Many years ago my T’ai Chi Chuan teacher Jean Kwok made a trip to Hong Kong. On her first morning in the city she walked into a nearby park to practice her form. The large park was filled with many… more

You are free to choose what you want to make of your life.  It’s called free agency or free will, and it’s your birthright.(Sean Covey) The moment that Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanatta first… more

For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.(Elie Wiesel)Poet and activist Maya Angelou wrote, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.” In small quotidian… more

Composer, music theorist, writer and influential artist John Cage, known for his delight in the unplanned and the unexpected, nevertheless recognized the necessity for an artist’s rigorous… more

You need something to open up a new doorTo show you something you seen beforeBut overlooked a hundred times or more.(Bob Dylan, from Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie)

"If two roads open up before you, always take the most difficult one.  Because you know you can travel the easy one." (Raymond Belle – Parkour Traceur) As a teenager I was deeply enamored with… more

Most of us are regularly plagued by doubt, overwhelmed by the impossible odds against us, discouraged by lack of support and dragged down by physical and emotional hardships.  And yet, despite this,… more

Chicago theater director Damon Kiely is about to publish a book entitled “How to Read a Play” with Routledge Press and he asked me to write the forward.   Inspired by the title of his book and… more

I am currently directing Giuseppe Verdi’s Macbeth at Glimmerglass Festival (come visit this summer in beautiful Cooperstown, New York and catch the entire season of operas between July 11th and… more

An acting student at Columbia University once mentioned that her father, a surgeon, had a saying: “Study one, do one, teach one.” I instantly recognized that this formula, familiar to surgeons,… more

One who could make of himself a vacuum into which others might freely enter would become master of all situations. (Okakura Kakuzo)  I probably share with many a terror and trepidation around the… more

The Taoists describe the art of life as the art of constant adjustment to the current surroundings.  Similarly, nothing could be more central to a successful creative process than the ability to… more

Allie Lalonde, SITI Company’s wizard of communications and development, is also simultaneously writing her final thesis paper in completion of the MFA requirements for Columbia University’s… more

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.  (André Gide)In 1947 Nina Vance, who at the time had only $2.17 in her handbag but was determined to start a new… more

Several years ago the performance artist and composer Laurie Anderson spoke with my directing students at Columbia University and advised them never to relate their dreams to other people. "No one… more

A number of years ago I co-taught a class for graduate directors and actors at Columbia University with Kristin Linklater.  One afternoon I mentioned to Kristin that in order to catch a Metro North… more