 A really big thank you to HowRound for partnering with us on this. As we learned last night, these issues are incredibly important, so we're just thrilled to be talking about them. Also a big thank you to the LARP because the space is fantastic. Cell phones, please silence them, but tweet to your heart's content because I will be right there. Our panelists will be as well. So feel free to tweet and ask questions. There will be questions from the audience as well. And it's hashtag bright sweet is what you should be using. And then also be sure your way out, there's a white piece of paper. It's our white paper, more information about anti-piracy. So please feel free to grab it, more information. And there are still two more panels this week, so I hope that you join us. Just so y'all know, the Reigns today have held up one of our panelists, but he's on the way, so if someone comes in late and sits down, that's why. So now I'm going to hand it over to a wonderful moderator, Morgan Genes, and she's going to introduce everyone else here. So take it away. I'm really happy to be here with these other people on the panel because the question today is kind of the handled question to license or not to license. You know, especially when you're a playwright, you know, when do you license your play? But really it's interesting when you're in a collaborative situation. When, you know, you're co-writing with someone. When you're devising as a group. And there's all kinds of interesting questions that come up. Also when you're sort of making a schematic that's not necessary, something that changes, something that is kind of the bones of a play that gets improvised in different settings. So it's a real question of like, are you the only ones who can do this play and other people do play? What kind of choices do you make? And also what are the decisions within a collaboration? So all the kind of complexities that come up about licensing and non-licensing. So what's exciting about this panel is that we have people who work collaboratively. We have people who have been published independently as authors. We have people who are actors and writers. We have presenters who work with several groups. So it's really going to have a very interesting range. And I want to quickly go down to who we have. So the first three people here at the end are part of the Debate Society. I hope you have not there, you know, well they're touring a little now or right, but they are in New York City for you people in New York City. You should see them. They are amazing. Buddy Cop changed, it did change my life. I went, this is how it's possible in the theater. So we have Hannah Bost, Paul Purine, and Oliver Butler, from the Debate Society. They work out themselves and we open into it. Then we have, we're going to have two people. We have John Dalgan and we're waiting for Michael DeAngelis from the Portroom, which is a company that's based in Philadelphia. And you work collaboratively with two other writers, sometimes another writer generally. Writer, director, actor, whatever we need to work with. There we need to be for that particular. Right. So there's various roles that are taken up. You're also a screenwriter. So there's various hats that people wear and when they wear those hats and then who has a say in how the work gets done. And you also want to talk about something that John had a very intriguing thing when he was sort of tweeting out things a tweet to his constituency saying, we're going to also talk about self-licensing. That really intrigued me. Mike said we're going to talk about that. I'll take advantage of his absence. Okay, good. Several of these artists, Sam French has had the great good taste to publish already. I would say. But it's an interesting thing in terms of when do you go to a publisher and what's the idea of self-licensing as well, how do you do that? And then here right next to me is Ronnie Pinoy, who has a company called Theater from the District. And she works with several interesting ensembles and companies. The one I think we'll talk about the most is probably Dog and Pony. Most companies are based in D.C., is that right? All of them are based in D.C. And Dog and Pony is interesting because I really want to talk specifically about a project called Beer10, which is a really unique situation. If you look at the credits for people like who's credit is a writer, who's credit is a developer of a script, and also who's credited as, in your case, I think the devising company is the credit. So anyway, these are briefly who our fabulous people are on the panel. So the question I want to ask, to open it up to, is how, when, what's the advantages, disadvantages of getting a script out there that you've developed that's very much kind of part of who you are as performers, as devisors, as actors, and when is it good to get it out there for other people to do, and when do you maybe think, well, no, it's not actually something that I think other people can do. So do you guys want to talk about that? Sure. So really quickly, the three of us create plays together. We conceptualize and develop them together. Ultimately, Hannah and I write the script in the plays, all of her directs them. But the three of us sort of create the world of the play together. So we sort of share authorship. And we just had our 10-year anniversary, and in that time we've made eight full-length plays. And our first three plays were just written for me and Hannah as performers. I think we never really considered the idea of writing for other people. We were writing for our company. I think it was Amy Rose-Marge from Time to Friends. She was the first person who approached us after Buddycock II about the possibility of licensing it. And so there's a lot of questions about what is a debate-sidey play, because our plays, as we develop, did start to read more like scripts, not just sort of performance text. They sort of read like a play. But there was more of the play than just the text. We sort of started with the mood and the feeling of the world. And as we write the plays, we're also collecting the prompts that are going to be in the plays. And those details are really important to us. So for us, the big question was if we, being excited about somebody else taking our plays and seeing what they would do with them, but also wondering about these elements that maybe aren't reflected on the page, how much that is the play. And then also, the other big concern was just confusion if people saw a production of Buddycock II and said, oh, I know the debate-sidey. I saw that play. And how we explained to people, well, that wasn't the debate-sidey. That was a play that we wrote. And so those were, I think, sort of like the early things that we really were resting with for a long time as we figured out how to... And how do you've written plays that you've just done on your own as well, right? Well, I have, but yeah, I mean, I have. I write other things, and then I also act in other people's plays. But the plays that I make with the debate-sidey are, I think, to its own. And we're also sort of in the devised categories sometimes, depending on the way people talk about devising. Does everyone here really understand the nature of devised work and what happens? Okay, let's talk a little bit about that. Sure, that's fine, because it's not a word that we use to describe ourselves. People laid that on top of us, and I think that there is sort of... This might be wrong, but I feel like playwrights write plays just as differently from each other as companies create plays differently from each other. And Devise has become this catch-all for and so low-created work where it's not just a single playwright who writes a play and hands it off. And so for some companies, that means that a script comes out of improvisation or any different ways of doing it. So we sort of get lumped in that. We don't use that term for ourselves, but that's... Would you say collaborative or what do you... We use collaborative a lot, especially at the beginning of our process when we know what we think our play might be about and we're over-creating this world. I mean, there's still writing involved in an early stage, but it's really three people in a room creating together. Sometimes it's on its feet, but sometimes it has lists. I mean, it has so many different elements that is uniquely ours and then also probably a lot of people do it as well. And then there's a point where the script comes, but we are all three sort of creating at the same time. I think there's some companies that they create a piece and then they perform it and then they sort of document it afterwards. We just worked with a company called Team Sunshine workshop and that's what they do. They're like, well, we don't really have scripts when we're done and we kind of try to... The script happens when you're done. When we write a play and so when we're done, we have... We're going into rehearsal with the script. John, is that more the way you guys work as well? Kind of sort of. We all consider ourselves writers. So let's consider ourselves actors' writers. And then there's me who considers himself actor-director-writer. So that works out pretty well. And I think we all sort of took the same path that actors who find themselves writing and directing take. We start out as actors and we say, well, this director has no idea what he's talking about. And then you realize, well, the director's fine. It's actually the play of his path. So you come around to writing your own work, to fill the gaps that you see in the theater. Basically the way it works is somebody will have an idea or two people have an idea. And they'll throw the idea out there. It'll leave a spark to you or you don't. And you say, well, I'm interested in helping you with that or I'm interested in flat-out writing that with you. Or I'm not interested in that at all but I want to see what you do with it. So I go to it and we're all... One of the reasons that the three of us work so well together is that we write so differently to what you were saying about the way playwright's approach plays. Pete will send me something and Mike will send me something and I'll be like, that is wonderful and I would never in a million years... This is Pete Barry. He's not going to be here but Mike's going to be here. I would never in a million years have thought to put those words together in that order to achieve the effect that Pete had. But I see it from another way so I'm going to take it and I'm going to put it on its feet this way and we'll try it two or three different ways. We'll see what happens. The one thing you do have to get to is you have to get comfortable enough with each other that you can say to each other, yes this is fantastic but pages 10 through 37 have to go. You have to get to the ability where you can trust each other enough to speak frankly. And is that kind of a decision that you all agree to collectively? It has to be. I mean ultimately at the outset, one person or two people or all three of you become the writer and the decisions become based on that decision you made. And that's something we're going to talk about too in terms of is there an ultimate responsibility that gives over in terms of someone really taking the mantle of the identity of a writer? Is it a collective? Also who makes the decisions about production and licensing and all that kind of thing? Because it can get complicated. You've got a lot of people in the room who are collaborating. There has to be some sort of agreement that we'll get to that. So let's talk about Dog and Pony, especially those that show like Beertown, which was done here in New York, do you guys see Beertown? Yeah, it's totally, it's a very different animal. Let's talk about Beertown a little bit and Dog and Pony's process. So I work with Dog and Pony DC as their touring producer and it's been really interesting working with Rachel Grossman who's one of Dog and Pony DC's ring leaders as they figure out what they're going to do with Beertown in this next step. Because it's interesting, you wouldn't normally think that licensing and touring have much to do with each other, but in this case I think one is really going to inform the other. But back in a second. So Dog and Pony DC, the way they make their work is in this kind of ensemble devised model. So as a group they come together around an idea and over a long period of time they'll develop shows. But for each individual project it's different ensemble members will take the lead as the director, kind of as the lead on that particular project. But what's interesting as the shows have been premiered and then have gone on, and this has happened in the case of Beertown, is that different ensemble members will swap in and out of different roles. So when it travels someone may be playing the role of the mayor in a different way than had been previously. So it's not so much these are the actors, these are the directors when we come together to develop the show, but it's very, very fluid in terms of who does what role. But I think probably the thing that sets Dog and Pony DC apart in an interesting way is their investigation of what they like to call audience integration. What that basically means is that the audience is, you know, not only engaged in the show in an interesting way but they actually have agency. So we say about Beertown that it's about 60% Dog and Pony DC and about 40% of the audience generating material. So in Beertown when you first come into the show I'm going to say get a little sense of what this experience is because it's very unique. So when you come into be part of the audience of Beertown you're cast as a citizen of Beertown. And you've shown up to a town meeting where there are different artifacts that are going to be either voted in or voted out of the town time capsule. So it's the town's quintuennial celebration and there is pageantry, there is a you know, everyone stands and does the Pledge of Allegiance, everyone sings the Beertown song and you are very much with a t-shirt and with a dessert potluck that kicks off the show and yes, you bring a dessert. That is the world that you come into. So, you know, the first part of the show there's a lot of, you know, artifacts are, but then in the second half you have, you know, audience members coming forward and saying, you know, I really want to vote for, you know, that projector from the old movie theater to be in that time capsule because I remember when my grandfather you know, went to see a show when, you know, Yadda Yadda and so you're doing not only as a, you know, the artist. You have a guideline too. What's that word? Characteristics that each artifact must have and so, you know, as an audience member you're going, well, you know, it has, oh no, it was heat. It was heat. So does it have these different, you know, characteristics that should justify being into the time capsule or not? So it's interesting when you talk about licensing something like that, you know, that is 40% the audience experience and in a way as on the artist side you're not just performing something that's been predetermined. You're improvising and you're also facilitating which is, this is the pride that's probably most important to Doug and Pony is you're facilitating the audience's experience so that they can have a value based conversation that's exciting to them. So you get a great debate between, you know, a little kid and an older gentleman, you know, politely saying, well, I disagree with you. You know, between the two of them about which artifact you could put it in. The audience is improvising along and the actors have to respond to that so it's dramaturgy on the spot. So how do you license dramaturgy on the spot? You know, and also performance wise because your performance elements, I mean the whole thing, you know, with the squash game, you know, there's a dramaturgy to how that game is played. You just don't say to, you know, officers go and play squash. There's a kind of rhythm to it and orchestration to it, right? You know, but as a buddy, has buddy caught it? It's with Sam French and it's had two licensed productions. Have you seen one of Chicago this fall? Did you see the other productions? We did. Yeah, Hannah saw the one in Durham. Yeah. And how do you sort of, how much control do you have over it? How much of an issue? We've sort of been really hands off with them. And we've just sort of shown up and seen, it's like, you know, visiting your kid at camp or something. Visiting your older kid at camp, right? Because it's like, you have to kind of let it go. That is like apparent. There was never any question, I never remember having a question about whether we should or shouldn't license our work. We didn't know whether it was going to license it or whether anyone would be interested in licensing it earlier in our process. But I don't think that we ever had any like, should we never license it? Yeah, there was never a, there was never a never. Yeah, we were always like excited by the idea. Yeah, also like a few cities we wanted to hit maybe on tours before licensing them. That was always the big consideration, was making sure that we could have the life that we wanted with our own production and not get in the way of any other holdback in the licensing. Yeah, we would say this play can be done in these cities but not in these places. It's funny because it's something that we don't worry about anymore because when we first did it, I think we didn't know how it worked. So I don't remember the exact details but I think what we worked out is for Buddycock too we decided for the first year we would basically have, you know, there were a few cities that we were like, okay we want to know before we get granted license to these cities we get to okay that and then after a year. But the thing is that and also we license, so if we're doing it again we license our own production so we have to go through a semi-franch which is like, oh is that going to be weird but it's actually great. Can you explain that a little bit? I really like that, I think before we did it we were like, well this is going to be weird because then do we have to license it from semi-franch when we do it because otherwise they would be losing money when you go touring. But we get our licensing percentage from that anyway, so it's kind of fun to be like, okay we're paying ourselves so now we're not so worried about that and we're not we aren't the type of company that want to be on the road eight months a year it's just a few specific spots so I think that that was something that we anticipated being a bigger problem than it was but I don't think it was a Sam French contract possibly because there was a point at which we were deciding which cities we wanted sort of off the table for a year and we included a few international cities like Berlin or something I think what we didn't know is at least for that contract they weren't handling anything internationally but they did us the service of they put in like Berlin, New York or something they didn't make us feel like idiots they were like yes they must be talking about Berlin or something like that it's a huge in Berlin or like a great art scene in Berlin something like that my New York is going to start tweeting like crazy that they're mad now we're going to get all these like angry Berlin are you dissing Berlin? connected to like that we have a show called Your Welcome which is a cycle of bad plays that has this sort of like well-made scene in it that was totally improvised we don't usually improvise that's the only thing we've ever done it was live improvisation on stage but nobody knew it was improvised but by the writing that was really great thank you, thank you so when that was published we weren't sure if that was important or if we should just sort of like write that scene and what we ended up doing is having like guidelines for like the key points that they had to hit but next is a 20-minute improvised scene that shouldn't see improvised this needs to happen it should end with these lines do what you want, if it's kids you can have it be kids, if it's adults and I think in our other scripts that aren't improvised there's still moments that we when we are preparing this for publication that we're asking how much of this is actually important to tell people it needs to be this mood it needs to be this rhythm how much of that, the stage magic you know, the actor spins the rack at this point probably not, maybe that's just our thing so that's what we're weighing what is important to the core of the story that needs to be included and what we want people to figure out themselves which is an issue for Bear Count too you nodded your head when he was talking about appropriate is it appropriate so I'm curious about what does that mean is it appropriate to be licensed or is anybody interested for me it's always is anybody interested please go ahead we don't have anything that's nearly that level of free form or improvised along the way I mean we have improvised as performing our shows, not going to be long it's always a question of I think if a publishing house is interested in licensing if they think there is a market for it then by all means go ahead and license it if there is something like I have a play that's written very specifically for one particular theater in one particular place it is written around the history of this theater it is written around the physical constraints of this theater it is written with a fair amount of in-jokes for the people who know this theater and I have done a pass of it and I've tried to take all that out in specific details can I take the theater specificity out of it and make a version of it that is licensable for a broader audience I finally briefed the conclusion that I couldn't do so what we do with the quote-unquote self-licensing which basically plays that we have produced that Sangre French or another publisher has not picked up we've done a performance of it we haven't done a performance of it we don't think it could ever possibly be done on a stage we don't particularly care about that because for all I know there's people out there who know the exact way to do that play we put it up on the website that's an interesting thing we say hey we wrote this we don't know what to do with it and is it a creative commons situation that they just kind of do it because if some of you know about the adaptations that he's done especially in Greek plays he has a website that he basically puts the words on and young companies he says he's pulled from all kinds of other sources that he doesn't that some are in the public domain some of them he doesn't have underlying rights to and so it's kind of a rights nightmare I think for you but I'll give you licensing really traditional licensing for Chuck Mee and the other thing he does is like I want young companies to do this you want to approach it you want to put in other texts you don't want to use around bold play you want to use a different song in this moment you can do what you want it's a Greek play there's things I want you to credit if you're going to use what I'm doing but it's out there and run with it you get to the point where what good is it what good is it sitting on your hard drive right it's open source it's open source programming for the theatrical world we have done this we think it's fun go ahead fly be free we used to just have a tip charm on the website I don't think we ever made a dime we tried the radio head model for getting momentarily that we are not actually radio I don't think we ever made a dime off it now we sort of list suggested prices in line with the licensing fees I don't know if anybody has ever actually done it and you don't really monitor but it's a really interesting thing at what point is there a point where you feel all these people are doing it and are selling tickets if people start to do the plays and they start to publicize the plays as you will do when you do a play you'll find out about it do you have a google check on yourself at your work I have something better than a google check I have my father tell us about your father my father has a google check we have the same name so he has a google check on him but he started finding my plays and it's funny when you get published how quickly your sensibilities shift to the right I get an email from my dad hey they are doing your play in Indiana they paid for it and in Indiana I tell you what our google will learn from blood play I just disabled it yesterday because you got so much other stuff I would get paid for either t-shirts that said give blood play hockey or fetish websites but you still have the fetish stuff so I still have to turn the hockey t-shirts so so with beer tab in talking about whether to license that how you license it what goes into a published script what are the kinds of conversations of something that's a real schematic for not all the actor improvisation for audience talk on pointy is very much in the place of not having had anything licensed yet really asking all of these questions and thinking about what is the way to learn more because one of the biggest challenges with talk on pointy's work is that even I'm sure as I'm explaining to you what the show is right now I think the few of you who have seen the show can attest that it's a very different experience made it through the storm I feel like we should sing a big song to you at the end of the storm today I was part of Amtrak's new writer hostage program so so did Sam French got the check fabulous thank you Sam French for the train are you done interrupting this nice I am I'm not here so I was saying that the experience of being in beer town is very different than hearing what it's about or what the experience is I think the few of you who are at the show will probably not your heads at that so one of the things that Dog & Pony is looking at that we're going after together including me is looking at doing a beer town takes America tour and it's not your typical tour and that it's not the entire Dog & Pony DC company going to Omaha and doing the show instead it's okay can we take a couple one to three Dog & Pony DC members collaborate with a group of artists you know people in that city and develop a beer town for that particular city maybe even swap out some artifacts that are a little more exciting or talk about what are the themes that that city is grappling with right now and in a way by going through to all of these different cities doing this what they're calling partial presence model we'll kind of learn and get a sense of when you know we mean when we say X are they hearing X or are they hearing Y and like working with other artists who are kind of new to the world of beer town we're hoping will give us a lot of valuable information so that when we're building this licensing we'll have a sense of what to do so one of the things that we've talked about early on doing is kind of a beer town bible because one of the things that people who have come to see the show have said is well how could anybody else put you do the show because you know everything about the history of beer town so if someone says well where did the wood from that bar come from it'll be like oh it came from this particular manufacturer and you'll remember that that person their grandfather founded the town there's just this whole deep world of information that can come out and improv so in licensing it's not just the this person says X this person says B and then you let the audience talk for a while so here is the world of knowledge and history about this town that every cast member knows and also here is the bible for each individual for each individual character for where they're coming from what their background is in relationship to the other characters so it's interesting to think about it's not like even maybe just a play but as a play with all of this other additional materials waiting until there's more productions waiting until you really have more information that can go into this bible is actually better than having rushed to get the play out there into publication that's the thought right now it makes sense that there's all these different variations that we want as many as possible and also too realizing that putting together that kind of body of work and having it make sense to other people other than us who are so familiar with the work you know and we'll take kind of a trial and error and experimental period before it's okay this is ready to go to be licensed so Michael alright so glad you made it so we talked a little bit about what's put up on the website the kind of this like self licensing and the test jar so what can you talk a little bit about cause you've also had things public accidents happen I think this had a nice life you know that was published can you talk about are there decisions in that or talk about your relationship with your collaborators say whatever you want to say well because we're not only writers but we're producing a lot of our own work a lot of times we find that takes us out of contention of submitting it to places because a lot of times they'll say you know can't have had a major production or have any sort of production we put something up in Philadelphia or in New York it's a pretty big you know arenas to play in but we put a lot of work into it we put a lot of love into it and from my perspective you know I think a lot probably through me sometimes you don't know what works until you've seen it and so you know there are things we've done now two times three times and there are less opportunities for us to send it out to the world so we'll send it out there ourselves so a lot of what's up on the website for people to do if they like or things that we kind of road tested ourselves and think are really viable shows they tend to be a little more traditional not improvisational I can see how some of my beer town you would want to keep hands on at least for the first several iterations we have more traditional sort of I don't know nothing new there drama churchy drama churchy drama churchy drama churchy traditional work we can trust somebody to pick up and not not too insane it doesn't need a Bible perhaps again like I said a lot of the things that we have have been sort of lab tested road tested they have been reviewed they have probably been reviewed when we started out we tried to do things that we could do ourselves things that we could do simply things that we could do that days notice just ourselves somebody has a space you need and great we are going the first time we did that we did a show we put it up in a week's notice there were some pros and there were some cons and I had especially before you were a member of the group it was just me and Pete and I called Pete and I said alright so the next show we do has to be even simpler than that has to be even less complicated than that because it's more than we were prepared and he sent me a play four days later and I'm reading it and I'm like alright there's a chair and a desk great the guy comes in he's holding something small and he's got a pen alright that's what a pen we can do great page 17 on walk 2 people carrying a live octopus kind of put it down and I pick up the phone and he said hello and I said I can point to the page where you completely disregarded everything we talked about he's like I know but I had to bring on the octopus I did the octopus stare the octopus did stare the octopus is published the octopus was published alright fine you do it everyone you put an octopus on the page and it got published and the octopus is out in the world and it's done I believe the idea of this is being done people find ways to do it I think we've given up on trying to do the simple show but we did continually when we were trying to tour more we thought like the key to it is like just come up with a show that's much more simply done I feel like we would start with the intention to do you know the suitcase show and then you just black out wake up six months later in front of like a mess real cars and stuff what happened it was interesting because doing something simple is a consideration for a lot of theaters all over I think it's a consideration in terms of when you license I worked in an agency for a number of years you have that conversation with theaters that spring slot maybe they're going to do something bring in a company bring in an ensemble because you'll do something you know it's done you can bring it in you have the parameters of what you're doing a lot of theaters are going do you have a accommodate as three actors or less of one set really simply done a lot of us have experienced that really is this what the theater has become but it's interesting it's like when you license do you find that that's true but none of you really do it sometimes the opposite if it's college production there was our overplay you're welcome that they're asking if they could add well we have five younger students can we add them as stage hands or in this scene there are times where they'll want to do more all those things just have to be handled on a case by case made for that kind of thing it's a series of bad plays on purpose the team there's a lot of room for good value I would say normally can we add another character to Muddycock too we'd be like no, so we'd be distracted and that's the question in terms of you don't even know when a play goes out there how much control does any writer have ask Shakespeare to write ask the writer Shakespeare to write that's all the writer shakes that's right I think something we've learned or I think we might be doing more future scripts for licensing is deal just being clearer about how to deal with a lot of the silence and the mood that's so important to us like mood is so important and we spend, as Paul said, so much time sort of infusing the mood of the play with rich detail and I think our plan right now is to just open ourselves up to have more conversations with licensing theaters so that we can explain maybe stuff that's impossible to put into a script I think that's very interesting because as I was recently just working on our website and looking at our script library something that struck me about a lot of our scripts was sort of the author's note or disclaimer at the front that says this calls for an octopus or this calls for a roller coaster but it could be done with suggestion or it could be done very elaborately we put that into your hands what's important is what comes across and I found that time and time again I was like because we came from the roots up we've got a room and a chair but we're going to play about a roller coaster I think we are very encouraging to find their way into these perhaps elaborate or crazy worlds that we've created where there are octopuses and ancient Egypt ghosts coming back to life and allowing it to be done with a chair and a pad maybe that's not a bad benchmark for it if there is something that is so integral to the story that it can't be done without it and you can't communicate that in words maybe that's the line you have to cross before you can say alright it's ready to be licensed because you can't always be there you can't always if you can't communicate it in words on the page then it's probably not something you're ready to put out there for the world and what if that is an actor and a performance and does that happen I mean where you can't see didn't you guys get the casting call for the Boston I remember the casting call for the Boston production of Bloody Cop was happening there were a thing of going in and auditioning it was like let's see if you can spell it fake names that must have a six foot four and a man and a five foot tall woman for like that's comedic in fact you know is that part of the set but could it be I mean when is are there times for it where you kind of go no actually as great as this would be for other people to do it there's no way other people can do it me personally I would never speak for another writer me personally I would never because I have in the past decided that this is for one person and one person else and it usually doesn't work, it's nowhere near what you think interesting our second play has like five or six lines of actual dialogue and it's unpublished and it's like a list of actions it's written and I think that we have like a very special intimate relationship with that play and I feel like we want to do it one more time to see what that was it was like our second play we did eight years ago before we probably published that and even looking at that script theater is such a crazy medium it's all so not permanent and especially with our company we like learned who we were by making this second play together because our first play was it was an adaptation in the writings of someone else and based on someone else that new one we've never published and it's like a list of actions I couldn't imagine publishing that but we keep talking all the time about how awesome it would be to publish that but you want to go into it one more time so you can let the kid go to camp on it exactly which I think is an interesting thing I think Dog on Pony is actually about to have a really interesting learning experience that this is making me think of so in Omaha there is a great theater called Omaha Community Playhouse and it is a professional community theater in Omaha established in there many, many decades and Dog on Pony is going to be bringing Beardtown out there and in that instance a couple of Dog on Pony members are going to go out there and essentially cast the show from the community so not even so much like okay we're going to cast professional actors in this but we're casting from the community that would be performing in this place and everything so I think that's going to be a really interesting experience for whoever goes out there because in addition to these auditions there's going to be pre-audition workshops and things like that to get people both excited about and kind of wrapping their heads around what Dog on Pony does and what is this audience integration thing that they're trying to do so I think that will be an interesting moment as I think that will be the first time in these roles that's really just speaking generally in theatrical terms the best experiences I've ever had either as a director or a writer or an actor for that matter has been with the actor who you never in a million years would have imagined would be right for the part I did a play where I invited an actor to come lead for one of the two male two key male roles and I just assumed that he knew who I was calling him to read for so he came for the other he should have presumed I had called him for the other you're completely wrong for that part he's like F.I.M. let me show you any audition and he was right and the flip side of that is the place that we've written for ourselves like drop is a play that's set on a roller coaster that has stopped and it's about the two guys who are stuck on the roller coaster and the conversation they have while they're looking over the drop and Mike and Pete wrote it and I'm in it I have a smaller role of the maintenance man who comes up to fix it this is like the first 15 times we did the show but it's about two guys who had a very particular point in their lives by which I mean they're in their 20s so about a year ago one of you I forget which one of you it was since the analysis I don't know I've ever told you this I thought to myself thank god I don't have to say it thank god that's right Mike and Pete Jackson any age I can do this forever 16 years old that is a different kind of drop right? can you tell a little bit about Transit Lounge and you are dead you are here oh sure that's an interesting thing with the collaboration between a video artist and a playwright so Transit Lounge is a very interesting ensemble in that it's comprised of three artists who typically work as a playwright Christine Evans Jerry Mazzucci and Joseph Magel who works as a director but what's interesting about what brought them together is they came together for this one particular show because they were really fascinated by this software it's called virtual Iraq and essentially it was developed by the military to help veterans who are returning from Iraq with PTSD so it's essentially a virtual reality software and through a lot of building of relationships they got the rights to utilize that software and all of the equipment that goes with it and essentially that is the projection design and really the set design for the show is it's all this video design world and you're with the veteran and his therapist and this Iraqi girl blogger and you're kind of going between these two worlds and eventually the virtual world of Iraq becomes the real world for this Iraqi girl so they had a production at here art center in June of last year that really you know really kind of moved forward for them like what the piece could be but what's so interesting is that I think a lot of people talk to them and go well it's a play but you know you have some projection design and a director but you know that like every project could never have come together if it wasn't really them working as a collaborative I mean the idea is the text the design like everything was you know everyone was in each other's work it was really there wasn't so much here's a finished play and then here's the projection design or the direction because there's no way that you could put together something like that without all moving forward at the same time so it's also interesting you know for me as their touring producer to try to talk to others about the work and you know if you just send the play it doesn't tell the whole story and that's not saying that Christine didn't ultimately pin a beautiful play and there is a play that is written down but essentially the play is not just the isn't just the written work it's the nature of the experience of how you you know how do you control that how do you have a sense of that how do you license an experience does anybody have something that you want to say to share the process? I would say one thing that I think has been interesting to us is in two cases now titles just because we've written for ourselves and so we created buddy cop 2 not knowing it would be licensed and it sounds like sort of like an ironic schlocky play but it's sort of like a sad, strange melancholy play and so we realized that just looking through the sounding crunch catalog and sees the title buddy cop 2 who would want to do a play called buddy cop 2 was going to read the play and that's not the play I want to do but a company who might really sort of do a good version of that play might not be grabbed by that title because there's sort of a collision between the title and the play that we use because we have we know more audiences here we know how to market ourselves and then similarly our next play blood play which was the untitled it was the untitled the world's fair play is down the light years that's right blood play was the untitled blood play which takes place in the Chicago and Chicago in the 50s and it's about family and it's about bloodlines and it's also about violence so we thought it was a good title and when I told my mom who lives in rural Minnesota she was like you can't call a play blood play and other toy presenters said we're going to have issues with that title and honestly never would have crossed my mind that the word blood in a title would be an issue for people that I'm saying like blood not all these plays my mom's like yeah nobody's going to go see a play called blood play so that's the other thing that we're creating for ourselves and for presenting the work in a certain way knowing that we're going to market it and not even thinking that like somebody literally our next play is called jacuzzi which is so controversial exactly but that is sort of a thing that you know that we're talking with the people that sound like a friend about how to present our scripts, how to present our plays how to market them to people who are going to do their own version of it but what context to give them who to like match it up with to say oh it's similar to if you like the plays of this person you might be interested in this and I think that now with sort of technology and we're sort of a very low-fi company but the idea of sort of technology and you know website and ways that we can sort of present our work in ways that people might consider doing that but otherwise might not be exposed to it and it's sort of an interesting time to be doing what we first licensed our plays we didn't know who to talk to about like what the challenges are of a company with a written text and licensing and that's so interesting like if you have when you decide to license it's a collaboration with your publisher in terms of what their market is who has the market you really want what the level of profile we want and these types of conversations how do you market essentially which market do you change title it's a really interesting conversation anyone else want to have something that you do Michael? I think I might be going backwards from what I missed with I think when we talk about sort of a piece that started this site specific we haven't really talked about it so that's great I just mentioned we had a really interesting experience two years ago we we got asked by the museum at the University of Pennsylvania to do a play in their space which is an Egyptian hauls recreation with actual ancient artifacts and the giant sphinx this absolutely stunning space and so we wrote a play for that space and it was absolutely written for that room it should be taking place in that room on that evening you had references to the things including this sphinx which we made central to the plot and John saw it he came to see it on opening night he came up to the intermission and said we have to take this to New York I said I don't think we can take the whole room but we did it we did it we took it to New York the next summer we played French last year and I was really I was so skeptical I was going to work but we made it work with projections and theatrical magic but it changed the way I thought about the future of some of our pieces and some of the things that maybe we previously sat on or not put on the website because I thought that's for that time it's for that place it's for those people but if someone wants to do it why shouldn't I let it be out there in the world it's a really interesting point it ties into performance it's a live octopus it's kind of a trust in your work that it can be translated in different ways and still maintain its potency and its power that's an interesting thing I think to realize it might not be done in the same way but imaginatively there's ways to get it across in a way that you feel satisfied I always get the urge when I get a notice that something's being done I'm like look at the airline prices because I've really I've yet to see I think only once I've seen someone else really someone that I have no connection with take on one of my writings and I would really love to some boarding school in Canada did everything that the portroom has published and it's like as one night and I was like I have to go to Saskatchewan immediately that is such a litmus test cause you know like Irene Fornes always was a wonderful Cuban American I worked with her for years she directed her first productions in all her plays she wanted her visions were also directorial and she would do it and then in a way she didn't care and she said okay anybody can do it but I don't want to see it I was like I don't want to see it so it's like it's out there I had my you know you had that satisfaction a little bit what you're talking about you feel that you've done it you've discovered it and then it can go out and anyone can do what they want and you can do it but don't like it I love even just as a playwright there's a bunch of groups I belong to and I'll put something out for the group to review and I'll read the comments that come back on it my favorite thing my favorite thing is when somebody comes back and say I don't know if I love this or I hate it my second favorite thing is when somebody comes back and says oh I love this I loved how you did that and I loved where you did this and I loved how you tied this back to this and I'm like I had an idea I was doing that my friend but I'm glad you enjoyed it I'm glad you enjoyed it the interpretations so I think we're at the point where we can open it up for questions from the audience also from as I said the interweb we've had actually a lot of great discussion going on y'all have a lot of tweets when we get off oh really? I think there's one that some people have been asking which is just seeing your shows license change your approach to new plays to creating the new plays? just as to new plays a couple of people have re-treated it so I don't think you can take that however you like it I would say for me it doesn't change it doesn't change at all the creation of the play I'd say the one thing that changes is after the fact just we're like right in San Diego French formatting now because the first play it took me so long to like it's after the backstage directions and there's more work after the fact with the script but I don't think for us it changes anything I don't regret any of our titles but I didn't foresee those sort of challenges with buddy cop 2 or blood play and I actually don't know that I would change them but now that I know that it probably will affect sort of what our plays get we were also cautioned to get some cave disappointment which Samuel French just published when that first came out because if it was a theater producing it was worried about the reviews of a play that had the word disappointment in the title and yeah that's a very interesting question but for us I don't think it hasn't changed at all I have found that if you write something to be marketable you will fail yeah because if anybody had the formula right then you need to write the story you want to tell just that there is a market for it yeah I think it's a trap that you say oh this play is doing really really well let me write another one like it there's a lot of Hollywood stories like that that we've seen yes I have a comment and a testimonial the comment is I've worked with Samuel French for 20 years many panels I've listened to many panels and I've never heard a panel like this before I think this is wonderful thank you for sharing this whoever Samuel French thought this one out second one is testimony I want to hear it quick Rodney would reference the story about a young child an older man at the show I took a colleague with me and I thought it was going to be interactive we have from these t-shirts the next thing I knew we were involved we took it very seriously I was furious with that young child who chose to argue with me about what I thought was going to that time I was furious with this child it was one of the funnest and coolest experiences I've had the opportunity to attend I suggest you is dog and pony at all related to dog and pony in Chicago no I should make sure I emphasize the dog and pony DC because there's a lot of dog and ponies out there which actually if you don't mind me I want to come back but I have a quick question for the rest of you thinking a lot about especially working with dog and pony DC is when you talk about licensing and other people doing the work and potentially saying by dog and pony DC or by such and such do you get concerned that that work is going to be considered that it's you not another production of your work but something that you are intimately aware of it is your next show it is the show I think that's like in the back of my mind but well I think it's just something so you accept once it's out in the world there are certain things that are just going to be out of your hands and you hope that people say I want to look more into this portrait business that I really enjoyed that play I think that most theater goers are savvy enough I think any theater that's going to put it on this theater presents draw so I think that's probably the case but it is something that I think about and I think it's a concern that has been probably out there in the world recently with the issues about rights and plays being seen for the first time in certain areas is that kind of wording and part of the license agreement I think both should be done in a certain way graphic crediting there's crediting and then there's also perception I might feel a little bit naive on this but obviously I don't want anyone doing unlicensed productions of our work and I don't want the work being given away but if I woke up in a world where I had a big problem with unlicensed productions my global brand was being like breached I just feel like it falls under the problems I wish I had so those are good problems you know so until then I'm a little bit like like again you're welcome which is the show the show you sort of want to see done illegally sort of it's like but every time one of those is bought you know you just think like oh god I hope that there's some kid in his garage charging admission somewhere I mean that goes back to the creative comments you know and when something is good to just go into the creative comments if they do it you know in scene class that kids you know are doing it I like the idea of making money doing theater like I love I mean solving how we make money doing this doing challenges and so that's not at all the undercut I think that's maybe the as noble an effort that's what I'm doing I wish that we have a third member of the portrait movement being here tonight Pete Barry and I think he would be extremely happy to find 12 year olds doing our plays in the garage I mean that's it was really him who pushed us to start putting our unpolished work up online Pete Barry is a 12 year old he will be into that he not only wants he not only wants a future for his work to be out there but he wants if he's given inspiration to somebody and an opportunity to someone where they're not going to have to pay a particularly large licensing fee there's no restriction if you want to put it up in your garage put it up in your garage I think he feels really strongly that we're paying it back in some way by case thing because on the other hand the idea of somebody going into one of my plays and changing the words or changing the order of things that sort of the protection that comes with that is very important again but I could see a certain show that we would say this is remix this do what you want and certain shows that we definitely wouldn't want that to be the case I think too it's almost even a there's a chance that let's say you know some theater decides completely above board does a production of Beartone but people who go see that show think well this is actually the dog and pony DC company who's come out and done this show when that isn't true and that's not necessarily a good or a bad thing necessarily but it's a question I don't know if that's something that people are concerned about and then we need to get back to it at some point because I saw your question I was going to just ask you guys about the child hip hop and like the internet like how do you guys feel about people remixing your thing for the way would that ever be a big concern for you since you got our divisors yourselves but like you guys sort of accidentally answered it just now so it's good I have a question here then we're going to go to the internet I'm thinking about which was more as a device or global rated but for about 10 years so here that's correct now my question is as a group have you all made preparations for in case the relationship saw us in case like a prenup do we have prenups because it was the band I said are you R.E.M. or are you the Beatles or who gets credit and I was like R.E.M even though it was really a lot of songs were written by two people the whole band you know would sort of participate because it's Len and McCartney you know sort of a licensing right so I kind of as a kind you have like Carol Churchill where you have a lot of writers who bring a writer in the room and they're working with actors who are in that situation now working with Josh Fox who's creating a thing with an ensemble all the actors are kind of improving but it's going to probably end up being under his name and what's the agreement and how does that work I don't know if it's quite any of these groups work that way but well dog you know it's like who gets it's a devising company how royal she is how do you you know it held up a chorus line for years and years because it's like who shares in the not only the credit the financing also the decision does everybody vote who gets well you know to the future of the show that's a really interesting question I think it's a great question I think especially when we're talking to young companies we talk about I think there's two sides of it one is how much effort goes into managing the relationships in a company maybe the joke of a prenup but it is sort of like managing a relationship when we talk to young companies you have to have a collaboration agreement at the beginning if you're going to go into this kind of work because after the fact you're already so emotionally connected to the piece and it's very hard to unweave what has been woven expectations I feel like it's a very touchy subject and if you have a good thing going and create something beautiful with people to have it after the fact I feel like it's better to be beginning to establish things also as far as like we've had like the plane crash conversations about like what happens in the end I feel like we probably should have a bigger conversation though about what happens we had a long the company was founded I joined but we sort of revamped at one point we had hours and hours of conversations about what we were and who we were what the responsibilities were and those questions ownership collaboration agreement we hammered out and every once in a while we dusted off again to make sure we're still on the same page see what needs to happen I was involved very much in the rent case you know in terms of Jonathan Larson he's collaborating with the drama team with Thompson I remember Lynn in what was developed calling me up and saying you know how was going she said oh I'm writing some lyrics you know and I said do you and Jonathan have a collaboration agreement and she said oh no he's going to take care of me which he would have he had an aneurysm he was gone and it was like there she was you know in a position where a grieving family was trying to hone in and what's going on it ended up being and it's like the legal thing about coal we have to claim co-authorship and all this other thing but they didn't do it they didn't get it down on paper it was like it was like a mess you had an internment thing? yes so this is going back a little bit to licensing but someone asked if you change your update, what are your works how do you feel about a future licensing producing or presenting an older version of the work hmm that's a really good question that's what we all just think no I'm not like if it's already licensed in one version and you don't update it or they just want to do the old version either or so yeah if you guys make changes and they want to do that older version I've never had I'm just trying to imagine what that would be I mean I guess the close thing that we have is that sometimes we'll get requests from people just like out of the blue saying hey I saw the flag and I have the script and I guess we've never been in a situation where we've updated the license so I can't quite answer that but we have become aware of not wanting to have a bunch of different versions of a script floating around if we've it never helps then we have the version that we've adjusted and we've taken out some things that were just for us and that we are a little bit cautious of making sure that the version that we want to be out there is the version that's out there so I would guess that if we did make big changes to a show you know I think it would be a case-by-case thing depending on what somebody really wanted to do with it if there were both if there was options to to do it but I would guess I would want people to have the version that we wanted to have because I would guess if something went out in the world and then we changed it we changed it for a I was gonna say I would be very interested to know why they wanted to do the older version and not the newer version it'd be a fun conversation what's weird for us is like the changes like because we do continue to develop the piece after premiere they're further you know the the blood play that we did at Williamstown had a number of changes from the one we did The Bushwick Star the public was different than The Bushwick Star I think it was a better it's a better script in the end but also it seems like just when I think about it seems like the most it would have to be like the most testidious like detail oriented person it was like no the like there's just like tiny bits of words to us or like huge you'd be like you're a crazy person this sounds like a french tweet does this sound like Yelki Vera we try to make sure the version that is out there is the version we went out there I have to say coming from my ancient experience I would often fight moving quickly to publication until there have been a couple of productions you know I'd love to get it out there but I'd say first of all I really liked having the conversations as an agent with the field you know when it goes to a publisher you don't have those types of conversations as easily but you know to get to rush and kind of say I had this with a really terrific playwright who had one production really wanted to get the play out there then a year later had another one oh my god I'm totally rewriting this but it was out there it is easy to change now with a more print on demand I mean that technology has really changed things there's not like 2,000 you know necessarily you know 4 or 40,000 hard copies of your play all over the place but it's yeah I think it's a question of like hold off have a couple of productions maybe before you rush into publishing really make sure it's ready I'm just saying and I think that's what kind of Beartown is and I think that's Beartown's really wise to kind of say that this is a Bible that says war let's really see there's a huge gap between ready and perfect well perfect it will never be perfect perfect is the enemy perfect is the enemy of ready oh I like that tweet it tweet it and then they'll tweet it tweet it tweet it what I said is perfect is the enemy of ready all of our stone said is perfect is the enemy of good so I'm not stealing from all of our stone because the last person I want coming after me all of our stone doesn't mess around I have these friendships right when you have the scripts that are for you versus it being for a larger audience and I mean I edited a lot of your plays so I I really like my script because it's published for us in changes can you guys talk a little more and maybe all of you and I did mention some of the Bible but kind of what metamorphosis your script goes through as you prep it for licensing what kind of finds you need to do if I've been translated I feel like there's like little things that Paul and I might do in our character work that might not be essential to the character but like maybe there's a hammy moment some tiny nuance that like would be too too much information or just too like sometimes when I read a play and they put in like a lot of beats or literally when it says beat you know sometimes I'm like I want to discover that myself why those thoughts are connected and that there's air in between so I feel like you know we know that we would take a pause there but that should come through in the storytelling I think we'll write in stage directions for things that we do even before we've done the play just because we're like oh I want to remember that like we want to do this here or this prop we're going to move this here or this is what this prop has to be because we found this thing in an antique shop and so we're putting in the script that you know pin from the world's fairs there so it's often like stripping away stage directions which is I think maybe a little counterintuitive but it's stuff that you're like oh that's actually that was actually more no for me to remember to do that than it was like that's an important piece of action yeah let someone enjoy that process and like discover that on their own if it's not beneficial to the storytelling but on the other hand I think there's stuff that we would put in the script about mood that wouldn't be in the script that we did for ourselves just because we know what that is that we want to say okay this you know make sure that there's things that this is bursting with the excitement of Christmas at the beginning of the play or something like that you know there's nothing more humbling than reading something you wrote 10 years ago when you were first started shut up they get it you don't need 17 beats in a paragraph 25 year old idiot that's actually but then you go back and read Tennessee Williams today right she wafts through the she wafts in from the veranda as effervescent as a Georgian summer yeah kind of Tennessee Williams Amy as in that actually just sparked a memory kind of forgotten but when we had our first piece published dropped we got hyper aware that it was going to be in print and kind of set in stone and so we actually I don't remember jumping we had a conference call right before we submitted the final edit and we performed the play for our ourselves yeah we did and making sure the most surreal thing ever should he really stay and we got hyper anal in a way we probably didn't really have to but there was a feeling like though this is it it's going out there and there's no going back so wanted to make sure it was exactly what I remember it because I zoned out because it was you and Pete talking about ants I think it's interesting I think that Doug and clinic you see is actually in the opposite position in a way of you guys and that you know for every action in beer town there's almost like a world of material behind it so your experience of the show may be you know this person says one thing the other person says another but in a way everything that each one of those characters has done was informed by you know two years of you know meetings talking about okay what's the history of this town workshops like with audience to kind of figure out oh what is this moment in the show so you know in a way it's almost like okay what is the what is the you want to give a tremendous wealth of background so that the actors can feel like they own the world but at the same time it's kind of hard to know what that information is you know because we might think that oh it's really important that you know this this and this but someone doing the show may go actually that doesn't really help me feel like I own this I need to have answers to these five questions so it's almost like taking a you know this is some of the thinking that's happening right now is that like what is that information that needs to be shared to get that end result because it's not going to be so much of a the stage direction in discovery you almost want to kind of give them here's a world of material that's actually the exact situation we find ourselves in I think because we create these mythologies of these worlds over a couple years and it is sort of what of that is important for people to know because that is beneath the text of what people are saying in the stage direction so I think that's really interesting that for us we sometimes boil it down to mood and your production idea of having the Bible is so brilliant it's so exciting for these groups it's not something that would bust you that would necessarily work for our plays but there is sort of like what of that do they need to know because they're not going to know that mythology they're not going to know those things but you know that leads to a mood or something and do they need to know that I remember I read your work before I saw a video of it and it was just kind of blown away by the difference in my head versus what I saw what you're saying too is like that everything can be useful in your world and I just want to have an anecdote because we talked about Carol Churchill there was several years when I was working for public I was really trying to talk Carol Churchill into doing kind of a hypertext you know piece with live internet work because I thought her mind is so amazing that you know she was great for and she was really intrigued with it and what really intrigued her she said she said oh my gosh I don't have to throw anything away which was a really kind of thing yeah we have a couple of repeat but let's have new new people yes yes I was actually thinking about sitting in the production directly Iron this is the age of wonder have you addressed the situation when maybe somebody could take the text and do exactly the words that are written there and it ends up meaning the opposite yeah yeah that can happen in our play you're welcome which is our cycle of bad plays we have a note saying do these as well as you can do these great there's no wink there's no irony in it so we actually have a note saying that because people can very easily take that because we say they're bad plays and it's called a cycle of bad plays but the attempt is to do these really really well and there's some satisfaction in that so we have we specifically have a note in one of our plays saying don't don't do it with a wink do it really well and let the badness speak for itself yes and that's what you were just saying doesn't that really depend on how good or bad the different actors are oh yeah I mean totally totally one way an action B doing it the next night will make it very serious yeah I don't think you're leaving that open for that I guess you have yeah I mean for sure I mean we can tell them exactly sort of what our values were behind it and then how they executed they'll interpret that that's sort of the fun of the game yeah it's a question for anyone who puts something out there as text you look at Eugene O'Neill who wrote extensive stage directions where they're all crossed out and the director crosses them all out and it's really funny because I've been in productions where the director will go oh I think I'm going to do this and I'm looking at the stage directions because I have the version that they're in and doing exactly what O'Neill said that's just really funny our professor always used to say that the filmmaker can reshoot the writer can edit the painter can repaint the stage artist can stand in the back of the room and smack his or her head against her I love that is that your quote? who's quote is that? did Charlie steal it from you? Professor Charles the question regarding your term suppose an audience member comes in with something that really steals the whole show and you want to use it you get an audience to sign a release good question so it's interesting because the way that the show is framed is that space is being made for the audience to debate about the objects in a way that space is always going to be there so if someone comes forward and makes an impassioned speech about something that is kind of the special treat of being in the audience that night because you get to hear that so it's interesting trying to kind of put words to this so talking about what they like to say about Beertown is it's kind of like they're Valentine's democracy so in a way it's just as much about making a space for the audience to have this really exciting experience and this agency as much as the product of what comes out of it because the experience of being in the room is so exciting so I doubt although Rachel's not here to say what you think so this is what crime producer thinks but I think that that would be a rare that might not so much happen but it's an interesting thing because in playwright contracts you have a contract that says the writer owns the work doesn't matter who in the room you know the director the actors give in you have a right to own that work so it's an interesting thing do you have that do you have something interesting someone was wondering how does it feel to be known and published as a collective rather than as an individual that was a curiosity because several of you do publish individually you don't want to say but you're a collaborator I feel like so excited to when we were able to make a page on our website of all our books and have these things that we made together and seal all of our names on it it's really exciting I haven't published anything by myself I haven't published anything by myself either and I really love my collaborators I thought you had a couple things not by myself and I but I mean I'm really proud of it all and I'm really happy so far so great so good we've really tried to not just in publishing but in general like our feeling is like what's good for us individually is good for the company and what's good for the company is good for us individually so like in publishing making sure that both the company us individually are represented in a way that makes us feel proud is a conversation are long conversations that we have to make sure they're right and I feel completely at peace with both my part in the collaboration and I feel warm and fuzzy about the brand of the debate society the sound of it the team we do work individually and other things but we create something together and none of us would create individually so it's so exciting to share that it's so great to be able to spend a life making something with these two partners that you're like this is what I want to spend my life doing and that's worth getting residual checks that are one third of a residual check because we're splitting everything three ways but that's just I love it I think if you worry too much about that you're not going to last too long can I actually ask the group a question no you can tweet it but do you ever have projects where anyone of you might have a project that you think ultimately that's not a group project that's definitely come up we brought stuff to the table that hasn't seemed appropriate and that's fine we have so many projects going there's like not there aren't like slots open and time waiting to be used so yeah that's happened for us it certainly happened to all of us yes one in response to your question because I did get a chance to sleep here at town and it seemed like I mean this is just from observing that a number of the past members having seen so many conversations and discussions around certain items would sort of cite discussion and arguments based on knowing this pin and it seemed like oh they'd seen somebody bring up this particularly good argument and sort of bring that up to incite other people to have that conversation so it wasn't necessarily feeling the particulars of it but it's more of like how do we I think that's a large part of what they're doing is figuring out how to encourage discussion and encourage people to have strong opinions about things that they would sort of based on having done it 40-50 times they would say oh this point seems to really cause a big stir and so that would help shape what was going on so I might almost call it that it's a good tool that they're adding to their arsenal but it's like oh that was a really rich moment what were the circumstances that really let that happen and like how can we kind of encourage that again and then just sort of the other question that's curious apart from the publishing thing has that been a struggle in terms of building your career and how you deal with the brand of a company versus developing your sort of own individual career has that been a struggle or has that just sort of happened by itself isn't that not something you have to worry about I'll try to have a solo album momentarily we let him, we told him it was a bad idea yeah I mean it's happened more and more you know it used to be that we just sort of in a year and a half we wouldn't be working on anything else and now we always have like poetry plays and development and then we're doing other things and three of us also do the business of the company so you know all of us just directed the open house and Signature and Hannah was in it so for those two months the work of the company was like falling on me and then Paul came with like our board and these like other donors we were cultivating and like brought and we like bought a whole block of tickets and things like cultivation events sort of make sense but that's a part of the like how what's good for the company is good for the individual it's also great because it's we make stuff that we want to make that we want to be a part of and so the work that we get outside of the company most of the time comes from people who have seen our work and respond to our work and so a playwright or a director or another actor and in a lot of ways it's it's just logistics it's logistics of like balancing the different projects but for me I think it's particularly satisfying just because it's coming from it's this community people that you respond to their work and it's not about schmoozing it's about the people who respond to your work and work with them on other things and just finding the time to balance it and we know that there's room for that and that the other one picks up the slap it's something else and that people will see a show that Hannah's in and want to see her again and they'll come to the next debate show it's also like having our company and then also writing other things or acting in other people's project it's all part of my body of work so I feel like it's not something that I'm worrying about when I'm not doing my own project I feel like as long as you're trying to do good work it will define itself and it's all adding to your creative resume I was going to say quickly that it's interesting to ask that because working with four different artists and ensembles in DC as part of theater from the district I find that some of the most rich kind of worlds that are being built in terms of relationships with other artists with just interesting people are when ensembles are made of three many individuals that each have their own rich networks and it just kind of makes the work land in the world a lot more richly when that happens and it's really just great to see how see the ripple effect from other people's but with other projects so that's been interesting looking at it from a producer perspective I think it's kind of a great way to end and I think it's kind of the strength of this collaborative work and I think it's a great model for the country quite frankly Thank you Hannah It's amazing thank you so much and I hope you guys can join us we have two more that are coming up and we're going to march without actually moderating tomorrow's