If you can't see it, you can't be it. It's just having those brilliant women break out and do something - then other girls can say, 'I can do it, too!'
— Marianne Elliott
I always loved and secretly wanted to do 'Company.' It was produced on Broadway in 1970, and it's about a successful 35-year-old guy who's starting to think he should get married.
I feel that if you're going to do theater, you've really got to throw yourself into the deep end. You have to commit your whole life and soul to it to make it the best it could ever be because theater can truly change people in lots of different ways. But I also think it can bore people to death, and it's quite a fine line between those two things.
It is draining when you have a child, and there aren't many women directors with kids out there as role models.
It's impossible to feel the creative juices flowing if you're always worried about the end result. I think really, really good work comes out of people being quite open, not stressed, really exploring, trying to be imaginative, without worrying too much about the end result.
I suppose I always find a lot of characters that are deeply, deeply keening with a sense of yearning and desire through sadness, but they have a bravery that keeps them going despite that.
It's incredible how London-centric the theatre world is. Certain actors won't travel away from London anymore for work; practitioners often aren't taken seriously enough unless their work is seen in London; and it's sometimes very difficult to get national critics to review shows - especially if there's a clash with a London press night.
My father was a director, and my mother and grandparents were actors, so I spent a great deal of my time as a teenager trying to get away from the theatre.
The better the acting is, the less visible the director and the less visible the actor.
I had done drama at university, but I never thought I could be a director. There were so few female directors then. I just assumed you had to be a man to be a director. I also assumed you had to be extremely authoritarian and extremely intellectual, none of which I was.
In subsidized theater, you are encouraged to take risks. It's about being imaginative and artistic. That's the priority. It might not be a success, but let's try.
The actors work out how to create the show with me during the rehearsals. They owe it to themselves and each other to maintain that contract regardless of what the critics say.
I'm very much of the opinion that theatre is a collective art form, not just one person's vision.
I hope for continued bravery and risk-taking for all theatremakers in 2018 and beyond.
I would like to see more female stories out there, particularly older female stories.
My generation feels it has been lied to a great deal.
Some directors have the gift of the gab, but I don't.
I never want to see 'Hamlet' ever again! Never ever!
I'm aware, as I get older, there are less and less stories that really pertain to me and who I am and where I'm going.
The plays I choose to work on are about having masks. We all have masks in life, but there is a different inner life going on. The audience has to work hard to see what is going on. I love what is not on display.
I am still very observant. I am absorbed by people and why they do what they do.
I'm really fascinated by other directors' methods. I've done a lot of learning by observation.
I just think that you have to approach anything you do with a huge amount of integrity - I don't really care where it comes from, whether it's a children's piece or an adult piece.
I've enjoyed lots of productions, and it's always been down to the actors I've been working with.
You need to see yourself in what you direct, I think - directing is quite self-indulgent from that point of view.
It's a tremendous asset if you have a visual eye because you can make huge visual statements in a very theatrical way and play to the strength of theatre. But the high end of directing is working with actors and making the acting the best it can be.
I find theater emotionally expensive and all-involving. You have to pour so much blood and passion and heart into it. And so much time. Why do that for something that's only vaguely interesting and anyone can do it?
'Friends' is easy to dismiss, but it's really good television - the art with which those actors play with comedy shouldn't be denigrated. And they also know how to play irony, which I think a lot of English actors might find quite difficult.
I've seen many shows ruined by bad reviews and good reviews, so I always tell my actors not to read the reviews until after the run is over.
If it is just another run-of-the-mill show, then what is the point?
I'm always drawn to female stories with female protagonists, and I particularly yearn for more older actresses to take centre stage in 2018.
I worked in casting for about five years before I became a director, and that taught me a huge amount because you never actually will see the character walk through the door - and if you do, then you have to be slightly suspicious of that.
Staging any play is very exposing because, if you are going to do it well, you have to put so much of yourself into it.
Whether you're a man or a woman, life can be very, very difficult and confusing and desperate, and it's life-enhancing to know that somehow, there is a way through it.
What I really would like to see is more female stories out there. Particularly older female stories, because women are predominantly ticket-buyers.
I'm drawn to female stories, of which there aren't that many, and particularly to stories now about older women. The things they have to confront and override is really fascinating. That's a whole untold part of our world.
Having a child is all-consuming; so is doing a play.
If you put a blank canvas in front of Matisse and say, 'This has to be a success,' who's going to pick up a paintbrush?
For me, 'Angels in America' is not really about AIDS. For me, it's a metaphor for anybody who is struggling with serious illness or having to face their own demise. All of the characters face some form of destruction in themselves.
I suppose what's so amazing about working at the National Theatre is that, because it's a subsidized theatre, you're not trying to create a product that's going to have a mass market in order to make the money back.
I had a very embarrassing time acting extremely badly at university, which is when directing suddenly became so attractive.
For me, it's life or death doing plays: there's this perfectionist thing about me that it has to be brilliant - anything less than that is a failure.
You have to lead by example. You have to be the calmest person in the room. You have to be very open. I think the qualities of a director are to enable and to find the best in everybody.
I was 28 before I started putting on productions. I got in the back door by doing fringe shows and a lot of assisting, and I learned on the job. There weren't many female directors when I was starting out. I slowly gained confidence and understanding of the theater, but on my own terms.
As you get older, you realise that your identity becomes more important - the environment in which you have grown is actually part of who you are just as much as your family or your school.
A bad audition is usually the director's fault, not the actor's. It's up to the director to get the atmosphere right to get the best out of your auditionees.
Often during rehearsals, I catch myself thinking, 'God, this is hard. Why am I always choosing such difficult plays to put on?'
It's predominantly a male society, predominately a male culture, predominantly a male theatre, and predominantly male critics, but that's changing, definitely.
I used to love getting older.
I am quite an insecure person, and I think that, like any director, if I'm asked about my vision for a piece, I feel very vulnerable.
