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

George C. Wolfe

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

George C. Wolfe

" In Los Angeles, wealth and poverty are separated by the freeways. In New York, they're next to each other. "

George C. Wolfe

" Always, when I do a play, there's got to be an equation of risks and potential failure. When you're working on a new play, it's like, 'How the hell do I do this, and do we have the time?' All of these huge questions engage, hopefully, the smartest part of me. And then when you're doing a revival, I went, 'Well, somebody's already solved it.' "

George C. Wolfe

" 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

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

George C. Wolfe

" 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

" 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

" 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. "

George C. Wolfe

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

George C. Wolfe

" 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. "

George C. Wolfe

" 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

" The worst thing when you're working is to say, 'I have a question,' and the other person goes, 'No! This is what it is.' That kind of rigidity is very challenging because musicals are constantly mutating. "

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

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

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

" Something that can be so vital at one point can be inconsequential at another. I'm just intrigued by that phenomenon. "

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

" 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

" Anytime you create art, you create a mess. I mean, 'Hamlet' is a mess! "

George C. Wolfe

" I absolutely love working on musicals, but anytime I finish a project, I want to move on to something completely different. "

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

" 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

" 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. "

George C. Wolfe

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

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

" 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

" 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

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

George C. Wolfe

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

George C. Wolfe

" I'm convinced whenever something opens on Broadway, it's a miracle. It's a miracle that people survived. "

George C. Wolfe