Art is about the dynamics of the human experience.

My theatrical background was in the great work of the South African playwright Athol Fugard.

The world is dealing with issues of immigration, deindustrialization, and poverty.

[The strike in 1968] brought us together with teachers and also with progressive whites. All of us came from diverse backgrounds, but at the same time the reasons why we were at San Francisco State in the late sixties was because of the agitation and movement building that had occurred within our communities. We saw ourselves not separate from the community but intimately connected to it.

The progressive movement against the war of occupation in Iraq is a reason for hope, as is resistance to free trade agreements in Latin America. Those are moments that we have to celebrate: that people still find the resolve and energy to resist

New Orleans is a city whose basic industry is the service industry. That's why it makes its money. That's - it brings people to the city. People come to the city and experience the wonders of this extraordinary city and everything else. The question is that, how do we create jobs which are the jobs that have pay, that - living wages?

When you have powerful unions, you have a working class that is politicized.