I grew up with a beautiful gold harp sitting in our living room. My older sister played it.

Theatre and opera were always the twin kingdoms that I felt I had to conquer, because they were my parents' favorites.

Im always interested in looking - historically - at how theater can animate history and how all of that can make us engage with our lives in an enriching way.

For me, the reason why people go to a mountaintop or go to the edge of the ocean is to look at something larger than themselves. That feeling of awe, of going to a cathedral, it's all about feeling lost in something bigger than oneself. To me, that's the definition of spectacle.

As a director, I never feel that I have the answers.

When you're a freelance director, you are hired to create the art, and it kind of stops there.

Art cannot be looked at as an elite, sacred event anymore. It has to be embraced as an accessible, popular form, which is what I believe theater is at its roots.

Opera is the ultimate art form. It has singing and music and drama and dance and emotion and story.

I had to drop a boulder to wake people up about the A.R.T. We've done that, and now we have audiences again who want cutting-edge work, who want to be challenged, but who also won't be falling asleep at the theater.

The musical theater is a glorious and distinctly American innovation in the history of theater.

Creativity is a form of knowledge.

My generation of director has no illusions that we are going to be fed and cared for by subsidized theater in America.

Im always interested in working with people who are good team players - that are selfless that way in their interests and dedication to the project.