I give so much of myself to my work; I want to be with people who are going to be there with me.
I grew up with a beautiful gold harp sitting in our living room. My older sister played it.
Look at where I lived! Four blocks from Lincoln Center. I used to play in the fountain. And then I started taking dance lessons. I was in 'The Nutcracker' for the N.Y. City Ballet when I was 8 and dancing in 'The Firebird' for George Balanchine when I was 9. Believe me, that's something you don't ever forget.
I think actually what keeps the intensity manageable - it's a little counterintuitive - is that it's changing all the time. Every week is different for me.
I've gotten to the point that I don't even know what tomorrow brings. When I'm teaching, obviously I'm in town for the class every week.
Being a director, whether you're in rehearsal or you're in auditions or you're in a creative meeting, is so much to me about being present in the moment. There's a sense of time stopping.
I think in our culture there's been a tendency for people to blame the audience. There is a tendency in our industry to say, 'The audience has left the building. People don't want culture anymore.'
The musical theater is a glorious and distinctly American innovation in the history of theater.
I think every theater in America wants a younger audience... and you can't just hope to have a younger audience, you have to program things that audience is going to connect with.
I am always looking for what piece, what artists, what playwrights, what directors, what subject matter is going to catalyze an audience.
I had this epiphany that I like the interaction with people. I wanted to make things happen at a grassroots level.
Politics, to a degree, is about legislation, administration. You can't be there in the trenches.
My generation of director has no illusions that we are going to be fed and cared for by subsidized theater in America.
At the core of what I'm doing is a belief in the audience, a belief that populism doesn't mean dumbing down theater, but rather giving the audience a voice and a role in experiencing theater.
I had to drop a boulder to wake people up about the A.R.T. We've done that, and now we have audiences again who want cutting-edge work, who want to be challenged, but who also won't be falling asleep at the theater.
