. When you lose communities, what do you have? We often survive by remembering the stories. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" I viewed black musicals before 'Jelly' as a form of cultural strip mining. The exterior remained, but all the culture that signified where the people had come from and their connection to the earth was absent. "

" Theater, at the end of the day, is about ideas. It's about very large ideas. And if the play is beautifully written or smartly written and has incredible characters you follow on the journey, you take home these larger ideas. Whether it's 'Angels in America' or 'Lucky Guy' or 'Normal Heart,' you follow this moment-to-moment journey as an audience. "

" 'You Gotta Have Heart' is one of the most ridiculously perfect, amazing musical comedy songs ever. "

" I came to New York to write and direct, and when I got here, a lot of my rage came out. "

" I want to create a theater that looks, feels, and smells like America. "

George C. Wolfe

Create

America

" If I hadn't told stories, I would've been a historian. "