JOE MANTELLO

I was always rather outspoken. I worried about what people thought of me but there really wasn't room for a lot of self-doubt.

If I hadn't gone into the theater, I would be a painter.

I think good actors - good, collaborative actors who see themselves as leaders in a given production - can and should offer ideas that have nothing to do with wanting to direct themselves.

But there is a process that happens when you're making something, be it a musical or a new play. That process takes time, and mistakes will be made along the way, and you will go down and hit dead ends. But it is so public now. Any yahoo with a computer can start a firestorm.

I understood that I was not the best director in the world nor the worst director in the world. I realized that there is a very mysterious element to what works and what doesn't work in the theater. And it's good to know that from the beginning.

I know there are different kinds of actors, but I tend to have less effective relationships with actors who have a very private process - who really need to do lots of internal work, so that I become merely a witness until they're ready to share.

I think actors are brave souls that have to use parts of themselves that I'm just not comfortable doing anymore.

I like to hire the kind of people that I would want to be on stage with.

I think, as written, 'Assassins' simply acknowledges the very human need to be acknowledged. As director, I've got to put aside any particular biases or prejudices that, as a moral human being, this is not an appropriate or acceptable way to get what you want.

Theater isn't there to provide answers. Only possibilities. I just ask the questions. But I believe hope comes from the fact that there is a potential for redemption. At the core, that's what matters in the theater I'm attracted to. Do we dare to hope? Do we allow ourselves to hope?

I want to do something very surprising next. I don't know what that is - something that has a high degree of risk.

There are plenty of other actors who are wonderful that just don't work in a way that I work, or our methods aren't necessarily compatible. But then there are those you instinctually just are drawn to.

I think that from day one, when it became clear that 'Wicked' was going to have a life, that we have set a standard for ourselves that we are never going to shortchange the audience; that every person that we put into that musical is going to be held to the highest standards; and that nobody is going to be coasting.

I don't think of gay writers. I mean if you were to say to me who are the straight writers, well, you wouldn't ask me that question. So for me to identify a little tribe of gay writers, I don't know.

I become involved with things that speak to me and move me and make me laugh and frighten me.

I think the audiences in Chicago are really open. They're engaged and eager, and they don't feel cynical to me. Sometimes in New York, there's a sense of, 'Prove it to me; prove this is worth my time.' I never felt that in Chicago.

As a director, you're incredibly proud when an individual steps up to the podium and is acknowledged for their work. But to have an entire company acknowledged, there is just no higher honor ever paid for that company - or for the director, for that matter.

I am a very fortunate man, and I don't take it for granted.

In 'The Humans,' there's a gay character, and the fact that she's gay is probably the least interesting thing about her.

My preference is for people who come to rehearsal and get into the ring. I like a muscular actor who's playful.

I was always the person in our class who was fascinated by new plays. I would go to the library all the time as new plays would come out.

I have a responsibility to diversity onstage, but one of the things I've heard about our production of 'Boys' is that it's a bunch of white guys. Well, race is a component of this play. You can't just drop people in willy-nilly and say, 'Well, we're going for diversity.'

I tend to go toward things that make me afraid.

I'm tenacious. I work hard. I like people that I collaborate with to work as hard as I am.

I don't believe really good plays - interesting plays, complicated plays - can mean just one thing to every single person in the audience.