I try to avoid long-range plans and visions - that way I can more easily deal with anything new that comes up.
When we leave the play saying how spectacular the sets or costumes were, or how interesting the ideas, it means we had a bad time.
Every scene should be able to answer three questions: "Who wants what from whom? What happens if they don't get it? Why now?
When the three branches of government have failed to represent the citizenry and the mass of the media has failed to represent the citizenry, then the citizenry better represent the citizenry.
One person may need (or want) more leisure, another more work; one more adventure, another more security, and so on. It is this diversity that makes a country, indeed a state, a city, a church, or a family, healthy. 'One-size-fits-all,' and that size determined by the State has a name, and that name is 'slavery. '
Forget narrative, backstory, characterisation, exposition, all of that. Just make the audience want to know what happens next.
The main question in drama, the way I was taught, is always, 'What does the protagonist want?' That's what drama is. It comes down to that. It's not about theme, it's not about ideas, it's not about setting, but what the protagonist wants.
I have said many times that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism.
We are living through an epochal shift. If we aren't careful, the elementary foundations of our pluralistic democracy will be threatened.
The two big mistakes were the belief in a sky god - that there's a man in the sky with 10 things he doesn't want you to do and you'll burn for a long time if you do them - and private property, which I think is at the core of our failure as a species. That's the source of my indignations, my dissatisfactions, however it comes out on the stage. I feel betrayed by the people I'm part of, these creatures, these magnificent creatures.
I'm the best Manning.