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
The rules I sort of live by for my theater career, which I hope to live for my film career, is that if there's something that intrigues me or fascinates me, or I don't know how to do it, then I should do it.
Interpretation
Pursue what intrigues you, especially when it challenges you.
George C. Wolfe expresses a philosophy of engaging with creative projects in theater and film that captivate and challenge him. He advocates for stepping out of one's comfort zone and embracing new opportunities as a means of growth and artistic exploration.
In practice
In a motivational speech to aspiring artists, one could use this quote to encourage them to take bold steps in their careers.
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.
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.
Art is long, life is short; judgement difficult, opportunity transient.
They swayed about upon a rocking horse, And thought it Pegasus.
It was Chicago with its World's Fair which vivified the national desire for civic beauty.
Escape? There is one unwatched way: your eyes. O Beauty! Keep me good that secret gate.
When you write a play, you work out like a musician on a piece of music. You find all the rhythms and the melody and the harmonies and take them as they come.
To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them that they can never have; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed. Just as a camera is a sublimation of the gun, to photograph someone is a subliminal murder - a soft murder, appropriate to a sad, frightened time.
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