Musicals spring forth from minstrelsy, vaudeville, melodramas; it was all these things combined to create the form.
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.
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.
I was raised to believe that other people's suffering was my responsibility.
In Los Angeles, wealth and poverty are separated by the freeways. In New York, they're next to each other.
I pride myself on being available to as many people's stories as I possibly can.
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.
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.
The Public Theater requires one to be very public, and writing requires one to be very private.
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.
If you have the talent and passion and commitment, you shouldn't be locked out of the room.
Certain events make people come out of their little boxes and become part of the whole.
I like to knock down walls and allow others to enter.
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.
When I was on dialysis, I willed myself to do 'On the Town.' It accesses my most childlike, joyful love of theater.
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.
Producing has empowered me as an artist in a specific way. It's forced a certain kind of maturity.
Commercial theater, in its agenda to appeal to everybody, is often at the expense of the unique vision of the artist.
Racists are deficient as human beings.
There's no place more theatrical than history.
