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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. "

George C. Wolfe

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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. "

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

" There is a strange kind of parental pride when 'Topdog' ends up on Broadway, or 'Elaine Stritch.' "

George C. Wolfe

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

George C. Wolfe

" To me, 'Show Boat' was the first American musical, the first to have the real texture of this country. "

George C. Wolfe

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

George C. Wolfe

" The rules I sort of live by for my theater career, which I hope to live for my film career, is that if there's something that intrigues me or fascinates me, or I don't know how to do it, then I should do it. "

George C. Wolfe

" I feel like I'm edgy and I'm funny and I got this bite, this outrageousness. "

George C. Wolfe

" I think all creative people are operating from the fear that, of the best of what they did, will anybody remember it? Will anybody tell stories about them? Will anybody keep those pictures on the mantle long after they are gone? It's why people write stories. It's peoples' grave markers. "

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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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. "

George C. Wolfe

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

George C. Wolfe

" The best of any artist is in their art. "

George C. Wolfe

" AIDS is a shared truth - it's not selective in its wrath. "

George C. Wolfe

" I love working with a set designer because, in many respects, you meet the set designer before you meet the actors. So it's a chance for me as a director to figure out what I'm thinking and to explore how the space is going to actually be activated. "

George C. Wolfe

" 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. "

George C. Wolfe

" Broadway was very vital back in the '20s. There were probably close to hundreds of productions that opened up through the course of the year and through the course of a Broadway season. "

George C. Wolfe

" I'm the most democratic fascist you'll ever meet. I listen to everybody, and then I make a decision. "

George C. Wolfe

" Every single wave, when I was overwhelmed and poor and struggling in New York, there were these extraordinary people in New York who said, 'Come this way.' "

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

" Musicals spring forth from minstrelsy, vaudeville, melodramas; it was all these things combined to create the form. "

George C. Wolfe

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

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'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

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

George C. Wolfe

" 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. "

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