Producers From The United States

"They posted my real name, the real names of my parents and pictures of them, their home address and telephone number, the name and picture and phone number of my brother, a picture of the cemetery where my grandfather recently passed away, not to mention saying that I have HIV."

"People have these preconceived notions of what love is and what it should be and what a love story is. Let’s do the same thing. Let’s confuse people, let’s open up this word."

"We try to hold ourselves to the highest journalistic standards that we have. Of course, if I were to say that "Criminal" is in no way meant to be entertainment that would be wrong, but we consider ourselves journalists first."

"There's only one thing better than reading about true crime and that's being told about it, particularly when the teller is Phoebe Judge, an American who sounds far nicer than anyone has any right to sound when they know so much about the staggering diversity of human frailty."

"I think there's a majority of the Bennington college population and community that feel we came to Bennington for our education ... They could be naked on the campus or not, I don't really care. If people want to protest and get things up in arms, then that's their priority or perogative."

"I recorded for two-and-a-half years underneath a towel in my living room when I was a reporter, and no one would have known the difference."

"My sense of liberation and the freedom to speak the way I want to and to feel solid in my shoes was getting stronger and stronger. That’s what helps me move through other people’s perceptions of how I should or should not be liberated. I would never listen to those rules. Don’t tell me I can’t do that. Watch me. Don’t tell me I can’t direct this movie. Watch me…"

"Women were my obvious focus…because it is not always easy having power and being female…That’s the way it was. It wasn’t that all men were terrible or that the situation was unbearable. It was a cultural problem."

"Before you go to bed, think of three things that went well today. I don’t care if it’s a little crazy thing – it doesn’t matter…Take some music you love and if you can’t dance, go do 10 minutes of jumping jacks. Get yourself all cheered up."

"I believe you have to start with a craft; you don’t just start with a dream. You’ve got to put a lot of work in. If you want to pursue acting, then you go to acting class. If you want to be a dancer, then you learn to dance, which is what I did. If you want to be a ventriloquist or join the circus … When you’re young, you start looking at what you want to do—not just who you want to be, but what you want to do. And I think the tenacity to say, “I’m going to perfect that,” is the beginning of a work ethic..."

"Starting out as a dancer gave me an aspect of mindfulness that I didn’t even realise that I was getting…because to dance is to be aware of every piece of your body while you’re moving. It’s like a meditation unto itself."

"For years, I was the girl whose idea of a gourmet meal was a pot of cheese followed by . I would think nothing of spending three days chipping away at a pound of Jarlsberg, eating no other food, and proudly calling it my “1,700-Calories-a-Day Diet”! […] I knew my health needed improving, so I started making changes. But nothing had quite the impact on my health like giving up cheese. In fact, I consider the day I gave up cheese forever—Wednesday, August 15, 1979—my true health birthday. […] When I gave up dairy, everything about me changed. My skin cleared, my cheeks de-puffed, my nose narrowed, my eyes brightened, my body streamlined."

"I figure there's two things in a movie: that you are looking at something, you are listening to something. So I like to put a lot of attention into the music and into the recording of the dialogue and into the sets."

"When we participate actively in our lives and open our senses to all the stimuli around us, we build memories that can be retrieved and enjoyed the rest of our lives."

"I want to make films that are about visual pleasure for women. Not worry about whether they are in fashion, whether they are politically correct."

"I have such a vivid memory of listening to this song ("Brooklyn Baby" by Lana Del Rey) with the top down of my dads 1960s car and just feeling like I was in a music video or something. My hair was blowing in the wind and all I could see was the palm trees above me. I seriously had never felt cooler in my life."

"Kids listen to kids. If you have a platform, why not use it to speak about things that can help other people?"

"Her vision dreams of a world where a multiplicity of perspectives is essential and where art is a means to bring people together. I am grateful to be a part of this artistic community that she nurtured, and this season again I am energized by its tenacity, passion, bravery, and transformative work."

"I can’t imagine La MaMa without her. There may be a place called La MaMa that somebody brings good avant-garde international theater to, but it will not be La MaMa. La MaMa is her."

"Qui celebriamo l'idea di comunità e famiglia artistica… che riunisce diverse generazioni che si incontrano… A Spoleto Ellen ha stabilito, fin da subito, un rapporto immediato con il territorio."

"Eighty percent of what is now considered the American theater originated at La MaMa."

"We're going to do it, baby! We're going to do it, darling!' And within a week later we were doing it."

"In Spoleto Ellen established an immediate relationship with the territory and here we celebrate the idea of community and artistic family that brings together several generations."

"If a script ‘beeps’ to me, I do it...Audiences may hate these plays, but I believe in them. The only way I can explain my ‘beeps’ is that I’m no intellectual, but my instincts tell me automatically when a playwright has something."

"Our mission was and is to develop, nurture, support, produce and present new and original performance work by artists of all nations and cultures."

"Believe it or not, it’s easier for me nowadays to be outside this country than in this country, because when I go outside I’m in hotels with elevators and services of all kinds, and it’s not such a hardship."

"Is she a presidential candidate or is she trying to star in the Scream reboot? ... What needs to be born in mind, is something can be historically true, a form of discrimination or stereotyping like women are shrill and they're nags and men have said that historically way too much ... but that doesn't mean it's impossible for a woman to speak too loud when she doesn't need to.""

"…as an actor, trying to do the best you can on a film, you think, do I say thank you or fuck you?"

"…When we see a film, half of what we see is what we bring to it…"

"…I’m the ‘Southern police’ on most of the projects I do…Contrary to what many people seem to believe, there is no ‘stock Southerner.’ In fact, there is more variation in us than in other places…this well-known actress was playing a Southern woman, and she was cerebral. She was acting from the chest up, when she should have been acting from the bottom. A Southern woman is not who you play. A Southern woman is who you are."

"Even in stories written by exceptional writers, even when they write a well-crafted piece…the mother is a cliché, though it might be a good rendering of a cliché."

"A play is an ever-changing dynamic theatrical experience. Every director, cast, design team, audience and reader bring new life to a piece of dramatic literature. A play is not a fixed expression, but a revelation in a particular moment in time."

"…So much of western theater is founded on the search for reason and “why” things happen and Cándido/Guillermo taught me to look beyond the idea of the rational and explore the irrational in objectives and motivations… Life is irrational…"

"…We Latinos have a rich, dynamic and complex history full of narratives that are dimensional, intelligent, tragic, comedic, absurd, philosophical, violent and loving. There aren't enough stages for our stories. I’m humbled and honored that these have come into my life…"

"It’s really a play about these big ideas that don’t have any sort of definitive conclusion…What I hope people get out of it is—as uncomfortable as it is—to be able to live in these gray areas of conversation that none of us have answers to and see the humanity in people, even if you don’t agree with them."

"If you and your children were starving, if you saw violence and murder every single day, and just on the horizon is a safe country where people are allowed to dream, can make a decent living, of course you would cross the border. Any mother or father in their right mind would. We need to have compassion for this."

"I've always been drawn to violence, control and issues of subjugation...I found that in times of overwhelming oppression, a metaphoric language evolves as a survival mechanism to communicate truth…"

"My grandfather saw a lot of violence and a lot of poverty, and really was incredibly, deeply tortured by it. It was always this elephant in the room that we never talked about growing up. He spoke fluent Spanish, but never in front of us. I think he was really afraid that we would be judged and held back by our Mexican heritage, like he was. Part of writing this play was like digging up my own family ghosts and things that I personally had always been afraid to talk about, because my family never talked about them. Also, because I’m Mexican and I’m white, I often struggle with wondering if I’m “allowed” to tell stories through this lens; growing up, the white kids always told me I was Latina or “ethnic,” and the Chicano kids always told me I was a “gringa,” so I never really felt like I fit in anywhere…"

"There is no one answer about why women are historically, across just about all of civilization, treated this way. It’s economics, it’s religion, it’s the reality of sex and pregnancy for women. It’s these value systems that get passed down from generation to generation that need questioning…Women haven’t survived for eons by being “weak” and “emotional.” We’ve survived by being a hell of a lot tougher and braver than we’re given credit for…"

"…I like “mad realism.” I grew up with a mother who wanted to be a nun and we had pictures of angels all over the house. My grandparents told ghost stories. Seeing magic in the world just felt like how you perceive life. I didn’t know anything about magic realism, really, until I started reading One Hundred Years of Solitude in college and suddenly everything that I grew up with was there on the page — the same love stories, stories of obsession, stories of interacting with spirits…"

"I was lucky…because my grandparents, who lived with us, were illiterate but they were great storytellers, so I got a kind of storytelling bug from them."

"…I think the most important thing for me is to give flesh and blood reality to people who are far away and distant from most American concerns. It's very easy to stick to the one-dimensional labels, and my hope is to completely explode the labels and reveal the flesh and blood and soul of each of the women in the play and to really make it impossible to walk away from the play with your prejudices still intact…"

"I have a natural tendency toward theatricality and poetic language...I've never really written realism…and I wanted to give it a shot."

"I know it’s a good play if I’m afraid to show it to my grandmother."

"I'm a person that documents the lives of people of color…So that way, when we're gone, no one will forget we were here."

"Being black and gay, having dreadlocks, having a certain kind of swag, and dressing the way I do…‘That’s dope, you’re cool.’ I don’t feel validated by that. . . . I don’t want to be White. I don’t want to be straight. I don’t want to blend in. . . . I try to wear queer designers who happen to be brown and makin’ shit."

"Stop giving a s— what other people think of you. We make decisions too often based on that…When we start to live for ourselves, and be a little bit more selfish, I think we’ll lead more fulfilling lives. So I think what we need to do, is stare at ourselves in the mirror a little bit longer, and really own who we are and not try to be what we think others want us to be."

"I think there are elements of the playwright in every play they write – it’s hard to completely disassociate from your characters and their given circumstances when you are the person creating it all…"

"The burqa has different meanings for many women who wear it. I think as Americans we have a tendency to only associate this garment with violence, oppression, and fear without really knowing much about its history or cultural significance. It is my hope that audience members will approach this play with an open mind and an open heart to allow for an alternate perspective that is both positive and meaningful."

"The hardest thing about being a black writer in this town is having to pitch your black story to white execs…Also, most of the time when we go into rooms to pitch, there’s one token black executive that sometimes can be a friend and sometimes can be a foe. I wonder if they think it makes me more comfortable, if that makes me think that they’re a woke network or studio because they’ve got that one black exec. It feels patronizing. I’m not against a black exec. I want there to be more of them."