I directed the play 'Amadeus' with puppets way back in the day for theater. I also studied puppetry at the Eugene and Neil Center with a lot of the 'Sesame Street' people, so I do have a little bit of a history with puppetry.
One fine day I discovered that more complex plays really have to be directed.
I first watched 'Adhe Adhure' in college. I loved it, and it stayed with me ever since. I decided that I would some day direct this play - not in English, but in Hindi.
I love theatre - it's where I started - and I've directed a play myself. I'm not sure if I want to direct a film, but certainly, as an actress, I'm always thinking, 'Surely this must be my last film.'
I don't get nervous when I'm directing a play. It's not like acting.
I was a member of Circle Rep; I had done a little bit of directing there. I remember that I had a vacation from 'Angels', in which I remounted a play that I had done out of town called 'Three Hotels.' That's how I spent my week vacation.
My preference will always be theatre because it's where my heart lies and it's what I started with and eventually I want to direct it. It's where my real interest is. But I just love trying out new stuff. Acting for me isn't just for me about being in front of a camera ... it's so much more than that. It's always about telling a story and there are so many ways of doing that, so I'll always want to try something else.
My earliest experience was reading Edward Albee's 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' at 8, you know, with a bunch of kids on my steps - on the stoops - and knowing that I wanted to direct them saying the lines. I don't really know how to articulate that 'cause there wasn't someone to show me.
I went from off-off Broadway. I would direct plays in Baldwin Hills. Almost Tyler Perry-like, really trying to express myself in that and not really knowing how to, knowing acting in story, but not really knowing how to technically hold a camera.
While my megalomania knows no bounds, directing is one thing I have never really done. I directed a couple of plays. That was the extent of it.
It's hard for me to fall in love with a piece of material enough to want to direct it.
In a play, the director is God, and I'm a great arguer. Rather boringly so, I think, about trying different things.
I've done two 'Hamlets,' two 'Lears,' three 'Midsummer Night's Dreams' - I've done most of these plays more than once, and every time I direct them, I learn things.
If you have bad hair and you bite your nails, nobody expects that you can't direct plays.
I do like directing other people's material.
I come alive when I have assisted in bringing out the printed word on the stage, you know, and I enjoy directing plays. It's a tactile process, theatre, unlike a number of other forms of the creative work.
I don't direct the plays of others.
I directed plays in college. It's something that I have sort of always put in the back of my mind, and I'm a busy actress, and it's very difficult to sort of find the time, honestly, to commit to directing. It's a very - it's a big, big job.
I think I am the first person of color to direct a major white play on Broadway. In 1993? That's astounding to me. And horrifying to me.
I was born in Ballaghadreen, but I grew up in Galway, and when I went to the University College of Galway, I became involved in the drama society there and started directing plays.
When I was in high school, I was the guy directing plays after class. I started my first theater company at 19, and my second theater company at 21. I've always been a guy who doesn't do well with the passive nature of being an actor.
