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.
When I write, I make my memories tangible, and in this way I can get rid of them.
In the infancy of society every author is necessarily a poet
I have always included minority characters in my stories, often as heroes.
Sometimes I sound like gravel, and sometimes I sound like coffee and cream.
I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me-like food or water.
If I knew what it was going to look like, I wouldnt be so excited to be a part of it. Jazz is a music of surprise; its a music of spontaneity. I think jazz musicians live--I know I do--for being surprised and not knowing whats going to come next.
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