ANNA D. SHAPIRO

I'm getting less and less interested in the problems of youth. I'm much more interested in the idea of emotional paralysis, and I find myself less interested in work that doesn't have anything to do with a conversation about the world.

I am a director because I believe in my own impulses and my own point of view, and that belief encourages me to tell stories that will move, provoke, and change people. But I became a director because I wanted to be a part of the world.

The one thing that never changes in America is that the white straight male is born with a promise. Women are not promised very much, and we embody our disappointment from the beginning.

Amy Morton is a machine. If she misses a show it's because someone amputated her leg and she's looking for it.

There are times when you're working with film people when you have to say, 'If the camera were on you, what you're doing would be perfect'.

Steppenwolf has always been at the center of everything in my professional life.

Everyone has the talent to some degree: even making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you know whether it tastes better to you with raspberry jam or grape jelly; on chewy pumpernickel or white toast.

I think of myself as actually kind of prudish and girly, but I don't know if a lot of other people would see me that way.

The conversation of how you do a play is my favorite conversation in the whole wide world: what a play is, why it's different than anything else, the math of the way that human behavior has to be calibrated theatrically versus anything else.

If you think there is anything in theater that objectively exists without your point of view attached, you are wrong.

The one thing that never changes in America is that the white straight male is born with a promise. Women are not promised very much, and we embody our disappointment from the beginning.

I would love to figure out a way to be less careful and more adventurous.

The conversation of how you do a play is my favorite conversation in the whole wide world: what a play is, why it's different than anything else, the math of the way that human behavior has to be calibrated theatrically versus anything else.

I'm not sure plays tell people anything. I think plays include an audience in an experience that is happening in that moment, and that's the specialness. What people take away has almost as much to do with what they bring as what we do.

Steppenwolf has always been at the center of everything in my professional life.

So many of my friends are actors, and so many of them are great, and they're losing jobs to people who have never been in plays before; I understand that sometimes I'm part of the problem. But I'm trying to figure out how to balance it.

I just feel like, for whatever reason, female playwrights don't really ask me to do their plays. Nothing would make me happier than finding the sisterhood, but I can't make them.

My main interest is in cultivating my company.

I wish theater criticism in this country could be more of a companion piece to the experience than a warning about where not to spend your money.

What I've understood is that to be funny is not my job. To see funny is my job.

There are times when you're working with film people when you have to say, 'If the camera were on you, what you're doing would be perfect'.

Plays are about understanding what happens, what it means. If we just leaned into the story, for lack of a better word, it would still be a powerful story but, like delight, it might disappear an hour after you saw it.

I'm getting less and less interested in the problems of youth. I'm much more interested in the idea of emotional paralysis, and I find myself less interested in work that doesn't have anything to do with a conversation about the world.

Theater, for me, is no longer a conversation about how we destroy each other; it's much more about how we may be destroying everyone else.

If you think there is anything in theater that objectively exists without your point of view attached, you are wrong.

I consider myself a pretty good extemporaneous speaker. Even though I don't like speaking in front of people, I don't think I'm bad at it.

I'm not sure I have a role model per se, but I do deeply admire every woman who raises children and has to walk for water.

I think of myself as actually kind of prudish and girly, but I don't know if a lot of other people would see me that way.

Amy Morton is a machine. If she misses a show it's because someone amputated her leg and she's looking for it.

I am a director because I believe in my own impulses and my own point of view, and that belief encourages me to tell stories that will move, provoke, and change people. But I became a director because I wanted to be a part of the world.

Everyone has the talent to some degree: even making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you know whether it tastes better to you with raspberry jam or grape jelly; on chewy pumpernickel or white toast.