Kenny Leon

“As an artist, you're thankful to get a shot at a story more than once, because it doesn't happen all the time. Whether you talk about 'Hamlet' or 'Death of a Salesman,' you always want to see what the next group of actors will do.”

“In the early '90s, there was an attention to diversity. In this country, diversity was a good thing. People would use words like 'multicultural' and like it. Now, politically, those words are out. But I still feel theaters have to be diverse in order to survive.”

“When I'm acting, I'm just worried about that piece of the pie, contributing to the whole. But when you're directing, you... get the vision out of your head and on the stage.”

“I always say film is art, theater is life and television is furniture.”

“Great theater continues to bind us, one to the other, and most of us will travel far and wide to see a good story told well.”

“I'm not one to spend my life asking the question, 'Is there racism in America?' Certainly there is. But I want to do something about it.”

“I tried to stay off the stage, but you know, I'm an actor; I'm an artist.”

“To me, I'm sort of like Dorothy in 'The Wiz.' It kind of parallels my life. It's a story that reminds me... that home is where the love is. So if I go to Tampa or St. Pete, and I feel the love there, that's my home. That's where the love is.”

“As I tell young people in workshops, 'It's your country. If you came here on the bottom of a slave ship, if your people came here seeking political freedom - however your folks got here - it belongs to you just as much as it belongs to anyone, so claim it. It's your birthright. America belongs to every person who is here.'”

“I've directed 'Raisin in the Sun' five times. You keep discovering things. You keep on seeing things in the script that you never saw before. That's what great pieces of art do.”

“I've always liked that idea of a diverse group of audience members sitting together, rubbing up against each other and taking on the life of a culture that doesn't belong to either one of them.”

“I've always had an affinity for writers who have a poetry background, so I always liked Tennessee Williams.”

“I don't know how racists live with their racism. We need to take the road of love. I don't think folks are born that way; it's learned and taught out of fear.”

“When I'm working in television, I've learned you've got to work fast. You don't have time to rehearse; you don't have time to just mess around. You've got to move quickly. So I pick that up from that world, and I also pick up the idea of development of character and development of situations.”

“I love the idea of live theater the best because you are sitting there with the community in the dark, looking at the light, and that's really - you can't get any higher than that.”

“Broadway is the same as Hollywood. Every few years we say we reached the mountaintop, then we take two steps back.”

“President Obama became our first African American president, and for me, it is the stuff of which dreams are made.”

“I like working with actors who make choices. Whether they get their ideas from me or from themselves, I want them to own all the choices so I can take my hand out of it.”

“I always approach every play based on the cast. When Denzel and I did 'Fences,' I didn't go to rehearsals and say, 'OK, James Earl Jones did a wonderful job in '87. Let me see if you can come close to James Earl Jones.'”

“I grew up a poor kid in Florida, and I was always in Florida living with my stepfather and my mother, and we used to, every year, sit down and watch 'The Wizard of Oz.' And I think to this day that's probably the foundation for everything I've done since.”