I was a little girl with a pot belly and Afro puffs, hyperactive and overdramatic, and I found the theater and I found my home.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes how self-expression through theater provided a sense of belonging and identity during childhood.
Audra McDonald reflects on her childhood experiences, highlighting how her exuberant personality and unique appearance were complemented by her passion for theater. This art form became a refuge for her, allowing her to express herself and feel at home in her own skin, suggesting the transformative power of creativity and the arts in shaping one's identity.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of arts education in schools.
I just wanted to go to New York and be on Broadway, but then I was accepted by Juilliard, where they trained me in classical voice. It was great in the end, but at the time, I thought, 'What am I doing here? This is not my path.' But it was absolutely my path and where I was meant to be.
A memoir is always the most authentic telling of a situation, but a novel gets to different places.
Unless artists can remember what it was to be a little boy, they are only half complete as artist and as man.
Have you ever heard a good joke? If you've ever heard someone just right, with the right pacing, then you're already on the way to poetry. It's about using words in very precise ways and using gesture.
It is quite cruel that a poet cannot wander through his regions of enchantment without having a critic, forever, like the old man of the sea, upon his back.
For a writer, you definitely do not want to be in the mainstream. You want to be on the edge because that's where the vantage point is. That's where you can see.
Everybody has the same energy potential. The average person wastes his in a dozen little ways. I bring mine to bear on one thing only: my paintings, and everything else is sacrificed to it...myself included.
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