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" I love Kabuki, Noh theater and bunraku. "

George C. Wolfe

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" 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. "

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

" 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 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

" I love working with actors who will just go, 'Oh O.K., let's try it and see where it goes,' and 'Let's see what we can discover.' "

George C. Wolfe

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

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

" I pride myself on being available to as many people's stories as I possibly can. "

George C. Wolfe

" 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. "

George C. Wolfe

" There is a real affection for these human beings on these stage that O'Neill really had. Out of that affection comes a lot of humor, which is unexpected when you think of 'The Iceman Cometh.' "

George C. Wolfe

" Everybody wants to be remembered for the best of who they are. "

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

" 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

" When 'Jelly's' went out on tour, no one really wanted it. It was undersold. And I knew if I gave 'Noise' to someone else, they would sell it as 'Stomp' with little dancing black boys. "

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

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

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 love and I'm intrigued by what history does to people and to subjects that matter. "

George C. Wolfe

" Generally, the realm in which black playwrights have been allowed to achieve success has been social realism or musicals. "

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

" Growing up in the South, I was raised to be a Negro boy. I was acutely aware how other people perceived me, and that informed my behavior. That worked for a period of time, but it could also be suffocating. "

George C. Wolfe

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

George C. Wolfe

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

George C. Wolfe

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

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 came to New York, I told everyone I was a writer/director, and they said, 'No.' There was a rule. You could be one or the other. They ordained me writer. But then I won the Obie for directing 'Spunk,' and the rules changed. "

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

" The only rule of a musical is that it must maintain its buoyancy. "

George C. Wolfe

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

George C. Wolfe

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

George C. Wolfe