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.

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

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

I had this epiphany that I like the interaction with people. I wanted to make things happen at a grassroots level.

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.

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.

At the core of what I'm doing is a belief in the audience, a belief that populism doesn't mean dumbing down theater, but rather giving the audience a voice and a role in experiencing theater.