I believe that theater has to be utterly life-changing for the people watching it.
Marianne Elliott
For me, 'Angels in America' is not really about AIDS. For me, it's a metaphor for anybody who is struggling with serious illness or having to face their own demise. All of the characters face some form of destruction in themselves.
The actors work out how to create the show with me during the rehearsals. They owe it to themselves and each other to maintain that contract regardless of what the critics say.
I had done drama at university, but I never thought I could be a director. There were so few female directors then. I just assumed you had to be a man to be a director. I also assumed you had to be extremely authoritarian and extremely intellectual, none of which I was.
The better the acting is, the less visible the director and the less visible the actor.
'Friends' is easy to dismiss, but it's really good television - the art with which those actors play with comedy shouldn't be denigrated. And they also know how to play irony, which I think a lot of English actors might find quite difficult.
Having a child is all-consuming; so is doing a play.
It's predominantly a male society, predominately a male culture, predominantly a male theatre, and predominantly male critics, but that's changing, definitely.
Some directors have the gift of the gab, but I don't.
I worked in casting for about five years before I became a director, and that taught me a huge amount because you never actually will see the character walk through the door - and if you do, then you have to be slightly suspicious of that.
A bad audition is usually the director's fault, not the actor's. It's up to the director to get the atmosphere right to get the best out of your auditionees.
I had a very embarrassing time acting extremely badly at university, which is when directing suddenly became so attractive.
I am still very observant. I am absorbed by people and why they do what they do.
I am quite an insecure person, and I think that, like any director, if I'm asked about my vision for a piece, I feel very vulnerable.
I'm interested in teasing out the contemporary issues in what I'm working on, however old the piece might be, whenever I'm working on it.
It's difficult to find an actress prepared to play a fading star.
If you put a blank canvas in front of Matisse and say, 'This has to be a success,' who's going to pick up a paintbrush?
I never wanted anything to do with the theatre as a child. I was dragged there under duress.
As you get older, you realise that your identity becomes more important - the environment in which you have grown is actually part of who you are just as much as your family or your school.
I think theater is so undervalued. I have seen things there that have been far more vivid than things that actually have happened.
If you can't see it, you can't be it. It's just having those brilliant women break out and do something - then other girls can say, 'I can do it, too!'
I've seen many shows ruined by bad reviews and good reviews, so I always tell my actors not to read the reviews until after the run is over.
If you are working in a publicly subsidized building, then you have a responsibility to deliver truly interesting, risky, innovative, even provocative work. Work that speaks to your audience in many resonant ways. The priority is less about the financial rewards.
It would be quite interesting to use Kermit the Frog to act like a real frog. But it wouldn't produce captivating theatre.
Often during rehearsals, I catch myself thinking, 'God, this is hard. Why am I always choosing such difficult plays to put on?'
The less subsidy we have, the more the 'producers' take over, and the 'bottom line' becomes the raison d'etre. That's quite an unappealing landscape for artists.
When I was a kid, I never spoke. I would sit under a table and not speak to anybody. No words for years.
With everything I do, there always seems to be a massive risk involved.
I felt like that growing up - that I didn't have a voice.
My dad had a big influence on me, and although I was never very bright at school, I used to love philosophising with him about big universal things - and I think that's what directing is.
I'm quite unusual in directing terms: I'm a woman. I'm quite a girly girl. I was never academic.
I didn't want to just be remembered for 'War Horse.'
There's a certain type of theatre that I haven't got any time for at all - established, boring, same-old stuff without any reason or passion. There's quite a lot of it about, and it motivates me to try to do something different, something risky, raw, ugly, and challenging.
I hope that subsidised theatres continue to be rewarded for the wonder of talent they provide to this industry, on stage and off.
Directors have this mask of being in control and in charge, but underneath, I'm terrified.
We're always steered towards what is good in the canon by a male perspective. I like to do plays with a female protagonist who finds her way through. My way is unusual.
I always wanted to beat my own path.
I suppose that I'm excited by exciting theater. It takes a risk to show us the world in a new way.
Horses are wild animals, essentially, and they're not there to do what humans want them to - they can be browbeaten or cajoled or trained, but they don't hear English; they're not obedient most of the time.
'War Horse' is just an extraordinary being.
Whether you're a man or a woman, life can be very, very difficult and confusing and desperate, and it's life-enhancing to know that somehow, there is a way through it.
Staging any play is very exposing because, if you are going to do it well, you have to put so much of yourself into it.
My generation feels it has been lied to a great deal.
I used to love getting older.
I would like to see more female stories out there, particularly older female stories.
I'm always drawn to female stories with female protagonists, and I particularly yearn for more older actresses to take centre stage in 2018.
I hope for continued bravery and risk-taking for all theatremakers in 2018 and beyond.
If it is just another run-of-the-mill show, then what is the point?
I'm very much of the opinion that theatre is a collective art form, not just one person's vision.
In subsidized theater, you are encouraged to take risks. It's about being imaginative and artistic. That's the priority. It might not be a success, but let's try.
