George C. Wolfe Quotes

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George C. Wolfe

Profession : Playwright

Birth : September 23, 1954

One thing I tend to do is ask actors tons and tons of questions to try to get at what they're thinking but also to expose to them whatever box they've placed their characters in - to blow up that box so the journey can begin.

George C. Wolfe

The hardest thing about a musical is making sure everybody is working on the same damn show. That is the monster.

George C. Wolfe

Most musicals are informed by very rigid archetypes. If you get a very sophisticated mind writing them, you sense something else, but it's a folk-art form, really, at its best. At different times, I've tried to push against it as much as I possibly could, but ultimately, it is a folk-art form.

George C. Wolfe

1985 - That was my time in New York, and I have such poetic, fond memories.

George C. Wolfe

I love working with actors who will just go, 'Oh O.K., let's try it and see where it goes,' and 'Let's see what we can discover.'

George C. Wolfe

My first play, 'The Colored Museum,' was done in '86 at the Public Theater.

George C. Wolfe

To me, 'Show Boat' was the first American musical, the first to have the real texture of this country.

George C. Wolfe

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.

George C. Wolfe

You can go see ballet in its purity; you can go to a recital to hear music by itself. But what the American musical does so thrillingly is bastardize these forms into something that is exhilarating and compelling and deeply moving.

George C. Wolfe

'You Gotta Have Heart' is one of the most ridiculously perfect, amazing musical comedy songs ever.

George C. Wolfe

I love working with a set designer because, in many respects, you meet the set designer before you meet the actors. So it's a chance for me as a director to figure out what I'm thinking and to explore how the space is going to actually be activated.

George C. Wolfe

Certain things come to me; I just become intrigued by them and want to live inside them.

George C. Wolfe

My absolutely favorite time of working on a project is the time I spend not knowing what it is. Because the longer you live inside that period, the likelier you are to discover something new.

George C. Wolfe

I was obsessed with New York early on. I was watching sitcoms that were set in or around New York, like 'The Dick Van Dyke Show.' I was always very fascinated with the people who were on 'What's My Line?' and I always had an incredible obsession with the city.

George C. Wolfe

If you love theatre, do theatre wherever you can, because theatre is theatre, and you can experience it anywhere.

George C. Wolfe

I really don't find revivals very interesting because I like new work a lot. I feel like if you're going to pay me, then let me do what I do and let me try to solve some problems. Let me try to make something fly. Why would I do something that everybody has already done the hard work on? But that's me. Tons of people do revivals really well.

George C. Wolfe

Growing up in the South, I was raised to be a Negro boy. I was acutely aware how other people perceived me, and that informed my behavior. That worked for a period of time, but it could also be suffocating.

George C. Wolfe

The black experience, which has nothing to do with my play 'Angels in America,' allowed me to understand the Mormon character. He was the character that couldn't come out to his mother. It allowed me to understand emotional and closeted behavior, because you're so acutely aware of how you're perceived.

George C. Wolfe

On different projects, different pieces of you will show up. Sometimes it's surprising which piece shows up.

George C. Wolfe