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" If you love theatre, do theatre wherever you can, because theatre is theatre, and you can experience it anywhere. "
George C. Wolfe
Theatre
Love
Experience
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" I feel like I've been very blessed in the sense that I've had the veracity of spirit to not be stopped and, at the same time, the protective energy and the generosity of those who have come before me, who saw something inside of me and, therefore, invited me into rooms that I would not have been inside of otherwise. "
George C. Wolfe
Me
Generosity
Time
" 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
Said
New York
Rules
" Anytime you create art, you create a mess. I mean, 'Hamlet' is a mess! "
George C. Wolfe
Hamlet
Mess
Create
" 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
Writing
Best
Mind
" When you're writing, in theory, everybody is serving you. When you're directing, you're serving everybody - in the guise of acting like everybody's serving you. But you're really serving the materials. You're serving the actors. You're in charge, but it's not free. "
George C. Wolfe
You
Free
Serving
" Producing has empowered me as an artist in a specific way. It's forced a certain kind of maturity. "
George C. Wolfe
Me
Artist
Maturity
" 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
Time
Language
Performance
" 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
Through
Year
Season
" 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
See
Working
Will
" Every play is rhythmic control. If you want an audience to go on a journey, it's rhythmic control. You're crafting when they lean in, when they push back, when they breathe, when they surrender. "
George C. Wolfe
Journey
You
Back
" 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
White
Color
I Am
" 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
Personality
Community
Love
" '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
Own
Same
Black
" If I hadn't told stories, I would've been a historian. "
George C. Wolfe
Been
Stories
Historian
" 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
Remember
Got
How
" I don't go, like, 'Hmm, I'm now going to create something for the black community.' I just feel this compelling urge. I just feel myself drawn to stories that I feel have a potency and immediacy. "
George C. Wolfe
Community
Feel
Myself
" 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
Past
People
Me
" I want to create a theater that looks, feels, and smells like America. "
George C. Wolfe
Like
Create
America
" In Los Angeles, wealth and poverty are separated by the freeways. In New York, they're next to each other. "
George C. Wolfe
Los Angeles
Wealth
Poverty
" I was raised to believe that other people's suffering was my responsibility. "
George C. Wolfe
Responsibility
Suffering
Other
" 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
Wonder
You
World
" 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
Noise
Dancing
Black
" Racists are deficient as human beings. "
George C. Wolfe
Human
Human Beings
Racists
" 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
Challenges
Living
Humanity
" 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
Always
City
New York
" At the end of the day, 'Shuffle Along' is about people coming together and making something extraordinary - and history not necessarily being kind to them. It's about the love of necessarily being kind to them. It's about the love of doing, regardless of the consequences. "
George C. Wolfe
Day
History
Together
" A music serves truth up to you in a really interesting way that allows you to luxuriate in its beauty and, at the same time, to hopefully see yourself in its fragility. "
George C. Wolfe
Truth
Yourself
Time
" 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
Us
" 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
Problems
Hard Work
Fly
" If you have the talent and passion and commitment, you shouldn't be locked out of the room. "
George C. Wolfe
Commitment
Passion
Room