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. WolfeRead
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.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the significance and shock of racial representation in theater.
George C. Wolfe reflects on his historic role as a person of color directing a major Broadway production, expressing both pride and a sense of disbelief about the lack of diversity in the arts during that era. His words underscore the ongoing challenges of racial representation and equity within the theater industry, prompting questions about progress and the need for inclusive voices.
In practice
This quote can be used in discussions about diversity initiatives in the arts.
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.
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.
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.
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 was raised to believe that other people's suffering was my responsibility.
One thing I tend to do is ask actors tons and tons of questions to try to get at what they're thinking but also to expose to them whatever box they've placed their characters in - to blow up that box so the journey can begin.
The last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape. It was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices or something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid, and I opened up to that feeling-and it washed over me.
One must let the play happen to one; one must let the mind loose to respond as it will, to receive impressions, to sense rather than know, to gather rather than immediately understand.
To write a novel is to embark on a quest that is very romantic. People have visions, and the next step is to execute them. That's a very romantic project. Like Edvard Munch's strange dreamlike canvases where people are stylized, like 'The Scream.' Munch must have had that vision in a dream, he never saw it.
I think photographs should be provocative and not tell you what you already know. It takes no great powers or magic to reproduce somebody's face in a photograph. The magic is in seeing people in new ways.
It's just someone has labelled us as having a different label to do what you do. I find that labels are the worst thing in the world for artistic expression.
Ever since I was a child I've always been very attracted to melodies. Whether I hear Jeff Beck, a choir, an ocean or the wind, there's always a melody in there.
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