George C. Wolfe Quotes

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George C. Wolfe

Profession : Playwright

Birth : September 23, 1954

I think all creative people are operating from the fear that, of the best of what they did, will anybody remember it? Will anybody tell stories about them? Will anybody keep those pictures on the mantle long after they are gone? It's why people write stories. It's peoples' grave markers.

George C. Wolfe

When I came to New York, I told everyone I was a writer/director, and they said, 'No.' There was a rule. You could be one or the other. They ordained me writer. But then I won the Obie for directing 'Spunk,' and the rules changed.

George C. Wolfe

'Jelly,' more than any black musical before it, celebrated the majesty, the purity, the joy of so many artists who are unable to fully embody these same qualities in their own lives.

George C. Wolfe

The best of any artist is in their art.

George C. Wolfe

You adjust what you do depending on the actor. You evolve a vocabulary and a way of language and talking with each actor.

George C. Wolfe

Each actor, every single time you work with an actor, you have to come up with the language that's going to serve them. And that's what allows them to give the performance that you want to nurture inside of them and what you think they're capable of giving.

George C. Wolfe

With actors, I have very close, intense working relationships with actors in theater.

George C. Wolfe

A music serves truth up to you in a really interesting way that allows you to luxuriate in its beauty and, at the same time, to hopefully see yourself in its fragility.

George C. Wolfe

Always, when I do a play, there's got to be an equation of risks and potential failure. When you're working on a new play, it's like, 'How the hell do I do this, and do we have the time?' All of these huge questions engage, hopefully, the smartest part of me. And then when you're doing a revival, I went, 'Well, somebody's already solved it.'

George C. Wolfe

I absolutely love working on musicals, but anytime I finish a project, I want to move on to something completely different.

George C. Wolfe

At the end of the day, 'Shuffle Along' is about people coming together and making something extraordinary - and history not necessarily being kind to them. It's about the love of necessarily being kind to them. It's about the love of doing, regardless of the consequences.

George C. Wolfe

If I hadn't told stories, I would've been a historian.

George C. Wolfe

I came to New York to write and direct, and when I got here, a lot of my rage came out.

George C. Wolfe

All the things that can happen to an artist regardless of how prepared they are and how smart they are and hard-working they are and attractive - doesn't matter. There's always somebody cuter. There just is.

George C. Wolfe

Confidence comes in going on personal journeys in a public arena and feeling as though you have a right to do that. You have to give yourself permission to discover what you need to discover and not worry about how pretty the journey is. If you're aware of the pretty, you're not going to dig into the mess.

George C. Wolfe

Every single wave, when I was overwhelmed and poor and struggling in New York, there were these extraordinary people in New York who said, 'Come this way.'

George C. Wolfe

There is a real affection for these human beings on these stage that O'Neill really had. Out of that affection comes a lot of humor, which is unexpected when you think of 'The Iceman Cometh.'

George C. Wolfe

I think there's an aspect of my soul, of my personality, that's very suited to directing. I like being in the room with actors; I love creating a safe space and a chaotic space for the discovery to take place. I love creating a sense of community.

George C. Wolfe

Ultimately, theatre is about creating a sense of wonder, and I think wonder is achieved not by a kind of wide-eyed silliness but by being available to that which is most unknown, inside the material and inside yourself.

George C. Wolfe

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.

George C. Wolfe