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Harold Prince
Broadway Producer and Director
There is one definitive moment in the road. It is the moment when you as a producer, or even a director, decide that you are giving the audience what it wants rather than taking the audience on a journey you wanted to take. West Side Story is a perfect example of taking the audience somewhere. When it first opened, 100 people walked out on that show every night for a year. Lots of people didn't get it. It didn't win the Tony Awards or any of that stuff, but here it is, and it did pay off, and it made a film that they benefited from. The point is, I still believe you have to take your audience somewhere, and don't underestimate how damn smart they are and how willing to be stimulated. But the situation was parlous at the moment.
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Harold Prince
Broadway Producer and Director
Monday morning, I heard a shout from his office, and he said, "Will you come in here? I just got this script from California. Damn, I have to write a whole half-hour television show," and I said, "I wrote one over the weekend, in case you'd like to see it," and he said, "Give it to me," and I gave it to him and he said, "It's fine. Let's do it just your way, and why don't you direct it?" I said, "What are you saying?" He said, "You can direct. I've been watching you. Go direct it." So I said, "Are you going to the actors No one is going to listen to a 20-year-old!" and he said -- I was probably 21 by then -- he said, "No, go ahead. Direct it. I'll come on Thursday and make some comments." So the actors did look at me strangely. It bore his name, the script. So we didn't have to go over that, and I directed the show. He came in and made a nip or a tuck there or something, not much, and the show went on the air. But I was a very abrasive kid. The energy level was just too high. I was trying hard to be tactful, but I had a lot of ambition.
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Dan Rather
Broadcast Journalist
Controversy? You can't be any kind of reporter worthy of the name and avoid controversy completely. You can't be a good reporter and not be fairly regularly involved in some kind of controversy. And I don't think you can be a great reporter and avoid controversy very often, because one of the roles a good journalist plays is to tell the tough truths as well as the easy truths. And the tough truths will lead you to controversy, and even a search for the tough truths will cost you something. Please don't make this play or read as any complaint, it's trying to explain this goes with the territory if you're a journalist of integrity. That if you start out a journalist or if you reach a point in journalism where you say, "Listen, I'm just not going not touch anything that could possibly be controversial," then you ought to get out.
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Lloyd Richards
Tony Award-Winning Director
Lloyd Richards: It's built into your life. If you aspire at all, you're taking a risk. If you aspire as a young black person to something where there is not a beaten path, you're taking a risk. So risk is nothing new in your life. But then, some risks cost more than others, and I guess those are the ones that you recognize as risks. But all of life is a risk. You try and achieve whatever you as an individual human being can achieve. To make that attempt is a risk. I guess I never decided to take risks with my life, I just had no choice.
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