 Hi. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, everyone. We are live. Welcome, welcome to the book release party, the virtual book release party number one for intimacy directing for theater. And we are so excited to have you here today. We have a great lineup by some of the amazing contributors. My name is Dr. Ayesha. I want to welcome you this morning. We're each going to read from, present from our chapter of the book. And then we're going to open up for about 30 to 40 minutes for a Q and A. First, I would like to offer you up that you just join us in a brief welcome practice wherever you are in the country or the world this morning. And of course, everyone in the room can feel free to join us. It's just that we inhale up and then clap, but just we'll just do it together. A nice inhale, clap when you're ready, and exhale down. Wonderful. Thank you for tapping in with us. So let's work together. So one of the things that I would like to mention is that we do have live captions are available and the howl around live stream viewing page for this event is available right below the video player. And you can also chat there, put your questions there. We'll be taking questions and comments towards the end. And Thea Rogers will put the link into the external live captions page in the web chat so that people can have access. So I'd love for us to do a land acknowledgement. You can feel free to put in the chat box, the land acknowledgement for where you are. We would love to build community with this. Currently, I am in New Orleans, Louisiana. And so this land acknowledgement is the Choctaw, Huma, Chitawa, and Biloxi, and other native peoples have lived on this land since time immemorial. The city of New Orleans was not built upon virgin oil, but merely served as a continuation of a great indigenous trade hub known in Choctaw as the Bobancha, the place of other tongues. For thousands of years, people have lived along the Mississippi River and the Bobancha served as a place for diverse cultures to come together. I hope that the social justice work that we are doing here today and that of course you all are doing in your communities this morning pays respect to and honors the Native American legacy of this land that we are so blessed and privileged to work on. Okay, so I'm gonna go right in and start with our first presenter. It is really an honor and a pleasure to introduce Ms. Kimberly Sr. Kimberly is amazing. We actually met together at the Huntington Theater in Boston working on Kirsten Greenwich's Our Daughters Like Pillars. She is a director, a freelance director of theater and audio. She directed the Pulitzer Prize winning Tony nominated production of Disc Race by Ayat Akhtar on Broadway. And her work has been seen on over three dozen theaters, three dozen stages all over the country. One of her favorite projects on which she collaborated with me was Our Daughters Like Pillars. She is a multiple award winner including the Allen Schneider Award. And Kimberly is also a member of the Goodman Theater's artistic collective and is a proud union member with the SDC. Let's give it up for Kimberly Sr. Thank you, Dr. A. Good morning everybody. So happy to be here and such an honor to be a part of this collection. So without further ado, my contribution to this wonderful book is in the form of a letter. I am not an intimacy director. I am a director as Dr. A. introduced me. And I think it's really important that we all understand the value of working with an intimacy director in our space. So this letter is for you. Dear fellow director, yes, you. Theater maker, storyteller, healer of hearts, agitator of spirits. You who are on your journey, whether just beginning or continuing to discover decades later. You who have dedicated your life to uncovering the intricacies of humanity to the endless study of why we do the things we do. You who traffics in intimacy, craving it, denying it, seeking in it, reveling in it. I'm writing to you today because if I don't, I will have failed you. I will have kept the most important secret about making theater today from the very people who will benefit from it the most. You need an intimacy director. We understand the word intimacy. When we're speaking of sexual or physical relations, we think about intimacy when we talk about closeness. We know that to be intimate with something is to know it well. Intimacy can also include our experience of grief. Intimacy includes all sexual, physical and emotional acts that are of a private or sensitive nature. In storytelling, this can include incidents of death or mourning, simulated sex, kissing, performance nudity and other sexual, physical and emotionally intensive acts of a private and or sensitive nature. As storytellers on both the stage and in the classroom, we will be navigating how to create simulations of these experiences in a way that keeps all of our collaborators safe. We are working with actors and students who are holding the humanity of their character in their hearts and minds while protecting their own humanity. Enter the intimacy director. Since our subject matter navigates the human experience, we're often telling stories with kissing, with intercourse, with in a recent play, fellatio in an automobile. If it happens in life, it's bound to happen on stage at some point. If you've imagined it happening in life, as with previously stated fellatio, it's bound to happen on stage. And these are just examples of a sexual nature. What about the moment a superior accidentally brushes by their employee or estranged siblings are reunited or a father tries to find his way to express his love to his son in a society that favors toxic masculinity. If you've witnessed it happening in life, it's bound to happen on stage at some point. And these are just examples of a physical nature. What about the quiet between sisters? What about a marriage of 50 years passing each other in the kitchen each morning? What about the experience of grief in a public space? What about high school friends who find love later in life? If you've dreamed of it happening in life, yeah, people are going to write plays about it. You're nodding along to this letter, so excited to get a piece of mail or book you can hold in your hand. But wait a minute, aren't all these things the director's job to craft all these intimacies? Well, the short answer is yes, the long answer is no. Rewind, we should probably start at the beginning. What does a director actually do? According to Wikipedia, a theater director or stage director is a professional in the theater field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a theater production, such as a play, opera, dance, drama, musical, theater performance, et cetera, by unifying various endeavors and aspects of production. The director's function is to ensure the quality and completeness of theater production and to lead the members of the creative team into realizing their artistic vision for it. The director thereby collaborates with a team of creative individuals and other staff to coordinate research and work on all the aspects of the production. I find this definition a bit incomplete. Thanks, Wikipedia. I love that we collaborate and we unify. I love that we ensure quality and completeness. However, we're also stewards of the play. We safeguard the story. We nourish its journey from the page to the stage with our team of artists. We are leaders who model behavior for all who encounter us. I think of one of my favorite Buddhist stories. I was once invited to teach with Sakyong Mifam Rinpoche, my teacher's eldest son, in a situation where it wasn't exactly clear what my status was. Sometimes I was treated as a big deal who should come in through a special door and sit in a special seat. Then I'd think, okay, I'm a big deal. I'd start running with that idea and come up with big deal notions about how things should be. Then I'd get the message, oh, no, no, no, no. You should just sit on the floor and mix with everybody and be one of the crowd. Okay, so now the message was that I should just be ordinary and not set myself up or be the teacher. But as soon as I was getting comfortable with being humble, I would be asked to do something special that only the big deals did. This was a painful experience because I was always being insulted and humiliated by my own expectations. As soon as I was sure of how it should be so I could feel secure, I would get a message that it should be the other way. So finally I said to Sakyong, this is really hurting. I just don't know who I'm supposed to be. And he said, well, you have to learn to be big and small at the same time. When I think about this in terms of directing, I think when I am being big, I am acting on behalf of something. I'm speaking on behalf of the play or the institution or the idea. When I am being small, well, it's just me. In conversation with an actor on scene work or an intimacy director on the storytelling of the scene. Being big and small is a brilliant tenet of leadership. However, I think the most important part of being a director is that we are an advocate for the artists. As a director, we are the immune system of this gorgeous body called the play. And all of our artists are these amazing organs that are held within. Let's consider what actors are called to do. Grief and rage, you need to contain that. Put a frame around it where it can play itself without you or your kin having to die. This is Anne Carson from her introduction of her translations of Euripides. There is a theory that watching unbearable stories about other people lost in grief and rage is good for you. May cleanse you of your darkness. Do you wanna go down to the pits of yourself all alone? Not much. What if an actor could do it for you? Isn't that why they are called actors? They act for you. You sacrifice them to action. They're diving into their grief, their rage, their joy, their sorrow, their lust, their vulnerability in public. Right in front of us, sacrificing themselves. I believe it is our job, the director's job to give the actors everything possible to make sure they feel emotionally and physically safe while sacrificing themselves to give us stories of our own lives. It is our job to make their sure their work in every stunning moment of the play we are safeguarding is a repeatable performance and can happen performance to performance while maintaining the illusion of spontaneity. What if you could have a partner that could keep your eye on that? Not just in the kissing scenes, but throughout. What is the role of touch in the play of closeness? How is that story being told? Actors are denied their agency so frequently. They're being told they're lucky to have a job. That sacrifice they speak of, it applies everywhere. Actors are way too frequently rejected and way too frequently told that there are nine million more of them in line behind them. Actors are taught to be grateful, which is outrageous. Grateful for being excellent at their very own job. I bring this up because actors have been trained into terror about speaking up for fear of losing their jobs. They perform under duress. They perform with loved ones in the hospital. They perform with the stomach flu. Actors often feel like they don't have autonomy over their bodies and are unable to discuss what they need and want in a space. A space where they're being paid to tell a story using their bodies. And some of that lack of autonomy is out of a power dynamic that feels implicit with their director. The director is not only the leader in the room, but also a potential employer in a very competitive industry. There are times an actor can feel I don't want to speak up. I don't want to be a problem. Bringing in an intimacy director creates a neutral third party to relieve the actor of any worry in that regard. When an actor isn't comfortable with what they're being asked to do, whether with their bodies or their intentions, and the history of the American theater has told them to put up and shut up, how will they be able to do their job well without psychological distractions? Don't forget the secret that is a secret no longer. You need an intimacy director. I directed Kirsten Greenwich's play, Our Daughters Like Pillars at the Huntington Theater in Boston, Massachusetts. The play is about a black family on a summer vacation, hungry to heal their family wounds amongst the hilarity of karaoke and family recipes. There are scenes where characters kiss, where they pursue each other with sexual hunger. There are scenes where they deeply wound each other as well as scenes where they cling as tightly as only family can. I'm a white presenting director and know there are some aspects of this play that aren't my story or within my range of lived experience. And then I met, as I call her, Dr. A. And together, our partnership and the collaboration of many others created something quite beautiful. Together, Dr. A and I were able to establish a vocabulary not only for our room, but for our work on these intimate scenes. She leads this fantastic workshop, which I recommend for all productions. Dr. A creates a positivity around having agency to speak for what you need without fear of judgment or retaliation. In it, she teaches that no is as viable an answer as yes. A moment I remember so clearly is Dr. A coaching an actor through talking about a recovering arm injury. Eventually, the actor landed on, you may touch my arm, gingerly. We all warmed in that moment, leaning into the specificity that Dr. A inspired and giving instructions on how to better love you, care for you, scene partner with you. You are telling someone they are worthy enough to love you, to care for you and be your scene partner. Intimacy direction is integral and holistic. It's not an addition to the process. As a director modeling behavior that says your thoughts, your feelings, your boundaries matter, that is so important. Let what is big within us guide us to a place of bringing an intimacy director on board on behalf of safety, storytelling and advocacy. Let what is small within us guide us to collaboration and wisdom. Love me. And now, I would love to introduce to you more formally Dr. A, opening her bio. And for those of you, this book is so wonderful. All of our contributors are brilliant and you'll get to meet a few of us today, but it's a really, really, this book's blown me away. Dr. Aisha Mackey-Stevenson is an actor, scholar, activist, intimacy director, director, dancer, poet, and award-winning writer from Brooklyn, New York. She is certified by intimacy directors and coordinators. Her critical and creative work appears in Rutledge, Black Camera, Qualitative Inquiry, Boston University Press, International Review of Qualitative Research, Theater Topics, HowlRound, and Research and Drama Education. Dr. Aisha has directed or intimacy directed productions of The Huntington, Fresh Inc Theater, Jewelbox Theater in New York City, Arts at the Armory, The Rockwell and DC Black Theater and Arts Festival. It is my pleasure to introduce you to the incredible Sunshine Provider, Dr. Aisha Mackey-Stevenson. Thank you for having me, Dr. A. Oh, of course. Honored to have you. Thank you so much for that. Yes, to be big and small at the same time, so powerful. And so I learned so much from being in Kimberly's room and that's what this is about. So yeah, I just wanted to start with the fact that this book puts forth intimacy work that is based on human rights and consent for everyone, fully integrating justice with intimacy directing. It offers practical advice on how instructors can do intimacy work in their courses and productions that is based on consent and racial and gender justice. This book is for teachers, teachers who are artists and artists who are teachers. I always recommend hiring an intimacy director, but I think that we need to make consent contagious. And so I know that we are working body to body with students in our classroom. And so this book really offers some theoretical and also a lot of practical. Every chapter has exercises, practical strategies to work with students and actors with consent. I'm like gonna read from chapter four and this chapter is very dear to me, but this chapter is on intimacy directing, race and human rights. Without sexual rights, human beings cannot realize their rights to self-determination and autonomy, nor can they control other aspects of their lives. Intimacy directing is a human rights movement. In our recreations of black sexuality, artists have the opportunity to reveal what is hidden by white supremacy. Staging sex is not just about making a kiss look real. Stories are pedagogy that tell society what is possible. As cultural theorist Stuart Hall stated, and performance studies scholar, D. Soyuni Madison echoes in critical ethnography, how people are represented is how they are treated. How people are represented are how they are treated. Like the International Women's Health Coalition states for human beings, the right to control their own bodies and their sexuality without any form of discrimination, coercion or violence is critical to their empowerment. Attempts to control and unfairly represent black sexuality in theater and media result in many of the human rights abuses black people face on a daily basis, including gender-based violence and limitations on our mobility, dress, education, employment and participation in public life. Because Sarah Bartman was lured on stage to perform, this chapter references Sarah Bartman, also known as Venus Hot and Hot, the young teenager from the Koi Koi tribe in South Africa, taken from South Africa in the 18th century, excuse me, in the mid 19th century and brought to Europe to dance against her will for European audiences. Because Sarah Bartman was lured on stage to perform, other young African women were lured on stage to perform as well. Attempts to violate black sexuality and storytelling can also affect the intimate relationships between black bodies offstage. As one howl around audience members stated, during the confessions of a black intimacy director talk, we don't even know how to touch each other. When staging black intimacy, I must be intentional about undoing this harm. In 2020, I started working with Huntington Theater Company in Boston, creating the intimacy choreography for our daughters like Pillars, directed by a lovely Kimberly Sr. and written by Obi Award Playwright, Obi Award winning playwright, Kristin Greenridge. Our daughters like Pillars is about black love. It's about the ties that bind us to our families. Just before the pandemic and my last day in rehearsals, a black actress pulled me aside and walked me down the hallway. We left the large rehearsal room on the second floor of the Huntington with a calm silence. We found ourselves at a large window in the stairway. She slowed down and turned her body towards me. She was an older woman. The sunlight lit the hundreds of soft wrinkles in her face when she looked into my eyes and spoke. I've never seen black bodies loving each other on stage. I bent my head down, thinking neither had I. It was in this moment with this black actress that I yearned for black love and felt such grief for not seeing it on stage or anywhere else. It was in this moment that I wondered how much the stage and media had fueled my own personal disconnect with black love. A lot of what Americans know about race comes from the stories artists tell. I grew up on the stage and still never saw black bodies loving, touching or being tender. And I can recall as a child and now the absence of black love coupled with the recycling of the black man, white woman or light skin mixed race romance. At the stairway, a flood of anger and pain rushed through my body. Anger at my father who left when I was an adolescent. Anger that black women are not protected. Anger that black women have to take care of black men. I recognize my own turbulent relationship with black love that my focus on Sarah Bartman, Venus Hotentop and pain as opposed to love and joy. I recognize I needed to see stories of black love. I needed to see us meet, fall in love, have sex, make love. I recognize America's need to see stories of black love and how much healing that could bring. I realized that with the intimacy work of our daughters like pillars, I was creating history. I was showing black love for the stage. I looked upon the choreography I had done with a new ray of light. For example, characters in the play Vinnie and Morris have been married for a long time. In one scene I choreographed them facing the audience with Morris behind Vinnie. His arm is around her. That speaks for itself. His arm is around her, right? As they embrace. In another scene, he kisses her on the forehead and she kisses his chin and then they playfully tap with their index finger. I was choreographing tender scenes in which a black woman was being caressed and adored. How many times had I seen this black love outside of this rehearsal room? I have no memory of it. Moments like this of black love matter. They increased black sexual health and integrity. They increase black access to human rights. The theater world needs to show more black love, more black sex and more appreciation of black bodies. Writers must write it, producers must produce it, directors must cast it, and intimacy directors must advocate for it for black passion and tenderness, celebrating black people touching, kissing and loving one another. Through this chapter I also offer the human rights that are directly related to sexuality and sexual liberation. I give tips and activities. I give questions that you should explore in scene work, right? How can we focus on the human in this classroom and the rehearsal process? Make sure to ask the actors what they need. This is very important. What would feel good in this scene for them depending on the scene? For things to do, for example, the human rights article number 26, everyone has the right to education. And just be clear no matter what your role is. If you're a teacher doing consent work, what have you, if you're bringing in an intimacy director, just make sure that there's information and education around the particular role that you're playing for the play, that you're playing in the scene, that you're playing for the day. It's really important that students have, students and actors have that information and education. Article number 19 says that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression. So see what the actors do in the first scene. I love to see what the actors do in the scene first to see what they do first. And then I build the choreography from the movements that come naturally to them. So I meet that human rights article by pretty much allowing freedom of expression and building my choreography from there. So there are just tips here how to really provide human rights access to actors while building choreography and doing intimacy work. So thank you so much for listening. And I'm excited to turn it over to just an amazing person, an amazing artist in our community, Ms. Kaya Dunn. Kaya is a resident intimacy director and cultural consultant for, she's a resident intimacy director and cultural consultant and she has worked for several theaters including Folger Theater, Arena Theater, Denver Center for the Arts. She has done work on Broadway, A Strange Loop as associate intimacy director. She's done work on television including The Best Man, Final Chapters, Harlem, The Equalizer. She has won awards including the Kennedy Center American Theater Award, Playwrights Project Excellence in Arts Education and some of her publications have included the Art and Contemporary Shakespeare, Intimacy Direction for Theater, Theater Symposium, Howl Round, Dance and Theater Training in the UK. She is associate professor at Carnegie Melligan University and she is also now an SDC member. Congratulations and welcome Kaya. We're so honored to have you here. Thank you, Dr. A. I'm so honored to be here. Thank you for that introduction and thank you everybody for joining us. Dr. A, thank you for bringing together all of these folks for this very important book. I know that there's been a lot of interest in higher education programs, especially in intimacy choreography and this was a really wonderful chance to collaborate. I'm actually gonna read a little bit, just a few excerpts from my chapter. Sorry, I have something going off. From my chapter, You Can't Color Blind Choreograph, the Importance of Cultural Competency in Intimacy Practice. Sorry, I'll start here. The negotiations that we engage in as people, particularly marginalized people must navigate both our own multiple histories and the complexity of the outside gaze. These complexities mean that to choreograph both bodies in intra and interracial scenes takes nuance and understanding of the theories around race and sex and the history of the people involved. Both as participants and as observers. We aren't starting with a blank slate. Sex and sexuality are inherently tied to identity. The ability to institute cultural competency into intimacy coordination is vital for many reasons. Whether one discusses it or not, race affects perception. The rise of intimacy professionals on set and in the rehearsal room correlated with the awareness of the Me Too movement and the abuses that were taking place in the entertainment field. But much like the media erased the black women origins of the Me Too movement, Terana Burke founded the Me Too movement that gave intimacy its prominence. The field of intimacy practitioner work at its inception also overlooked many of the ideas around consent and boundaries on which the field is based and that they come from generations of work done by black feminist scholars like Audre Lorde, Bell Hooks, Terana Burke and others. This ignorance allowed mostly white women to shape and profit from intimacy work while interested practitioners of color found themselves excluded from the field by its content, structure and cost. Sometimes in the rush to claim innovation harmful practices were actively being enacted which led to both willful and the unintentional exclusion in the room. While some practitioners have openly acknowledged that no one person created the idea of consent or boundaries and that the practical application is built on practices seen in many theater communities of color, others have insisted on ownership. As a theater teacher, I've been incorporating consent and the right to say no clause in my syllabus as early as 2012. At the time, some other actor trainers thought I created an unprofessional environment. When I informed students they had a right to say no to material and that they should have ownership of their bodies. This desire and awareness came from my positionality and awareness as a black woman who'd gone through three conservatory programs often being over sexualized because in the words of my first undergrad acting instructor as he made reference to Monster's Ball, these were the roles that you can expect to play. In discussion, both with concerned intimacy choreographer practitioners and other educators and taste makers, it became clear that much of the work around intimacy focused on a gendered and sexuality binary without regard to the very large role racial hierarchies play in power and consent. Race affects power and consent dynamics. To fully advocate and help bring about a culture of consent and boundaries, one must understand how these dynamics are at play in the room due to a history of colonization and sex, hidden white women power dynamics, scarcity, perceived power, and false universal standards. There were other choreographers in the field who are also thinking about the ways in which the work wasn't completely addressing their experiences or concerned about the ways in which racial, cultural, and identity boundaries and consent and cultural competency were not being factored into training. As I developed classes on race and intimacy, they developed companies focused on this work. People like Ann James of Intimacy Coordinators of Color in the U.S., Mikayla Karyati of Intimacy Intimate Scenes in Australia, Sasha Smith and Tenise Diva Johnson appeared in L, highlighting their work as black intimacy coordinators. A few years into my work and the work of others in the field and after a forced racial reckoning in 2020, there is more awareness of the importance of identity and shaping intimate stories. But when I began, the need was clear to articulate the concept of racial identity affecting consent. Even today, people, including theater makers, can confuse diversity with lived experience while ignoring the deep scholarship around racial tropes and sexualization. So why is it important to incorporate an understanding of the role of race, culture, and colonization and how they, sorry, and how they affect race and intimacy? There are many reasons. The first is race is misunderstood. By its nature and structure, race is not stagnant, biological, or easily defined. Sorry. When Nat and Omi, in racial formation of the United States, describe race as an unstable and de-centered complex of social meanings, constantly being transformed by political struggle, and that it is a concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of bodies. These nuanced definitions give a starting place to a question many folks struggle with. When I ask it in Foundations of Race and Intimacy, which is, what is race? The answer is elusive, and that is by design. Race affects power dynamics. One of the most powerful concepts in intimacy work is the recognition that actors are often not taught to say no, and the ability to facilitate and its ability to facilitate a pause in the room. Intimacy work recognizes that conservatories and trainers teach actors sometimes that they cannot say no. In doing so, I see practitioners when they facilitate a pause in the room demonstrate the most powerful concept of their work, consent. It can and often does fall short when the work fails to acknowledge the power dynamic that exists not only between producers and actors or actors and directors or directors and producers, but in the racial hierarchies that are often at play. Because of the economics of scarcity, power structures and perceptions, it can be more fraught and riskier for people of color to challenge and speak up in a room. Much research has been done on how people read the bodies and actions of black men and women. For example, black and brown youth's actions are more likely to receive harsher punishment, and what may look like advocacy and speaking up when a white person does it can be read as aggression when coming from black and brown folks. This is particularly true as we still see creative and production teams that are majority white for shows that utilize the performances of people of color. Therefore, the prominence of whiteness in the field of intimacy can conflict with the purpose of creating an environment that incorporates consent. That is not to say that a white choreographer should never work in a global majority show, but it should raise some questions about their prominence, treatment, and monopoly over organizations and training programs, as well as the outsized representation they have in global majority works and the number of global majority folks who've encountered pushback in hurdles while seeking to enter the field of intimacy. Again, the very idea of the false universality of whiteness creates a position of privilege and power in the field. At this point, that's just a little taste of what's in the chapter, but at this point I wanna make space and time to introduce one of my other colleagues. I'm very excited to introduce Charlie Baker, who uses the pronouns both he, him, and they, them. Charlie Baker is an intimacy professional. Hi, Charlie. An intimacy professional, LGBTQIA plus advocate, and a founding member of intimacy professionals education collective. In 2016, Charlie began exploring gender as an open, the company exploring gender as an open online gender education resource and platform. Charlie has been working as an intimacy director since 2018 with such theaters as Marriott, Court and University of Chicago with guest residencies at Oregon Shakespeare Festival and American Blues Theater. Charlie, it's so great to be on here with you. You as well. Thank you for that introduction and for reading some of your wonderful chapter. And thank you, Dr. Ayesha also for gathering us all together today. I'll be reading from chapter seven, Gender Queer Intimacy, which begins with a disclaimer. Our understanding of gender is constantly evolving. As such, the tools and best practices around supporting a gender queer performers must also continually grow and change. This is to say, this chapter was written with the best current tools available. When better, more specific and proven effective tools are found, they should be used. The supporting of gender queer bodies in intimacy begins with the examining of the way things have always been done and who gets left behind or who is left vulnerable by those ways. Seeing the gender binary, two boxes, male and female with hard lines between is a misconception that has given way to the develop, that has given way to the developing understanding of gender as a fluid spectrum with masculine and feminine being two of many umbrella terms for culturally coded behaviors and language. An unfortunate leftover of the gender binary is a linguistic system that erases people that do not identify identifiably fit into one category or the other. For the purposes of this chapter, it's important to identify what non-binary means. Non-binary is a gender identity that falls outside of the gender binary, meaning an individual that does not identify as strictly female or strictly male. A non-binary person can identify as both or neither male and female and sometimes one or the other. There are several other terms used to describe gender identities outside of the male and female binary, such as gender queer, gender non-conforming, agender and bi-gender. Though these terms have slightly different meanings, they all refer to an experience outside of a gender binary. Another important distinction that is made in this chapter is between gender and sexuality. Gender is the way a person understands their own identity, especially when considered in reference to social and cultural differences rather than differences in biology. Sexuality is a person's identity in relation to the gender or genders they are attracted to sexually and or romantically. This distinction is to emphasize that a person's sexual orientation and experience cannot be assumed by the person's gender. Until recently, stories of intimacy on screen and stage have largely been limited to cisgender individuals and can often rely on assumptions of what intimacy looks like based on anatomy. Gender inclusivity in intimacy requires an expansive view of what intimacy can look like between humans. A phrase I have often used in the rehearsal process of, in the rehearsal process is, if it feels intimate, it's intimacy. This is to regards in both boundaries and choreography, touching or referring to areas of bodies that have been heavily culturally gendered, the hips, butt, chest, et cetera, may prove uncomfortable or even dysphoric to some and prevent the performer from being able to work in an embodied way. When every person in the room shares their names and their pronouns, it removes an unwanted and isolating attention from those who may experience or for those who may use unexpected or variant pronouns. An individual's name on paper or previous collaborator may not reflect that one is in shared space, that one is shared in the space to be used. Language continues to be a powerful tool for inclusivity and support when discussing bodies. In order to keep language about the body specific and inclusive, referring to muscular or skeletal system can be helpful. If body language exists on a spectrum, at one end is comfortable slang. The words that we use with peers, friends and reference to our own bodies at the other end of the spectrum is sterile language that is overly intellectual and prevents embodiment of action. The aim and support lies somewhere in the middle, familiar, comfortable, clinical language. Not every person may refer to their peck as their breast. Such language may be dysphoric and swimsuit area in regards to groin is nonspecific and doesn't acknowledge that swimsuits like bodies come in different shapes and sizes. Along with universal language as a useful tool is the power of choice. True choice consists of the option to say no, free of coercion and or punishment, privacy and the time for decision-making. When decisions are being made about dressing rooms, costumes, undergarments and other areas that have been regulated by cisgender norms, privately discussing with individuals affected by that action is a way of viable support. Inclusive language takes practice. A great exercise of practicing awareness of gender language is to tell a story. It can be a summary of the day or a recent event but tell the story without any use of pronouns. So, this is a way of changing the way that gender language is used to substitute names. Advocacy and supporting non-binary performers is a practice in de-centering. De-centering is to shift from the established or traditional central focus. In this regard, it is shifting the intimacy director or anyone else in the role of advocate to centering the performer under clear vision of intimacy. However, the responsibility of effort cannot be placed solely on the performer. This would manifest incentives like, I'm doing my best, but it's hard. I'm sorry, this is all so new to me. The tools for working with transgender and non-binary performers are new and emerging. It's important to realize that just because they are new to public knowledge does not mean that they are new to the world and often great effort has been made to destroy prior research. When the burden of effort is placed under those who are supposed to be supported by it, the situation flips and now the performer is left to coddle their advocates for their attempts. It is worth reiterating, the standard is not perfection, it is respect. Advocacy begins with de-centering and asking how the person being advocated for wants to handle the situation. While carrying the banner may feel good, unchecked and unwanted advocacy can put the performer in danger or isolate them from the cast. Working with transgender and non-binary performers may require some new modes of operating, but a majority of the tools of inclusion are simple, respecting names and pronouns, asking pertinent but not personal questions and being open to using the tools that performers themselves have found useful. Performers have long been taught to tolerate a lot within performance, however, with proper support and tolerance. With proper support that tolerance can shift into embodied practices and performances. Similarly, this chapter like all the others with some tools and tips and tricks for you. And with that, I will hand the microphone back to Dr. Aisha, again, thanking her for graciously gathering us all together today to read from this wonderful book. Oh, you're so welcome and thank you so much for that chapter. One of my favorites. Thank you so much for that chapter. So I would love for us to transition now into Q and A. We wanted to make sure that we save time so that we could take questions, comments from the audience. So we're here for you and presenters please feel free to join me with your camera on if you'd like as we take questions. So let's see what we have so far. Okay, so it seems that we have a question and thank you so much, Thea for helping us with this process. So it seems that we have a question from Jacob as a playwright, what steps can I take to create works that are mindful of the actor's well-being? What an excellent question. So does anyone want to jump in and speak to that question? Looks like we have both Kaya and Kimberly. Will you hear from me? I'll be quick Kimberly because I'd love to hear what you have to say but I think there's a couple of things. One is there's a big push right now for writers to do open ethnicity which I think is a great impulse but sometimes erases the specificity of groups in this country and in many Western countries we don't say non-white. So we create these very flat tropes of people of color. I'm just returning from an African country where there's multiple cultures from different islands and people speak five languages and they're black but they're different than you might find black Americans in San Diego or black Americans in Boston which are different from each other. And so I think really being thoughtful about specificity and if you don't know, get help is a great thing but also knowing that there are intimacy choreographers writing the intention of what you want in your intimate scene sometimes gives the actors a lot of freedom to work within their boundaries and gives a choreographer a lot of freedom to sort of specify. So if there's some playwrights who really feel strongly about spelling out exactly how the intimacy is gonna take place and that's great but I think it's also really helpful when you can say they share a kiss or an intimate moment and then leave freedom to work within the boundaries of different actors. I always appreciate that as well. Yes, this, this, this. Everything that I just said to like add my version of it is like write what you wanna write like and be specific and be clear. I think where we, it is a harmful interpretation of this work to become more delicate or more gentle or try to just like make everything feel like you're just, I know you want to just like hug us all but like our work is, it is at times dangerous and personal and vulnerable. So like write what you wanna write and then trust makers and encourage the people who are making your work. I mean, I just read a play from a playwright the other day who wrote this play should not happen without having an intimacy director involved and they wrote that into the like in the same way that they want a tree in the play and they want there to be lightning fast transitions and like the slash means an interruption. They also sort of put as part of the bones of making their play that they want that person engaged but like write what you wanna write, write it, write it, write it and like we'll do the work to keep everybody safe and make it happen. We need really specific stories and encourage you, Jacob and anyone else on here to be writing them. Absolutely, I just wanna, I just wanna third both of those comments. Yeah, I feel very similarly and I think Jacob, thank you for this question. I think it's an excellent question and I am also a playwright, I'm a writer and I feel like, it's important to write is the pluralism is important. I feel like it's important to write different types of BIPOC people, different types of black people. I think one of the elements, one of the influences of white supremacy is that white people get to be a plethora of different characters, right? They get to be the bad guy, the nerdy person, the jock. However you wanna, however we sort of box characters and I see a lot of the sort of same characters for woman of color and just to get really specific, black women are more than our pain. We have joy, we love, right? We smile, we are more than our pain and just to think of Belle Hooks who may she rest in peace, she gave us so much to try to understand how we can move beyond pain with gender and racial justice but just exploring black women and characters where we can find sustainable joy and where we're not sort of all the same. Oh, we rise through all this fire. We have to go through all of this just to have a happy ending. And I just, I think that that narrative is just so recycled again and again and that I'm just, I love to see new things done when it comes to black women in our experiences. So that's my take on that question. All right, let's look at the questions and oh, we have a lot of questions coming in here. Okay, how should young actors approach a job that doesn't have an intimacy director yet? Does anyone want to speak to that? Ask for one. Can you tell everyone on this panel is real? We're keeping it real, yes. Did you expect something else? Is there any ask for one? I mean, I know it's hard but that was sort of what I was trying to speak to and my thing about like that and it sounds hard to do and I realize I'm speaking that from like my space but find the person who you can speak to, right? Like if it's not, every theater should be giving you the like equity demands this, by the way our union support us, the SDC supports us as well. You need to be getting information about reporting and who to talk to and HR and all, like what is the chain of command so that like you can take it out of the room. It's about you as you're an employee of the theater and you're allowed to ask for the thing that you need and if you're uncomfortable asking in the room, asking of your director or whatever that feels, you don't want to feel it's not combative but I understand that where we're still healing ourselves and learning how to ask for what we need in spaces like who is the person on staff that you can go to? What is the anonymous way you can ask for something that you need? If that is something that you need, it is and our unions are doing great work to really try to support this for you so you don't have to do that on your own but it is find the way, find the helpers, find who it is that you get to ask to get the thing that you need and I'm sure there is a channel or a way to get that done. Absolutely and I want to jump in about thanks for that Kimberly, I agree and I want to jump in about community theater as well because I have a long history of doing community theater and a lot of theater happens here in this country within our communities may not be union after it's working in the evening or after work or on the weekends sometimes not being paid, et cetera and you're just trying to build your reel, your portfolio, so I get it but I like Kimberly's suggestion about giving an anonymous suggestion about that like leaving an anonymous letter or something like that. I also feel like even if you don't have a union there's power and union, there's power in numbers and so even speaking maybe to some of the other actors and just like, in a respectful way maybe together approaching the person you feel like you can talk to whether it's director, et cetera beginning by asking questions, right? Like, oh, I wonder how this would be if we had an intimacy director, you know maybe beginning by asking questions I know not everyone feels, you know there's a power dynamic still there in theater I know that, but I think that there are ways to speak to your other because we have to support each other and my first craft is acting we have to support each other so maybe even speaking to the other actors and saying, you know maybe we can come as a collective and talk about this to the powers that be that just gives you more power with the numbers, right because I know as a director if a group of my actors come to me about something I'm gonna be open to it and take it seriously, right because this is not just one person's concern but there's a few people who kind of want to address this so I think that that's a way that you could approach it as well, especially as a young actor. Any other thoughts about that? Okay, Ciara and also like presenters if there is a particular question here that you're dying to answer you can jump in, I'm just sort of going in order but Ciara has, how can we use intimacy, coordination and collaboration other than working with the director? How do we collaborate with designers, geometry, et cetera to create a safe space? Anyone wanna address that? Certainly. Great. It sort of also ties to the final question of a lot of tools of intimacy, direction and coordination are not the exclusive use of intimacy directors and coordinators. Things also you can advocate for yourself, I'm gonna tangent and I go back to the direct question. You can advocate for yourself as early as auditions. If you're doing a scene that includes the physical touch of another person, taking a moment and pausing and discussing boundaries, sharing your own boundaries and knowing that that theater and that those collaborators can begin showing you in those moments, this is a space where you will be respected, where you will be heard. And when it comes to directly collaborating with other people in the room, my immediate thought goes to costumes and lighting design because an intimate scene in full lighting is very different from a backlit silhouetteed tableau. And so really spending time and figuring out with directors, great, what is the story that we're telling in this intimate moment? Connecting to that first connection as well, how do you write with intimacy in mind? What is the story that we're telling? And so beginning to discuss with those directors and designers, especially throughout the tech process of, oh, I see this arc that we're having through costumes that are slowly becoming more ripped as the show goes on. Can we be strategic about those rips or can this specific rip happen after this scene and connecting for me on a narrative level of making sure we're all telling the same story? Can music support a moment? Yeah, I think just really quickly to Emma's question, I tell every group, I'm not a therapist, right? And so I think sometimes there's a misunderstanding of what an intimacy person is doing on set. And so there's a certain point where I'll ask, I've had companies gather culturally competent therapists or things, but there's a level of trauma, both on film sets or in theater, that that's not what we're, even with first aid mental health, that's not what we're trained to do, right? And so I don't require and I don't, I don't actually think it's great practice to ask people to go into their trauma and I steer conversations away from that. The tools that we use like boundary practice, I tell people you never need to give me an explanation for why you don't wanna be touched somewhere or what you wanna do. Now people have come to me and said I'm nervous about this and usually the first rehearsal where we talk about what we're gonna do and explain that I'm not a therapist, that takes care of it and telling people they never need to explain to me why their boundaries are there, your boundaries are fine exactly where they are. And then I think to the other question, like using things like Inquirer Boy, we used a lot of lighting to make sure that the nudity wasn't sort of exotified in a way that the playwright didn't intend. We used fog machines, but really building a respectful and early relationship with the director if you can, so that they understand that you are there to also serve the story. I think this is especially important when you're working with theater directors, people of color who have often been looked down upon and then there have been instances of ICs walking into a space and kind of taking over and like I'm also there to support the story and the actors and different people have different needs. And so remembering that as you go in to collaborate along with not being a sex therapist, I'm not the sex police either. I'm there to help ensure that we have a creative safe process. But when you get those directors who really want like creative input and you get to work with lighting or work with costumes and all of the things that Charlie said, it can be really exciting and beautiful. And I think the results are often really rich and layered. Absolutely. And before we take a look at another question, I just had some thoughts about these two questions from listening to you, beautiful people. But for the playwright, Jacob, for that question too, and my mind has kind of been spinning in such an excellent question. But I think it also would be a good idea if we started calling for intimacy, directors in the script. I know that we put as playwrights other suggestions about roles, characters, support that the play needs. And I think that that's really a good idea. And I think that it will help to protect young actors or actors who don't feel comfortable asking for an intimacy director. Because we care, we should care about the playwright's intentions and et cetera. And I think it will be good to really put that in there just so that we can sort of work from there. And also the last question that we spoke to, just about sort of how can I ask for an intimacy director as a new actor? I really, really need to, we really need to create a consent culture, right? We need to, that's what this book is about, right? So creating a culture of consent in the classroom and beyond, right? So we really need to create a consent culture. And so that's where I think, IDs and ICs are so important because we shouldn't just be coming in to choreograph, but like it's Kimberly said earlier, we should be coming in to do workshops. And when I did my workshops, the whole crew, stage manager, everyone, whoever can be present is present so that we create a culture of consent. What does that mean? That means that people begin to feel more open and expressive and they feel like they can speak from eye more readily and state their needs more readily, but it also makes the powers that be in the room be more receptive to listening, right? Kimberly mentioned being big and small at the same time. Again, I wanna go back to that powerful analogy because being big and small at the same time as a leader is about listening, right? Leaders listen. And so it creates that culture of listening because when you tap your actors in, when I tap my actors in and have them check in with each other, one of the first things that they're doing, and this book has language for that, one of the first things that they're doing is talking about their boundaries and acknowledging that they've heard the other person's boundaries and being clear that they will not touch the other person in those areas. And so creating a culture where the language of the environment gives you freedom to express your boundaries, I think is very, very critical, right? Okay, wonderful. We have some more questions in here. How do you go about directing intimacy for those who have trauma to ensure they feel safe with their interactions in the space in general? This is coming from Emma. I know that Kaya had mentioned that we're not therapists, but does anyone want to talk to this? I feel like this question comes up. I think the only thing that I will add is we cannot guarantee the prevention of trauma. We do not know what people have walked in the room with. And also speaking as someone who is transgender but also white and masculine, there are certain people that will not feel the safest with me as their intimacy director. And part of my job is to fully accept and hear them because those are also boundaries that when people share with me is a sign of respect and is an ask to be respected. And so we can to paraphrase a quote that I say very often from my Angelou, we do the best with the tools that we have when we get better tools we do better. And so know that, yes, we cannot guarantee the prevention of harm, partly also because as stated by Dr. Asha, it is a community and a culture of consent that we are creating. We are not the sole gatekeeper of that consent and of that culture. Yes, absolutely. Charlie, I completely agree with that. And also to add to that, so we really need, Emma, there are intimacy directors. I think intimacy director is kind of a general term now. Intimacy directors are really starting to specialize. For example, my work in particular now has been really about not just working with black bodies and love, but in addition to that, I'm doing an interracial choreography. This is very marked, right? There's a lot there with black and white and other bodies in the space trying to work together. So I feel like there are, for example, Colleen Hughes, I can think of amazing Colleen Hughes. She does intimacy directing in addition to working with sort of more, working with actors who have experienced trauma, but also working with material that deals with trauma. So I would find an ID, even though we're not therapists, I would find an ID that has a specific expertise in doing trauma work. I would also say that, you know, being certified with IDC, we do do mental health training. Again, we're not therapists, but we are sort of first in line when it comes to doing referrals and pointing people to those who can take care of them. But another important thing is to make sure that there is an exit strategy. You never know with this kind of work how someone might be triggered. I remember doing ID work for the bluest eye, you know, at the Huntington, you know, beautiful work. Obviously, Toni Morrison's work, beautiful work, but you know, it's a lot. Some of those scenes are a lot. And I had one actor come up to me, she said, I'm really glad you're here because she said, I was starting to feel some like symmetry between me and the character, like after the show. And it just made me feel like icky, you know? And as an actor, I understand how that feels, right? So an ID can really help to set boundaries. But even if an ID is not in the budget, I know this is happening in some community theaters, especially if an ID is not in the budget, grab a resource and really begin to think about what are some boundaries we can set in the room? What are some exit strategies? You know, for example, when my students, if I have a student do this, okay, I know that they need to step out. I know that they need to step out. They don't have to explain why ever, you know? I'll try to have someone check in on them, or check in on them if I can. But there should be some non-verbal symbols in your rehearsal room that gives people an out. People should always be able to say no. You never know if you're gonna be triggered by a touch, by a conversation, by anything. They may need to pause. And there should be some sort of symbol for that. And different levels of symbols. We also have symbols for I need to take a pause and I'd like you to check in on me versus I need you to pause. I need to take a pause and I need to be by myself for a little while. So just having some non-verbal cues in the room can really be important for dealing with trauma that just erupts in the moment because it happens, right? Okay, wow, because we have a big one from Amalia. As a student looking to go into the field of intimacy direction, I've been wrestling with how to best train and improve my own work as an intimacy director with almost no training programs for intimacy direction existing on an undergraduate level. While I am hoping to continue reading more literature on the subject and keep working, I worry about how being self-taught may not be the safest way to go into the profession for myself or my collaborators. What would you consider the best pathway forward to continue intimacy training going forward? Anyone wanna jump in with this question and give advice or thoughts? Yeah, I think while knowing, what you bring to the table is important, it is a field, it's a profession. It's something, there are going to be situations where it's gonna be really helpful to have the training and also safe for everybody. So, Dr. A, I know you went through IDC, I work with TIE, one of the things I like about them is that they have a theatrical intimacy education. So if this participant who asked the question is a student, they have tiered fees, which is one of the reasons I really like working with them. I do think specifically around race and choreography, they also have scholarships for people of the global majority. So there's been a lot of work and advocacy to make sure that the field is diversified in a real way. And the other thing that you're gonna get from a training program is that as the field changes, as media changes, there's always questions. And so having those networks is vital. This is not a field where you wanna be out there by yourself, having people that you can talk to because you're going to be working with communities that you don't represent is super important. But also just as, I mean, the wonderful part of this field is how many great people that you can work with. And so I really encourage you to find a reputable program, whether they do qualifications or certifications, do your research to make sure that you know what the reputable programs are because there is an abundance of training, make sure that they have a track record. There's a lot of things that pop up and are sort of here. So look at the track record, look at who they work with, look at what their credentials are, just like you would when you're going to undergrad, right? You're gonna look for a university that has a track record, hopefully, of putting out successful people. And I think it's the same thing for a training program. And then I really encourage you to shadow people because that onset and on stage experience where you're watching somebody problem solve and you're working with someone is invaluable, right? So I've had people reach out to me, I can't always answer those requests, but people reached out to me on social media and if I can make a shadow happen after they've had training, I will. But also you'll start to build relationships in those groups where you can start to talk to people about how I'm interested in this. If you have an opportunity, would you consider letting me shadow you? And so I think those are some really great ways to build training, but this is something that you do get training for. I just want to... Okay, yeah, Charlie, wanna jump in there? Please do. I just want to absolutely uplift everything that Kaia just said. I will, I admittedly have a B in my bonnet about people who are untrained in doing this work because living in, there is a bit in the foreword of this book that was a very pointed Facebook status I made about people that are in Chicago that are completely untrained, that have done some harm because of their eagerness. And none of this is said to dissuade you, to scare you, to say, oh, you will do harm, but it is to emphasize that this is a communal responsibility. I cannot function as an ID to speak for myself without my group of peers around me, peers that have both trained with IDC, with TIE, with PIP, with INSIP, now with intimacy professionals, education collective that we are starting, we are ensuring to ask questions, to ask those that have come before us, to ask those outside of our own experiences, what have you learned? What can you share with us? What do we need to learn on our own? But intentions do not training make, and there are so many aspects of this job. We are more than choreographers, we are not therapists, and connecting to an organization that can connect you with community of people that you can ask a question with is invaluable. So powerful, yeah, so powerful. Thank you for that, both of you. And yeah, so I feel like for me, this question, I feel like harm is inevitable, but the purpose is like, as ID is intimacy directors, we are advocates, right? We are advocates, this is what we do, we advocate, right, and we connect, and we try to, in every stage that we can, make sure that the actors are having access, are being treated like human beings, right? But I think I'm gonna put it just in the chat box too, for Amalia's question, excellent question. One of the ways that we can reduce harm is by having a perspective before we go in. What do I mean by that? I think that it's really critical to read. I think it's really critical to understand your racial biases, your privilege, your, what sort of sexist, hegemonic, patriarchal ideas that you have. That self and flexibility is really critical because ID work is not just about doing choreography, right? We are advocates and we are bearers of justice. We are trying to do justice work, okay? Remember, everyone, this starts with the Me Too movement and Toronto Birks, right? And us being vocal about sexual abuse and us not being silenced, right? So we have to do the work. We have to do the work to understand. If I'm coming in with a particular perspective, if I know that I wanna do consent work that is grounded in racial and gender justice, I am more likely to show up that way in the room. So I would say please read, use books. Definitely theatrical, intimacy, education. I know some amazing, including Kaia, just amazing. I've heard amazing things about them. You know, there's IDC as well. But one of the things that was recommended to me, I said, how do I get started? Because Charlie said, this is the community. So I asked my mentors, how do I get started? Start doing workshops. I would recommend start low stakes, a consent workshop. And you're gonna begin to build your practice from there in an environment that is less likely to create harm. If you start right off the way, just jumping in with choreography or starting with a play, the potential for harm without experience, without shadowing really is a lot higher. And so workshops were a great way for me to get my feet wet, to start to understand consent language, to start being in the room, to start understanding how to respect people's bodies, and to set exit strategies, et cetera, and boundaries. And so I recommend that it's kind of a way to start. And as Kaia said, everyone says shadowing is really, really, really critical. Just say, hey, we're a community. I have never said no to someone who wanted to shadow me. We are a community, right? And so I have the right to say no. We are talking about consent. But if the time allowed and if space allowed, you know, I'm happy to have someone shadow me. And I've had people shadow me all the time, but I would shadow someone. You learn so much just by listening and observing, right? Yeah. Oh, how are we with the chat box here? It looks like we have, did we miss any? Yeah, Matt's question. I can feel this one if you want to. Okay, great. So Matt asked, to what extent do you think intimacy directors should be involved in the rehearsal production process? Should they be presented every rehearsal only on days where intimacy is being choreographed or rehearsed? What does that balance of being in the room look like for intimacy professionals? I think 10 people will give you 10 different answers to this question, but I would say it begins with a pre-production conversation with the director and to say, how would we like to work together? I think every story requires something different and every director, that collaboration is gonna be unique. And I think for both the ID and the director to get together and say like, how would you like to work? How do I like to work? What are some examples of ways we've liked working in the past with people and to get a basic understanding of how your collaboration will work? And then I, like from Kimberly's perspective, I love a like first day, it's like close to the top of the process workshop where like language is being established in the room. So like, you know, for example, like the show Dr. A and I did together, like we did that right at the beginning and established language. And that wasn't just the actors. Again, it was like the stage management team it was everybody in the room so that everybody had a basic knowledge about like what is our vocabulary and how are we working together? And so that, and that then the visits afterwards were more specific about like this moment or that moment. And you know, and for me, I welcome a partnership that isn't just about like, oh, this moment we choreograph, but like I said, like, what is the role of touch in this play? What, where, you know, and Dr. A would come up and worship, whisper to me, oh Kimberly, I think in this moment, there's an opportunity for like, we can see their love or their joy here, which wasn't necessarily a moment we had choreographed, but that was a part of like a larger ethic of the story that we're telling. But I do think that it's most important to start out like before the work has begun and say like, okay, great, we understand we have like moment on page 72 and the moment on page 114, like those things have to happen, but like what are other ways that that partnership is gonna work so that you're, I would just say kicking off though with a vocabulary establisher would be my best recommendation there. And I do also wanna respect the work of that so many of our ICs and IEDs are not getting paid at all or well or as they should be. So if you are in the role of being the director, I think it's really important to check in and have a very logical logistics, like what does your contract say? Like how is your time being spent so that you know what you're asking for? Because if I know that like, they're only getting paid for two visits, like what does that two visits mean? What does that look like? How are we using that time? How can I carry on the work when they're not in the room? Because until we have created a culture where this is something that's been established as a necessity and is written into all of our contracts and makes sense in the utopian American theater that we're all trying to be a part of envisioning together until that happens, I think it's really important to be like, okay, so what were you contracted for? Can I respect your time? Because knowing that this work is about taking care of people, it's also very difficult to say like, well I only have three hours to take care of people, right? No one wants to be in the position of saying that. So I think as the director to say, all right, okay, let me understand. So this is what's in your contract rate. How can I carry on the work when you're not in the room? What are the things that I can do? What are the ways that you would like to work together that's both respecting your time and what you're being paid for? And I do think that has to come from the director because I think it's really difficult for the person who is being paid to be like, oh, hey, just so you know, I only have six hours to make people feel safe, which doesn't make anybody feel good. So be aware of those things. Yeah, I would just add on to that too though, for those people who are ICs in the room, this is something that you ask for and should spell out in your contract, right? So many of us do multiple jobs because of pay scale, but also because it is doable, right? And so even on really high intensity shows, I've never been there every single day. There are days that I've wanted to go to rehearsal because I love watching what's happening and collaborating, but I think you have that conversation. There's definitely been moments that things have worked out with the director. I think one of the things that you said earlier about that first rehearsal, it's not only the things that are said and the language that's established, but I've gone into rooms where people have been in rep and have had a bad experience with an IC before. And so to be able to just be in the room and be myself or sometimes I've had to do it on Zoom and sort of set that right from the beginning has been hugely important in the work going forward and letting people see that I'm approachable and that this is how we're gonna work. But I always have in my contract, like I have a basic beginning, middle, end sort of where we'll do something in the beginning, we'll come back and check on it. And then I'm almost always there for some of the tech, right? Because totally different game once things get on stage and going. And then we find that there's a little more time needed here or there. So I try to build that in. You know, I'm lucky enough to have been in residence. So now I'm part of production meetings with some things, right? Because we're talking about dyeing costumes for skin color or like, how are we gonna cover this moment? But I do encourage ICs like this is a job, right? And so making sure that you are covered and that you're really clear with people. And sometimes that job changes and then you go back and you negotiate that but really this is a business and this is a job as much as it is also good work and helpful work and healing work. And so making sure that you're also taking care of that side of things. Wonderful. And so there's a quick question at the bottom. What is the distinction between pharmacy and intimacy director and intimacy coordinator? So typically an intimacy director is thought to do work on live performances, including theater while intimacy coordinator is normally thought of doing work for film. That's sort of the common designation. So yes, and as for Matt's question, I feel like we, hold on. To what extent do they should be involved? Yeah, we spoke to that question. And intimacy director should really be involved from the beginning. Jake wants to know about best way. We have to wrap up here about supporting work when things constantly change with the script. So I think it's important for the IED to really set the language. For example, during the pandemic when I was working with the Huntington on the bluest eye, it's like some things changed, but I came in and set some of the consent language so that if things needed to shift, the actors knew how to tap in and check in about new boundaries, right? Because consent is fluid. And so that's why it's important to really begin with that workshop. So that you're not just leaving them a choreography. It's a lot more than that, like Charlie said, leaving them with a way to basically ground everything they're doing in consent, right? So I think if the IED can't be with you the entire time, that is a way to do it. So we are going to begin, wanting to see, yes, thank you. Yeah, we are going to begin our closing practice, but I wanna let you know that there is a comment, not a question, but a comment in the chat box. So we can also take a look at that. And also, Thea, I wanted everyone, I just want you, Thea, I'm gonna put a resource in the chat box. That's just for the five pillars. The book talks about the five pillars in depth and it's in our, there's just like a chapter that just goes over definitions, right? Concepts pretty much like an intimacy directing dictionary is in here, but that's also a resource for folks that they can use to sort of begin rehearsal and performance practice. I wanna give a super thank you to all of the contributors. I love you all. Your work is amazing. Thank you for being in community with me. I wanna continue to do this. Come check us out, March 18th. We'll have more contributors. Also, we're working on doing another reading at the Drama Book Club in New York City this summer. Contributors, we need to talk about that. And I really wanna give a shout out to HowlRound, VJ and your students. Thank you so much for coming, Thea and the interpreters, and to everyone out there to you. Everyone out there trying to build a better world through your art and thank you for supporting our work. And yeah, thank you so much for being here today. We would love to just go through the same closing practice with you and tap out with you together. If you're so inclined to breathe with us, inhale and exhale. Thank you so much, everyone. Let's make consent contagious. Let's make consent contagious. Thank you.