Jean-Claude van Itallie

Playwright, Actor

Interview #37

"However crazy and however ego-full we may all have been--and we were--we dropped it when we were in the room working on what we were working on."
Jean-Claude van Itallie

Dr. Glory Van Scott

Actress, Singer, Dancer, Director, Producer, Composer, Playwright, Author, Activist

Interview #166

"I don’t think I’ve ever had the excitement going toward a Broadway show that I had when I was in an Off-Broadway show – it’s still creating…there’s always excitement in there…always has been."
Dr. Glory Van Scott

David Van Tieghem

Composer, Musician, Sound Designer

Interview #143

"Sometimes sound design can also become a character of the play itself…because I’m creating the other people who aren’t on stage and other things that are going on."
David Van Tieghem

Ned Van Zandt

Actor, Playwright, Co-Founder of La MaMa Hollywood

Interview #141

"I feel really privileged to have been a part of the Off-Off-Broadway scene…it was like Disneyland to me."
Ned Van Zandt

Jennifer von Mayrhauser

Costume Designer

Interview #109

"I didn’t go around going ‘I have to do Broadway! I have to do Off-Broadway! I just wanted to work in the theater."
Jennifer von Mayrhauser

Dolores Deane Walker

Co-Founder Westbeth Playwrights Feminist Collective

Interview #144

"Each of us…was interested in certain portions of the women’s movement, but I think we embodied the women’s movement in the sense that we worked so cohesively and so enthusiastically together."
Dolores Deane Walker

Robert Walter

Stage Manager

Interview #82

"I was the first naked stage manager on Broadway."
Robert Walter

Tony Walton

Production Designer, Costume Designer, Director, Producer

Interview #96

"The hardest thing for a designer, the hardest thing for any of the theatrical creative collaborators, is to keep your dream alive from the dream to the eventual delivery onstage."
Tony Walton

Douglas Turner Ward

Founder and Artistic Director of the Negro Ensemble Company, Playwright, Director, Actor

Interview #44

"The problem is...to run a theater... who is going to take responsibility for the FAILURES?"
Douglas Turner Ward

Sharon Washington

Actor, Playwright

Interview #147

"Broadway is Broadway, its business, it’s a big money game…you can’t take chances…Off-Broadway is still where new writers, new voices can happen…there’s women, there’s LGBTQ - what used to be the stories of the ‘others’, the ‘other’, is now becoming less other and being told."
Sharon Washington

Jeff Weiss

Actor, Playwright, Co-Founder, The Good Medicine & Company

Interview #131

"I end every show with these lines: ‘Goodnight. God bless you. Don’t be strangers.’ Blackout."
Jeff Weiss

Charles Weldon

Artistic Director of the Negro Ensemble Company, Actor, Director

Interview #84

"I call myself ‘the accidental actor.’ I never had any idea I’d be doing this. I really didn’t."
Charles Weldon

Elizabeth Wilson

Actress

Interview #1

"Off-Broadway was a gift… to the actor, a gift to the writer… because there wasn’t the same kind of pressure… it was so relaxed and they did much braver pieces."
Elizabeth Wilson

Mary Louise Wilson

Actor, Playwright, Writer

Interview #180

"When everybody else was playing bridge I was on the table saying ‘look at me, look at me, in a hat.’… I was the clown. And I loved it. I was accepted as The Clown. That was my role."
Mary Louise Wilson

Hattie Winston

Actress, Director

Interview #190

"The Group Theatre Workshop was a place where we were being taught about life…not just acting…and having instilled in us a love for theater."
Hattie Winston

Moni Yakim and Mina Yakin

Mimes, Actors, Directors, Playwrights

Interview #67

"That's all I want to do in my life is to become a mime."
Moni Yakim and Mina Yakin

Susan Yankowitz

Playwright, Librettist, Novelist

Interview #111

"The Open Theater…took theatre seriously…I had never seen that type of passion about theatre and its meaning."
Susan Yankowitz

Jerry Zaks

Director, Actor

Interview #68

"I love hearing an audience laugh, I love it! Because I always believed that the sound of an audience laughing is the sound of an audience falling in love."
Jerry Zaks

Dick D. Zigun

Playwright, Director, Founder/Artistic Director Coney Island USA: The Mermaid Parade; Coney Island Side Show; The Coney Island Museum; Burlesque At The Beach

Interview #174

"I taught myself what kind of playwright I wanted to be, and I had a big epiphany, the stuff I considered stupid, audiences liked best."
Dick D. Zigun

Paul Zimet

Founder of The Talking Band, Actor, Director, Playwright

Interview #53

"I think it's probably the only time in my life...I knew that this is some historical moment...that something new was happening here. So we felt very privileged and excited...to be a part of that."
Paul Zimet

Steve Zuckerman (with Darlene Kaplan)

Steve Zuckerman - Director, Darlene Kaplan - Producer, Talent Manager

Interview #106

"There is a buzz in New York City…everywhere you go people are talking about theater."
Steve Zuckerman (with Darlene Kaplan)