Thomas Kail

When you're driving into D.C. as a young kid and you go over the Key Bridge and see the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and Capitol Building, they become a part of the landscape for you. You are also constantly in contact with this idea that history, and the people that made it, are being remembered.

I go to each job and open my little briefcase up, and I take out the things that I have or I know. It might be a Swiss army knife, a quart of milk and a ruler. That might be all I can bring to it, but that's what I have.

My job is the same if I'm making a new musical or making a play for sixty-five people or doing a live television broadcast. The job is to take care of the actor; the job is to create an environment where they can excel and try to access all their attributes.

As a kid, I wanted to be a sportscaster. On the radio. I loved the idea of painting a picture. I didn't want to be on TV. I wanted to be Jon Miller, who called all the Orioles games.

Fundamentally, one of the things I tend to migrate toward when I'm working is a story about people whose stories aren't told in theater.

So much about being a director is getting the show ready for that first preview audience. I have a lot of experience making events that only happen once; it's opening and closing night in the same three-hour span.

I grew up with two sisters, and we owned three movies: 'Grease,' 'It's a Wonderful Life,' and 'Grease 2.' And you can only watch 'Wonderful Life' in the last half of the year. So I don't remember a time when I didn't know 'Grease.'

I didn't really start going to see a lot of musicals and live theater probably until I was in seventh or eighth grade, maybe my first year of high school, and by that time I'd probably seen 'Grease' twice a year every year of my life.

When 'The Sound of Music' aired live on NBC, 18 million people were talking about theater the next day. That's incredible. 'Grease' felt like a chance for me to participate in that landscape.

My pride at being a member of the theater community is deep, and we have a chance to reach a lot of people who might feel like there's a place for them. I want theater to be part of the cultural conversation and be on par with all mediums of television in its ability to be relevant.

I think that the nature of being a human being and someone who works in the creative arts is that you hear the word 'no' a hundred times before you hear the word 'yes.'

The beauty of making theater is that you have to go and do it the next day. Making a show nightly is a really difficult skill. It's something every theater actor and every theater maker is challenged with.