I grew up a poor kid in Florida, and I was always in Florida living with my stepfather and my mother, and we used to, every year, sit down and watch 'The Wizard of Oz.' And I think to this day that's probably the foundation for everything I've done since.
— Kenny Leon
Broadway, in my opinion, is a microcosm of America. Those challenges that we have in our country, I think we still have those challenges on the Broadway stage. I think there are far too few African-American directors working on Broadway.
As an artist, you're thankful to get a shot at a story more than once, because it doesn't happen all the time. Whether you talk about 'Hamlet' or 'Death of a Salesman,' you always want to see what the next group of actors will do.
I think 'Holler If Ya Hear Me' is almost 'A Raisin in the Sun' 50 years later, with just a different 20-year-old voice speaking the words. But it's about access to the American dream and equal lives having equal value in America. It's still holding a mirror up to us so we can see ourselves.
I like working with actors who make choices. Whether they get their ideas from me or from themselves, I want them to own all the choices so I can take my hand out of it.
I don't know how racists live with their racism. We need to take the road of love. I don't think folks are born that way; it's learned and taught out of fear.
When I'm working in television, I've learned you've got to work fast. You don't have time to rehearse; you don't have time to just mess around. You've got to move quickly. So I pick that up from that world, and I also pick up the idea of development of character and development of situations.
As an older generation, we need to give all our young people love and the possibility of realizing their dreams. For instance, if I get really political, the fact that some people can't go to college, can't even think about college, that's not American; that's not right.
The first 45 or 50 years of the regional theater movement, all these folks, they built these theaters. The job of the next generation is to maintain them.
To me, I'm sort of like Dorothy in 'The Wiz.' It kind of parallels my life. It's a story that reminds me... that home is where the love is. So if I go to Tampa or St. Pete, and I feel the love there, that's my home. That's where the love is.
There's room for Spike Lee's movies; there's room for Tyler Perry's movies. There's room for classics with an all black cast. There's room for all of it as long as we don't try to make any one piece define us as a race.
I've always had an affinity for writers who have a poetry background, so I always liked Tennessee Williams.
I tried to stay off the stage, but you know, I'm an actor; I'm an artist.
As I tell young people in workshops, 'It's your country. If you came here on the bottom of a slave ship, if your people came here seeking political freedom - however your folks got here - it belongs to you just as much as it belongs to anyone, so claim it. It's your birthright. America belongs to every person who is here.'
Great theater continues to bind us, one to the other, and most of us will travel far and wide to see a good story told well.
President Obama became our first African American president, and for me, it is the stuff of which dreams are made.
I love the idea of live theater the best because you are sitting there with the community in the dark, looking at the light, and that's really - you can't get any higher than that.
I'm not one to spend my life asking the question, 'Is there racism in America?' Certainly there is. But I want to do something about it.
In the early '90s, there was an attention to diversity. In this country, diversity was a good thing. People would use words like 'multicultural' and like it. Now, politically, those words are out. But I still feel theaters have to be diverse in order to survive.
A lot of times, we are trapped by our own false sense of security. You can do whatever it is you put your mind to. Your goal is to find your purpose.
I've always liked that idea of a diverse group of audience members sitting together, rubbing up against each other and taking on the life of a culture that doesn't belong to either one of them.
I always approach every play based on the cast. When Denzel and I did 'Fences,' I didn't go to rehearsals and say, 'OK, James Earl Jones did a wonderful job in '87. Let me see if you can come close to James Earl Jones.'
I've directed 'Raisin in the Sun' five times. You keep discovering things. You keep on seeing things in the script that you never saw before. That's what great pieces of art do.
I came from the South with a mother who was hard working, so I love going to work every day.
Broadway is the same as Hollywood. Every few years we say we reached the mountaintop, then we take two steps back.
I love film because you have the last word. I never get that on stage because you've got to really believe; you've got to get the actors to trust you, and they have to believe in you, and then hopefully they will when you open the show.
I always say film is art, theater is life and television is furniture.
I was a political science major. I was always interested in social impact.
When I'm acting, I'm just worried about that piece of the pie, contributing to the whole. But when you're directing, you... get the vision out of your head and on the stage.
