Quotes from Joe Mantello

I was always rather outspoken. I worried about what people thought of me but there really wasn't room for a lot of self-doubt.

I do not resent Sarah Jessica Parker. We've been friends for decades. I just do not like what 'Sex and the City' did to my neighborhood.

In 'The Humans,' there's a gay character, and the fact that she's gay is probably the least interesting thing about her.

But there is a process that happens when you're making something, be it a musical or a new play. That process takes time, and mistakes will be made along the way, and you will go down and hit dead ends. But it is so public now. Any yahoo with a computer can start a firestorm.

I don't believe really good plays - interesting plays, complicated plays - can mean just one thing to every single person in the audience.

I don't think of gay writers. I mean if you were to say to me who are the straight writers, well, you wouldn't ask me that question. So for me to identify a little tribe of gay writers, I don't know.

I'm comfortable with bad news. I feel confident in my ability to solve the problem if I know that there's a problem.

I like to hire the kind of people that I would want to be on stage with.

I think actors are brave souls that have to use parts of themselves that I'm just not comfortable doing anymore.

I understood that I was not the best director in the world nor the worst director in the world. I realized that there is a very mysterious element to what works and what doesn't work in the theater. And it's good to know that from the beginning.

'Blackbird' is the only one I've ever wanted to redo. It just haunted me, this play. There was a sense of unfinished business because at the time we did it at Manhattan Theatre Club, there was real momentum to move it to Broadway.

As a director, you're incredibly proud when an individual steps up to the podium and is acknowledged for their work. But to have an entire company acknowledged, there is just no higher honor ever paid for that company - or for the director, for that matter.

Alison Pill is the unsung hero of 'Three Tall Women' to me. She's extraordinary in this part, and she makes it look easy. I'm just in awe of her.

I was never in the closet as an actor. It never occurred to me that my sexuality was something to be ashamed of.

I have a responsibility to diversity onstage, but one of the things I've heard about our production of 'Boys' is that it's a bunch of white guys. Well, race is a component of this play. You can't just drop people in willy-nilly and say, 'Well, we're going for diversity.'

I was a member of Circle Rep; I had done a little bit of directing there. I remember that I had a vacation from 'Angels', in which I remounted a play that I had done out of town called 'Three Hotels.' That's how I spent my week vacation.

For some reason, I was deeply ashamed of the theater early on. I think it had to do with this growing sense I was gay, although I couldn't have put a word to it back then.