Quotes by Diane Paulus

About Diane Paulus:

Diane Marie Paulus is an American director of theater and opera who became Artistic Director of the American Repertory Theater (ART) at Harvard University in 2009. Paulus was nominated for the Best Director Tony Award for her revival of Hair, and won the award in 2013 for her revival of Pippin. She has received the 2009 Harvard College Women’s Leadership Award and the Columbia University IAL Diamond Award.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

I don't want to be in an art bubble.

Diane Paulus

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.

Diane Paulus

We're a depraved civilization. All this technology, all the computer games and the iPhones... nobody will sit for art anymore. What a dismaying state of humanity.

Diane Paulus

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

Diane Paulus

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

Diane Paulus

I knew ART was was going to give me this opportunity to expand my role as a director and finally let me have a seat at the table where I could get involved in these policy discussions and producing discussions and, frankly, the financial discussions.

Diane Paulus

You have to think about why you're asking an audience to come to the theater. It's not that they should come because it's good for them, because it's the vegetables that they should eat and the culture shot that they should get... It's about experien...

Diane Paulus

Music is rhythm, and all theater is rhythm. It's about tempo and change and pulse, whether you're doing a verse play by Shakespeare or a musical.

Diane Paulus

I really challenge every actor at the beginning of a process, and I always say, 'I have an idea that I'm going to bring to the table. I hope and expect that you will have an idea and bring it to the table. But the way I really want to work is that to...

Diane Paulus

I think every theater in America wants a younger audience... and you can't just hope to have a younger audience, you have to program things that audience is going to connect with.

Diane Paulus

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

Diane Paulus

I'm 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.

Diane Paulus

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

Diane Paulus

It's freeing to not be caught up in your own personal baggage.

Diane Paulus

I'm sorry, but to ask an audience these days to invest three hours in a show requires your heroine be an understandable and fully rounded character.

Diane Paulus

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

Diane Paulus

I want an audience that will come sitting forward in their seats.

Diane Paulus

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...

Diane Paulus

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

Diane Paulus

Look at where I lived! Four blocks from Lincoln Center. I used to play in the fountain. And then I started taking dance lessons. I was in 'The Nutcracker' for the N.Y. City Ballet when I was 8 and dancing in 'The Firebird' for George Balanchine when ...

Diane Paulus

Author Bio

  • NameDiane Paulus
  • DescriptionAmerican theatre director
  • Born1966
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionTheatre Director