 So, Katori, your work, Mount Top is heading to Broadway in the fall, and you have some... So what else is going on? What is going on in the world of Katori Ball right now? Oh, there's so many things going on. I'm about to start a workshop of a new play called What a Blood Cloud, which is commissioned by the Women's Project in New York City. And What a Blood Cloud is a very interesting play. It's about an Upper East Side socialite, who's white, who wakes up one morning with a Jamaican accent after a stroke. She has acquired Foreign Accident Syndrome, which is a real disease, by the way. You can go on YouTube, you'll find some examples of this. And the entire play is all about how this kind of overprivileged woman comes to terms with her privileged status in the world and her whiteness, and the world is kind of like cracked open, and this new identity is imposed on her. There's a scene where she's in Prada, and she meets Beyonce, and she wants to buy the whole shop, and so in order for her to buy the whole shop, she has to get a pre-authorization from her bank, because it's like hundreds of thousands of dollars. And she sounds like she's Jamaican Annie, and so they freeze her cow. So it's like a very comical exploration of how we perform identity in America today. So that's the new thing that I'm working on. We're going to do a workshop in February, and we're hoping to produce it in Spring of 2012. So that's the new thing that's coming in my mind. And then I'm prepping a collection of plays. There's going to be a collection called Toru Hall, Plays One, that will be described, met with Wayne in September, and The Mountain Top is also going to be published as well for the Broadway production. What else is going on? I mean, I stay busy, y'all. I stay busy. Oh, I'm working on Slightly Rights for Hurt Village, one of my plays I'm talking with. I can't say it yet, but it's a theater in New York. I think they go to the league. Abundance. This is a moment of abundance. It's really a moment of abundance, which is really, really cool. I'm living in a moment. I'm learning how to manage my abundance. But on that, there's still a lot that's going on with you. And how do you, what is that like? What is the experience of it? Well, I mean, sometimes you just, every morning you kind of get up and you feel a little bit overwhelmed, but you also feel blessed at the same time. It's like, oh my God, I'm busy, but I'm busy doing something that I love to do and I'm busy getting my voice out there. I'm busy telling these stories that I think need to be heard. So I always try to focus on the fact that, you know, it's way more good than it is bad, but then sometimes I'm like, please, y'all just give me a day of risk where I don't have to buy it and I don't have the guy just playing a bit, you know, with a couple of notes in my neck and just like eating popcorn. So... Wires need those days, too. There's something you said yesterday in the convening about the Hugs to the Play. Oh, yeah. Eric asked this question beautifully. What was that? Say it again. The question was, you mentioned at the roundtable discussion at the university that we cannot have two plays in America. We can't have both the Project House Play and the Hugs to the Play, but there's not room enough for both of those. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that. Well, I think it has more to do with how the institution of the American theater is set up. I feel as though African-American playwrights in particular are always trying to buy over the one spot, the one February spot, and this is just something that has historically just been a part of the American theater scene. And I feel as though, you know, as a black person who knows there's so many different experiences in our communities, there is room for all these different types of voices, but it seems like sometimes, you know, the institution as a whole will only honor one story, or like the Hugs to the Play is invoked now, or the ghetto play is invoked now, or plays that are set in those various places. But the thing is, where a play is set does not define what the play is. It's just, you know, a setting. There are characters, there are ideas being explored in each of these, you know, different types of plays and different types of settings, different types of writers. Like, you know, I often find that sometimes, you know, I've gotten into a weird situation where my agent will call people and be like, you know, why don't you do a Victoria Hall play and they'll be like, well, we already did this black play, right? So we can't do a Victoria Hall play next season, because we just did this in this past season. But, you know, you ask somebody like Annie Baker, you know, does Annie Baker come to terms? People say, oh, we've already done a Lucy Gerber play this season. We can't do your play. And that's what I mean about how, you know, sometimes it feels like we can't exist within the American theater world, but that we should be able to exist, and we should be able to be produced. And, you know, there's two great ghetto plays, you know, there's seven ghetto in one season. You know, those two should be produced. But, you know, it's all about being inclusive of how diverse our experience are within the culture. Yeah. We're talking a lot about this word abundance. I mean, it sounds like there is an abundance of stories out there. There are abundance of ideas out there. So allowing, admitting that and allowing that to show itself in these institutions. Yeah. And as a black playwright, you know, we're constantly struggling. And it's like, it's almost like, you know, they pit one of us against each other. And I always, sometimes like, you know what? I've been threatening to write this play called August Wilson is Dead. Because you know, theaters like, they're like, okay, we're going to do a black playwright, we're going to do August Wilson. But it's like, you know, have you heard of Kelly Gerard? Have you heard of Derek McFadder? Have you heard of Darren Kennedy? Have you heard? It's like there are so many different playwrights out there who are young and hungry, and no one knows about them because it was the do-it-a-day of August Wilson. So. Well, that's really, that's something to sleep on. Yes. Okay, so Victoria, I've asked, we've asked everyone this. What do you see as the future? You know, I think in theater. Yes. Or, I mean, yes. I feel as though we are going to learn how to use technology in a way that will help disseminate our art in a better way. And I think it'll help us have more, or create more bridges with different types of communities. I feel as though historically, America Theater specifically has just been, you know, really stuck and contained in this kind of like, white male privilege gaze. And I feel as though, because there's so many different types of people and voices that are coming to the table and demanded that they sit at the table, that we are going to break the glass ceiling that, you know, sometimes the American Theater has, and we'll just kind of like, you know, break through and just like have all these different people represented. And not only in terms of culture or, but in terms of gender, in terms of aesthetic, I really feel as though we are moving to a place where people are just crashing through the gate. And it's very profound for me. And I love being a part of this moment, you know, because there's so much to talk about. There's so much to talk about. And so many talented people out there, too, who are writing and telling their stories. Yeah. Who are some of those people? Give us some of those people. So we know, on New Play TV, Oh, yeah! God is real. Well, like I was mentioning before, like there's, you know, there's this girl, Kelly Gerard, who just graduated from Columbia. She's great. She started The Fire This Time, which is like a group of, you know, black artists who are trying to redefine what black art and black theater is. There's Dominique Maruso. There is... What's Gita's life? It's not Gita's life. There's like a young Indian writer, female writer out in the Bay Area. Gita, she's amazing. There's just so many, you know, people who are just like, you know, bubbling, you know, beneath, you know, the institutional, you know, people who are well-known. It's the whole popular generation that's writing these very interesting stories. Camille Darby, she has this play called Lord's Resistance, which is about the Lord's Resistance, like this middle-class black family adopting this boy who's a former child soldier. Oh, wow. Isn't that amazing? That's an amazing story that hasn't been told! Wow. How amazing is that? So, that's what I'm talking about. Like, just very interesting, complicated stories about our new America, our now, our today. So, that's who I'm fighting off of. That's cool. Thank you so much, Katori. You're welcome. Well, thanks for inviting me. Of course, of course. So, next up, y'all, we're going to have Jamie Galoon is going to discuss with us how these things came together, and then Eric is going to interview Polly Carl, editor of HowlRound and also from Steppenwolf Theater Company. So, see you in a bit.