ART's Diane Paulus To Theatre-Makers: 'You Are Here To Evoke Passion'

Since making her Broadway debut with a revival of HAIR that took a serious look at 1960s counter-culture, Diane Paulus has shown herself to be one of musical theatre's strongest interpretive directors. From her controversially revised PORGY AND BESS, to her cirque-inspired PIPPIN to Broadway's current FINDING NEVERLAND and WAITRESS, her productions continually show the mark of firm and interesting guidance.

Her guiding hand is also evident in productions at the American Repertory Theater (ART) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she has served as artistic director since 2009.

"I make theater because it is a forum to ask questions," she said in a recent address at the Americans for the Arts convention in Boston. "To live inside questions. To push boundaries with questions. To provoke with questions. To challenge with questions. I always tell young directors you do not need to have the answers. Your job is to ask the questions. And if the theater you create is banal, it is most likely because you have not asked a big enough question."

Since her speech was made shortly after the murders at Orlando's Pulse nightclub, she disregarded her previously prepared words to open with more questions, such as, "Why does it feel like we've been here before? And why does it feel like it's getting worse?"

She notes how rapidly information is available when a tragedy occurs. We immediately see videos, learn facts and hear eyewitness accounts, but we rarely take the time to process it all into insight and empathy.

"What has fueled my work over the last eight years as artistic director at the American Repertory Theater is the investigation of how the theater can be a catalyst for a larger civic engagement with the world around us... ART has become a vibrant and vital epicenter for our audiences, artists and staff because we do not focus solely on the 'two hours traffic of our stage.' We have experienced that the work we do has the most transformative impact when we have redefined the theatrical event to include what happens before, during and after the performance itself."

To this end, ART's Act II program features a series of curated discussions following performances.

Audience members who attended Steven Sater and by Serj Tankian's PROMETHEUS BOUND, which used the ancient myth to refer to modern representations of tyranny, were invited to partake in dialogue with representatives from Amnesty International, who spoke about prisoners of conscience.

The run of their 2014 production of WITNESS UGANDA happened to coincide with the creation of the country's "Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act" which proposed the death penalty, later amended to life in prison, for homosexuality.

"Our discussions emphasized connections between the Ugandan bill and lasting anti-gay policies both abroad and here in the U.S."

Eve Ensler's IN THE BODY OF THE WORLD, a solo piece about her diagnosis, treatment and healing from uterine cancer, as well as her work with City of Joy in the Congo, inspired conversations where audiences members were invited onto the stage to sit on pillows alongside "surgeons from the Mayo Clinic, Congolese activists, doctors from the Harvard Medical School, trauma specialists and scientists and other experts on the environment."

Paulus encouraged her listeners to "Question everything. Probe deeper... Push every boundary. Disrupt everything expected. Demand inclusion of every story that needs to be told to enlighten our way."

"You are not here to be liked," she says. "You are here to evoke passion."

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