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Lloyd Richards
Tony Award-Winning Director
Lloyd Richards: I don't work for the critics. The critics are something that happens to the work. If I try to guess what the critics might like I know my producers do that all the time. I've been a producer, and I am a producer, but I do the things I like. I do the things that really affect me. I do the things that mean something to me, where something of me is being articulated through the work. I say what I have to say. Now that may be accepted, it may not be accepted. I say it the best I can, and if they don't accept it, okay.
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Lloyd Richards
Tony Award-Winning Director
Lloyd Richards: The arts are a reflection of our society, of its concerns, of its aspirations, of its possibilities. In every respect, it is also a challenge to our society. Those are its roles, and sometimes those roles become crusty. It was Ed Steinmetz who said a good writer is as a second government in his own country which is why the government generally supports mediocrity rather than real talent. What is he saying? He is saying that the role of the arts is to challenge, is to question. It is not simply to pat on the back and support and wave. There are many, many responsibilities that it has, one of which is to question our society as it exists, and lead it to the possibility of making other choices. Sometimes, it isn't to say that every artist is correct in his projection, but at least the challenge is there. Answer it again. There are times when you step on a toe, and if that toe is as influential as a few toes were, then you may have a bumpy time. But that does not change the role of the arts. And any true artist will not be changed by it.
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Sally Ride
First American Woman in Space
I decided that it was worth my time to try to have some impact on that, and try to, first, help change the culture and make the culture realize that the girls are out there, that if we want scientists and engineers in the future, we should be cultivating the girls as much as the boys, and that we needed to be able to give girls in middle school, high school and college the same opportunities that we give to boys. So I have put in a lot of time creating programs for girls, particularly in middle school, to just keep them engaged and introduce them to role models, show them that whether they want to be a rocket scientist or a geochemist or a microbiologist, that there are women who are now actively involved in those careers and who love what they do. I think it's slowly but surely having an impact.
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Sonny Rollins
Greatest Living Jazz Soloist
Sonny Rollins: I have always been a person that has had a strong sense of right and wrong, a strong spiritual guide or guardian angel or belief maybe, I don't know how to explain it, but a conscience maybe. There was always something inside of me that was talking to me all the time. When something talks to me, like the thing with the drugs, I realized something said, "Yeah," and it finally came to me, "This is not the way to go." I just have that in me, and when I find something that I want to do, I block out everything else, and I would do it. It's the sense of right and wrong, so it doesn't matter to me that people were saying, "How can you leave the music? Because they won't accept you back if you go away. You will lose your edge," and all. This was inconsequential to me, because I had an idea that I wanted to improve my self, my musical arsenal, if you will. So I do what I want to do, and that's that. I am very strong about that, and this has held me in good stead, just listening to the inner voice. This is what I do, and I am happy about it, that I have that much determination, if you want to call it that. That's what I have done all my life, and the sabbaticals were the same.
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Sonny Rollins
Greatest Living Jazz Soloist
I realized I wasn't sounding as good as my reputation was, so I wanted to kind of get to that point where I wouldn't be ashamed to go on the bandstand, which happened to me one time on a job I was playing with Elvin Jones, at that time, was the drummer playing with me. We used to go around, had a big sign, "Sonny Rollins is coming to town," everybody was there, but I didn't sound good, and I knew I wasn't playing up to what I should be. So I said, "Okay, I am getting out of here. I am going to go and woodshed," as they say, and get myself together.
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