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.

Creativity and the world of the imagination - the beauty of what we see as a child and the kind of play that we experience as a child - can be a way for us to survive tough times.

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.

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