Diane Paulus
Diane Paulus
Diane Marie Paulusis an American director of theater and opera who became Artistic Director of the American Repertory Theaterat 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...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
CountryUnited States of America
art believe roots
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.
art directors kind
When you're a freelance director, you are hired to create the art, and it kind of stops there.
art want bubbles
I don't want to be in an art bubble.
innovation musical theater
The musical theater is a glorious and distinctly American innovation in the history of theater.
people levels epiphany
I had this epiphany that I like the interaction with people. I wanted to make things happen at a grassroots level.
children creativity play
Creativity and the world of the imagination - the beauty of what we see as a child and the kind of play that we experience as a child - can be a way for us to survive tough times.
audience industry left people tendency
I think in our culture there's been a tendency for people to blame the audience. There is a tendency in our industry to say, 'The audience has left the building. People don't want culture anymore.'
asleep audiences drop falling people wake work
I had to drop a boulder to wake people up about the A.R.T. We've done that, and now we have audiences again who want cutting-edge work, who want to be challenged, but who also won't be falling asleep at the theater.
way theater our-lives
Im 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.
team player dedication
Im always interested in working with people who are good team players - that are selfless that way in their interests and dedication to the project.
ocean people feelings
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 the definition of spectacle.
fall cutting people
I had to drop a boulder to wake people up about the A.R.T. We've done that, and now we have audiences again who want cutting-edge work, who want to be challenged, but who also won't be falling asleep at the theater.
mean voice giving
At the core of what I'm doing is a belief in the audience, a belief that populism doesn't mean dumbing down theater, but rather giving the audience a voice and a role in experiencing theater.
parent theatre opera
Theatre and opera were always the twin kingdoms that I felt I had to conquer, because they were my parents' favorites.