Often, particularly towards the end of the process, I think of myself less as a theatre director and more as someone who just directs the traffic. My job is to move the ideas and bits of the show into the places where they work best. Sometimes my job is also to say, 'No.'
Interpretation
A theatre director's role is about guiding creative ideas to their best expression.
In this quote, Robert Lepage emphasizes the importance of a director's role in the creative process as one that involves not only organization and management but also discerning judgment. By likening his work to directing traffic, he highlights the necessity of moving creative elements to their optimal positions and sometimes making difficult decisions to omit certain ideas that do not serve the overall vision, underscoring the collaborative yet hierarchical nature of theatrical production.
In practice
This quote can be used in discussions about the responsibilities of a theatre director during a drama class.
A puppet, for example, is just a piece of wood, a couple of rivets, but put them together, and if you know how to do it, and the audience's imagination joins in with this, then a miracle will come out of that machine. That is what we and the audience do in the theatre - we create miracles in that space.
I will always demand the right for theatre to talk about anything and anyone. Without exception. None.
Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.
Writing is sacred, other activities are profane, and I don't want them to corrupt my writing.
I believe in the power of poetry, which gives me reasons to look ahead and identify a glint of light.
All the stuff I love most in game storytelling is never the big-picture stuff; it's the stuff that feels like curlicues, stuff that's just there because it's a game and because you can do it.
Through my art I have tried to explain my life and its meaning. I have also intended to help others to clarify their lives.
In order to design buildings with a sensuous connection to life, one must think in a way that goes far beyond form and construction.
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