The truth is more important to me than anything - my personal wealth or health or any of these things. I think that it's not so difficult for me to say what I'm saying.

More than a non-acting director, I think I notice when an actor is not believing in themselves. Chicago actors in particular, they work very hard and are very talented, but sometimes they don't trust how talented they are. I notice when they keep something in reserve.

Racism is a common thread among people of color, even though each experience with it is different.

Hollywood loves to pat itself on the back and espouse their rhetorically liberal points of view while they continue to be the 1 percent and point the finger at the other guy.

There was a lynching case as late as 2011, so it's not as far away as we think. I think persecution by powerful structures, on a people who are marginalized, is not new. The idea of lynching is well known, and the way we present it in the play makes the lynching somewhat of a relief, compared to the barbaric treatment they were receiving as sharecroppers.

The concept of 'purgatory' is in Catholic Church dogma, and most black people are not Catholic - mostly their Christian realities focus on heaven or hell. Purgatory is for the expiation of sin, the fact that you are there, and not in hell, means you'll eventually work your way to heaven. The experience of this play, 'Small oak tree', and its psychological architecture, relies on its knowledge of that. Many black people believe that this life, within itself, is a way to work out whatever obligations we have, in order to get to a better place.

The truth is more important to me than anything - my personal wealth or health or any of these things. I think that it's not so difficult for me to say what I'm saying.