 Hello, everyone. I am Joshua William Gelb, and welcome to Theatre and Quarantine. It's Monday, November 16, and it's seven o'clock here in New York City. It's been a little over eight months since I converted the closet in my East Village apartment, measuring just four feet wide by eight feet tall and only two feet deep into the White Box Digital Performance Laboratory that we call the Theatre and Quarantine. With creative director Katie Rose McLaughlin, we've expanded our roster of incredible collaborators and gotten to work with some amazing institutional supporters like LaMama, Culture Hub, Theatre Me Too, and the Invisible Dog Arts Center. Tonight, we are so pleased to be performing Mute Swan, written by Madeline George, and presented by LaMama and Culture Hub as part of experiments in digital storytelling. Mute Swan is created by myself, Katie Rose McLaughlin, Culture Hub, Raja Feather Kelly, Chris Bell, Gavin Price, and Stage Managed by Ada Jean. Now, I'm still here in the East Village, but tonight's performance is mostly coming to you from a replica closet we built at Culture Hub Studio. It's just a little further west of me on Great Jones Street. There, you'll get to meet tonight's performer, Chris Bell. Now, the performance runs about 20 minutes, and afterwards, I'll be hanging around with my fellow collaborators to discuss the process of making this show, including all of the technologies we used, and we'd love to answer any questions you might have, so make sure to drop them in the chat. Below, in the description, you'll find a link to our Fractured Atlas page, where you can make a donation. That is, if you haven't already given one our SPP-ing. In which case, thank you. All your donations go directly to tonight's collaborators, so please consider helping support this work and all the artists who make this work possible. In fact, if you really want to make a contribution to theater and quarantine, the most impactful thing you can do is subscribe now to our YouTube channel so we can reach our 1,000 subscriber goal by the end of the year. Now, one last reminder that what you're about to see isn't Zoom theater. It isn't a pre-recorded film. This is a live performance coming to you from two remote closets in downtown Manhattan. So, let's get started. I'm going to take a brief one-minute break so Chris can get into places. Thank you again and enjoy. Mute swan. My boyfriend's dad was a god. I'd never known anyone that connected. All my life, I'd struggled to rise. And there he was, risen. I let him slum it with me. My word, to be clear, he worshipped. He couldn't get enough of my earthliness. I fed him frozen chicken nuggets, dumped him right out of a bag. I showed him Hulu with commercials. And he was like, wow, change for these little normal seas. He told me stories about the dog and about how hard his dad had to work to light the world every day. And how underrated the powerful are given the amount of shit that they have to eat. And I was like, you know what? Shut up and kiss me. Oh, he was gorgeous beyond words. And he wasn't fishing about his class. I wanted a bird for my birthday. And that was nothing to my boyfriend poof. And he conjured it. And I held it in my hands like a figurine. Don't drop it. Don't breathe on it. It might expire. No, I hadn't asked for a baby bird for but I guess I didn't have to specify. He knew I'd like a project more than a result. My hatchling was tiny. I was covered in down like her pull the bird against my chest. And its wings fluttered like a moth. I held it against my ear. And it's hard word like a heart. 300 beats a minute. It's hard to compete. My boyfriend and I built this tiny world raising it. A perfect simulation of the wild. So we'd acclimate. Because the plan was one day to set him free. My boyfriend was totally delighted in my delight. And that's the kind of feedback loop that gets you hooked. I could have bought his hostile takeover. But it felt so good. Plus, the love factor. Apex of my sternum was a door. When he opened it, I felt myself turn inside out. Old rushed into me. I dissolved. I know it's a cliche to say that there's some truth I'll cliche. But what can I say? What can I say? I took my boyfriend to a meeting because he asked me, begged me really to come along. He must have brought it up 20,000 times. It felt dangerous bringing him there and thrilling. Kind of like I was sneaking contraband into a jail. In reality, it was more like sneaking a bomb into a church. That's certainly how the others in the group would have seen it. Either way, I was tingling all over when I went up to the door and down the steps all the way inside my throat. The fluorescence buzzed above my head. I addressed my boyfriend up like a man of the people workers hat puffy vest, whatever. And I say to him, look, you have to keep your mouth shut. My friends are fucking real ones and they'll clock your origins a mile away if you are even a single syllable. It's hard enough making you look like you go to the CUNY back. Keep your yaps shut. It's your only chance to pass. Except beside my boyfriend, Carl sent of his silence. And there was the usual cheerful chit chat, six semper, terranus, etc. Then Merrill called us to order and Jordan rose to give the first report. This working group was doing housing and they had some non developments to report. Next, Eve shared the health committee's latest numbers, still no major outbreaks inside the network since last year. Then Keith got up and wondered through a rambling proposal about rewilding a couple abandoned Dwayne Reed's modest applause. Then Livia had an update from the subcommittee to dismantle cause and effect. I could feel my boyfriend's stippin as she pitched their latest initiative. Unmovemented a couple of the false logic by which day follows night. Why does it always have to be that way? Just because it's always been? Why shouldn't we have some say in how the world gets lit? The subcommittee was seeking a graphic designer to help with a broad sheet to spread awareness. Beside me, I could heal my boyfriend's curt sigh. Then was Ray Bernstern. And Ray Bernstern worked on redistributing wealth. Sometimes how Ray Bernstern's committee taken kind of a big leap forward ambition wise. They were planned posing a daring action that would quite literally raid the converse of the mighty and hand out the cash in the street to the desperate. Not knowing who's there in the room with him, relayed out kind of a lot of specifics about his plan. The targets, the tactics, even the door they plan to use, codenames, contingency plans, weapons, etc. Some concern was raised by the pacifism committee about the amount of bloodshed. But Ray was ready for this too. Wasn't this cash soaked in blood already? Hadn't we shed enough of ours that they can hoard it? Whose blood are we concerned about here? Anyway, shouldn't God speak? My boyfriend's head turned just slightly just a degree. He was looking at me with the thinnest crescent moon of his gaze. But it didn't turn around like I didn't know. After a couple more reports and a book recommendation and a sign up sheet for a potluck at Jovon's, we adjourned. We didn't even make it out of the alley before my boyfriend had me up against the wall. And it was 40 days and 40 nights before we stopped fucking so processed the events of the evening because I never went to another meeting after that. I never nearly knew how far Ray's team had gotten with their actions. They did go down. I didn't read about it in the press above ground or below. They arrested them. They never got perp walk past cameras to set an example. They called it too busy, not enough resources. Maybe they were martyred. Shock mid flight. They were not even their friends. My boyfriend said he had something to take her about a state. I was like, go totally do what you need to do. Call me when you get there. And I kissed him goodbye. I assumed it had something to do with his father. Testing out his capacity for a scent or something. But we had worked out 20,000 genius ways not to discuss the unspeakable so he didn't say where he was going. And I didn't ask. He didn't have cell service wherever it was that he went. So I threw myself into my work. At my job, I was developing a system to help track the books coming in and out of the special categories. It was dull as stirring at a blanket, my breathing to keep myself calm. But at the back of my mind, I was wild with alarm. The thing about the sons of God is that they have so much to fucking prove the rest of us are just trying to get through the day. But these guys have to demonstrate their worth to some kind of sky tribunal. And they have to do it by destroying a show of strength, a show of force. And it's not just worth a fucking eye roll. It's fucking dangerous to others. One light flex from one of these assholes and a mind collapses, a glacier melts. I don't have to go on. You know the kind of catastrophes I mean, we all know what a life is worth. Why don't they? Why don't they know what a life is worth? Why don't they know? Why don't they know in private when no one was watching, my boyfriend had a clear, cool soul. I drank from it. So I know firsthand. I believe that he cherished me. He knew that I was alive. Patrimony was in him, like a latent disease, like an unexpressed gene that mutated and started to buy just a long way of saying that my boyfriend was one of the passengers on the Learjet that crashed on the way to the summit. The other Titans on the plane were. I don't have to tell you you know who they are. This I read about in the paper. Same time we did the door at my sternum swung wild on its hinges mechanically. I put my phone down and walked over to the cage to the simulation we had made of the world. I brought it over to the window, opened one into the other, a flash of gray wing and our pet escaped. Among the physical realities we must contend with this love exhaustion after being worked to death to serve the sun. Those might seem more real, but they're not without the souls of others. So now the masses will dance on his grave. Love. What is it good for? Absolutely. Before I felt it overtake me grief bent my neck and stride and distraught my face hardened. Blood thinned and warmed in my veins. Membranes stretched between my toes. It's my skin every inch of my body. Ours and stings. The quills of tiny piercing through. Hi, everybody. Thank you all so much for joining us this evening and tuning in. And I hope you enjoyed tonight's performance of Newt Swan, which was brought to you by Lamama Culture Hub as part of their experiments in digital storytelling, and of course, us here at theater in quarantine. We are so thrilled to have you here at our early show. And again, we beg you to subscribe. And in a few moments, we're going to a few moments we're going to bring in all the collaborators and all are going to get some funky stuff in my ears. In a few moments, we're going to bring in all the collaborators. We're all going to sit and discuss and answer any questions you have about the piece, which you can please put in the comment section. It looks like the piece is officially over in YouTube time. So I will bring everyone in. Here we are, Chris. Hello, Gavin. Hello. Everyone else get in here. It's happening bit by bit. Here we are. Hi. Hello. First off, Chris Bravo. Absolutely beautiful. Yay. I just want to I want to start off right here with Chris, because now I've been in the closet for for many months now. But Chris, what what does it feel like? Oh my gosh, Madeline's here. Hi. That's amazing. We're all here. The whole family's here. What? Chris, like how do you feel and and what is it like being done with that type of performance? It is a whole lot. Thank you so much, Madeline, for your beautiful text, and being able to sit inside a bit and and and really I'm back. It has been a really great feeling getting to watch all of these other amazing collaborators, doing magic with their brains and their fingers and their computers. It's just been such a Chris, you're using my computer and it needs to switch to the different Wi-Fi. So that's good to know. Thank you, Maddie. Now, Maddie, why don't you actually just run in and help them real quick? You're so close. That is a major creative producing right there. Beautiful. Now that now that everyone's here, let's do some introductions, shall we? First off, let's just go around and introduce ourselves and say what we did on the project. I'll start. I'm Joshua William Gell. That was the video designer here. And at some point, I painted my closet one. Katie Rose. I'm Katie Rose McLaughlin. I directed and choreographed that piece. Madeline. I'm Madeline George. I contributed text to the piece. Chris, you want to go? And I'm Chris Bell. And I was in the closet. Yes. Gavin. Hey, I'm Gavin Price. I did the sound design and composed some of the music. Culture Hub folks. Hey, I'm Maddie. This is Billy. Hey, I'm Billy. Culture Hub. Culture Hub produced, co-produced and presented this piece. And the other folks who are on our team who are in whose faces you don't see but whose presences deserved to be felt are Deandra Anthony, who did the lighting design, and Sangmin Che, who did creative technology and live streaming, who's in the hallway checking the sync to see if our mouths are moving at the same pace as our video. And I just want to give a shout out to everyone at the mama that helped with presenting and producing and marketing architects and helping us secure the funding to make this happen. Of course. In fact, I actually was wondering, Billy and Maddie, if you'd start a little bit by talking to us about Experiments in Digital Storytelling, the goals of the project. Sure. So this from the Culture Hub side, this is happening within a program called Experiments in Digital Storytelling, which is a collaboration with La Mama. And it's been sort of about, I would say, about a four year development to get to actually this point where we are presenting experiments. And the goal was to allow creative technology and creative technologists to be a part of the development process in creating works that could be distributed in new formats online or hybrid. And we really wanted to get the opportunity to work with writers and have that hopefully grow into a process where also a pool of writers starts to experience the possibilities. And so that maybe there can be shifts in what the works that are written for these new hybrid forms that are emerging. And I think from La Mama started as a sort of community and safe haven and experimental grounds for playwrights in the 60s who were who were writing for, you know, a cafe and platforms that didn't quite exist in the world of theater yet. And so this project comes from that history. And it evolved from us going back to archival works from the La Mama archive in the past few years, including works by Robert Patrick and Ruth York and Paul Foster. And so it's just very, very exciting to now be working with a contemporary playwright who has written something brand new that is of this moment. And yeah, that's just really exciting for us. Yeah. Well, I wonder, Kenny, Rose and Madeleine, if you wouldn't speak to a little bit about how this project came to be and how this particular challenge came about. Well, I'll start and then hand it off to Madeleine. Does that sound okay? So so basically, you know, Raj and I had started talking about collaborating on a piece together and didn't really know anything other than that. And I and he just like kept asking me questions about like what I wanted to experiment with than what I wanted to play around with. And it sort of wandered into like, Oh, we need to find a writer to write us something new, and something of the moment. And so I reached out to Madeleine. And we had a lovely, a lovely conversation about I just I actually have been quoting our conversation a little bit because when did I read? I feel like maybe we talked at the beginning of October or was it September? And and I was like, would you be interested in writing something for us to perform on November 16, knowing that it was right after an election? And I was like, so either it needs to be like really specifically political. And then you were like, or it needs to be like deeply rooted in the natural world, which just was like, and I was like, ah, yes. So brilliant. That's such a much more sophisticated thing was because what I remember is that you were like, would you like to write something? And I was like, could I write about birds? That's how I read birds. I'm obsessed with birds. Do you mind if I write about birds? Yes, yes. Well, it was funny, too, because like as we were talking, I was staring at the wind out the window at a bird feeder watching a bunch of birds. Oh, also, I've been working on this painting, which I'm just going to show everyone right now, because we're in a talk back. I've been working on this painting of birds. You can't really tell, but like, those are birds. That's beautiful. It felt very much. I just want to say that's the sort of thing that can't happen in a normal theater talk back. You can't bring out the bird painting you were working on. No. But yeah, so we had this conversation and then, Dylan, I would love to hear just a little bit about your like going off and writing and yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, I'm a super analog person in general, you know what I mean? I rarely understand or work with digital technologies of any kind. Really, I can hardly operate basic appliances, but I watched like I went back and watched all of theater and quarantine again and I was like, oh, there's something about this constraint that is so electric and so liberating and so exciting. And it did feel like a transformation based myth was a good thing to put inside a little container in a way like so that the the action is like kind of it's held because it's about the thing that I'm more fosing from the inside. And as I was working with the sort of Ovid to think about the source material, like I realized that I was interested in obviously like questions of grief and also inappropriate griefs, like in this like season of grief, like the ones that people can't can't necessarily name or feel ashamed to name. And that's where I sort of ended up kind of being like hooking in in the thing. I'm not sure that that's necessarily at all the the predominant tones or themes of the finished piece, but it's the sort of subterranean concern, I think, of the text. I think I definitely grief was there's this. I was going back and listening to sort of our like initial conversations and Chris, our first rehearsal was like me talking about grief, like specifically and like making sure that we like bring because well, we can go back and let's do it later. But just that like grief needed to be like firmly based in like the sort of foundation of this piece. So it's so yes. Yes. We were like right on board with that from the get go. Now, so we have some questions from our audience. This one's for Culture Hub, I believe. What program was this stream through? Now, usually a theater in quarantine, we use Streamlabs OBS, but this iteration, because we are working out of Culture Hub Studio, we've really given the reins over to them. So, Billy and Maddie, what are we doing today? Well, let me see. We got Sangmin here that's behind us, our creative technology here at Culture Hub, who is really driving the ship. And but I mean, there's a lot of software is in play, obviously to make everything happen, you know, we're but in terms of getting the actual production out to the live streaming platforms, it's basically going through OBS and then into Vimeo. And then Vimeo is doing all of the kind of re-streaming to multiple locations. And we're big fans of Streamlabs OBS too. So sometimes for different projects, we switch back and forth. Well, I'm fascinated to hear about that, but I feel like that's maybe inside baseball. And of course, Madeline and I go about go and talk about operating appliances. Now, I believe Billy is also mentioning like other programs we use in this particular show, we're definitely using Isadora and QLab to do video processing and sound processing, respectively. Are we using anything else? We're using a VDMX very mildly, but to do one visual effect in the show. And then also our software that was created by Culture Hub, Live Lab, again, minimally in this iteration, but it was designed open source tool for telepresence collaboration. And so that's how we were connecting with Josh, Josh's closet. Yes, the other closet was indeed live. If you had any questions about that. Oh, I should be more on top of these questions. First off, Eric, Eric says, libretto, maybe, which I guess technically counts as a question. Like, is it one or or could there be could somebody have one? We won't we won't have an answer for 20 seconds. From Eric, if you could please if you could please clarify. Thank you. Someone also. Astana asked if Chris could say what he was saying at the beginning when he was glitching. Please. If you remember, I know we were like, Chris, good job. And you were like, it was and then you and I know you were talking about Madeleine's text. And then when Haywire. There is so much inside of this and there is something about the grief and how people handle the grief. And sometimes that's not always the way that you might think it is. And it could be hidden behind this idea of charm. And there's a lot of ideas about class in this as well. And and a non traditional love. And I don't say that in the way of the the partnership. But like what we expect from our partners and what our partners can do for us. And that is a part of of the life that we live in. I just wanted to say because I you know, because I sort of gave over this and then was able to come in late in the process and just worship everyone's efforts on it. I feel so amazed by the virtuosity Chris of your performance and like this sort of athleticism and like and gravity defying grace of it, which is also due to the choreography and the incredible like surround. But that you were able to hold the line inside the vernacular like the inside that language, which is there's a really there's a big gap there. And I feel like the gap is where a lot of the beauty was for me. And so I thought everybody just did an amazing job putting it together. I mean, I would say just Chris that that I mean. Just two things about that, just that, you know, for me watching because I was watching in the other room to just watch only the stream version. And I feel like this performance of it having seen several, it illuminated the text like I didn't realize. I, you know, I'm more of a visual person. So it takes me a while to absorb text and and I didn't realize that it was really about grief, you know? I mean, not and I and I really felt that, you know, I felt the sorrow for the character. And and I think that you know, you're among the most professional people that, you know, performers I've ever worked with. And, you know, if not literally at the pinnacle. And I just and that leads me to just talking about the. Let the process in terms of the duration, right? So, you know, all of this happened in a very collapsed period of time. And, you know, and I think maybe that could pass to K.R. Katie Rose about maybe talking about that. And then also there's a question in the chat about how you generated the movement. And that would be cool. Oh, yeah, totally. So we we do shows every two weeks here because we're crazy. And so we started rehearsals sort of we I I think we had we had like a, you know, sort of table work rehearsal a little bit before the process. But we started rehearsals in earnest. I'm looking at my calendar over here. On like the fourth. So, you know, just a little bit ago. And then really last week, we had like crazy long days and built the whole thing essentially then in typical theater and quarantine fashion. It's like every party. It's like being in tech every day. So all parties are present and working at the same time, which is insane because the only way for us to communicate is via whatever platform, be it live lab or zoom. So it's sort of like everyone's doing their work, but also trying to talk at the same time. And and so we just sort of built a thing all together as quickly as we possibly could. You know, we came in with an idea of what the show was and then really the big things that we care about at theater and quarantine is like experimentation and sort of the ability to to play around with the piece enough that we figure out what the show truly wants to be. And that is through just, you know, not being precious about experimentation, just trying it, seeing if it works and if it doesn't, we throw it away. But if it does, we keep it. And so we the first day, the first like formal day of rehearsal, we just did a run. We just like said, Chris, do the text, do whatever you want. Let's see what we learned from that. And then we were able to when we came back this week, just really sculpt the performance that way. And I would say in terms of movement and creating movement in this space, Josh and I have been working sort of from the beginning the first time he when he like first, you know, turned his closet into a performance space, he called me and was like, Hey, I think I made a theater and maybe we make some stuff. And so we and that was like the end of March or something. So we've been, Josh and I have been working together. It's crazy. Josh and I have been working together and sort of discovering what the closet likes and doesn't like in terms of the way you can move, the way it sounds. There's certain like an intentionality that you have to have with your physicality, which means that, you know, I'm constantly having to be more and more specific about, you know, the way that you approach movement. Whereas when you're in a performance space, you can just be big and there's something about just the energy of your performance that the audience can take in. And in this, you have to. I don't know. I keep saying be more specific, but that's sort of that's sort of it. Anything else? Anyone? I feel like you and I just had a really great sort of open dialogue about like what the closet can handle and can't in terms of like the way it's almost like, like ballet is sort of a movement vocabulary that's sort of codified. And I feel like the closet has its own movement vocabulary. Totally. We have name walls so we can communicate with each other no matter where we are. And I'm more a more is more kind of person. And this is a less is more sort of environment. So it was really great to work in a different way. And I really felt that this was a very open collaborative experience and everyone had everyone's best interests at heart. And I think what we created, especially with the movement, it is is really serving the text. And that was that was a you know, as a dance theater maker, that's always the not the struggle, but the the thing that you have to work towards, which is like movement is so fun and text is so great. But how do you put them together in a way that you're actually able to watch both of them at the same time? So sort of like what Billy was saying was that like I as the process ended up going on had to just be more, you know, Chris and I had a lot lots of conversations about the like the specificity and sort of the way the movement had to be approached so that we as viewers could listen to the text and allow it to come out like from his body while also still allowing him to be the sort of magical human and to create a world where dance could exist while also talking about like chicken nuggets and Hulu. Yeah. Well, a sort of logistical question from Chris is what was the closet floor made of and how easy was it to slide around, not have your mic slip off or get caught on stuff? So firstly, the make of the closet is plywood like this one. So it's it's plywood. But Chris, how easy is it to move around? It is easier to move on the base that we created. I'm going to talk about that culture hub. Well, yeah, I mean, we started with pretty raw plywood. And and and obviously, as you could see where we arrived at the costuming, we probably went through 115 costumes. But ultimately, we went full circle back and and yeah, it was pretty rough to, I think, move around on there. And I don't know exactly where it came about, but we somehow we had an idea to try paper as just maybe I think as a temporary solution just to make it more smooth. We had a roll and we put down it was kind of like butcher's paper or something like that. And I don't know. Then we kind of liked it. And then we moved on from there. Yeah, I that to me also just like speaks to how collaborative this piece was in that that everyone like my I think one of my favorite days of rehearsal was our first full day when everyone was together. And we were just like Chris Go and Billy and Maddie were just sort of running around with like fans. And like Billy was like, do we have feathers yet? And I was like, no, not yet. And then I like turned around and he had like ripped up a whole bunch of pieces of paper to like sprinkle over Chris's heat. Like it was beautiful. We created like Billy had strung up something to make these like beautiful windows. So that really, you know, the piece came from this experimentation where we really allowed ourselves to take a take an idea as, you know, as silly and as nonsensical as it might be to its full extent. And then to come back and talk about what we learned from that and what we wanted to keep. There used to be a chair in the piece. There was a clock. There was like all these things that ended up just being simplified. Like Billy was saying the costumes. We have, you know, I have a whole like trunk full of feathered costume pieces, which are not in the show anymore. But that was so exciting to work with every single one of you on this in this talkback that you all sort of brought a spirit of generosity to the experimentation and that I felt like we were all, you know, having fun, but also doing quite beautiful work and really just, you know, trying to hold this beautiful piece that Madeleine had written for us up and to allow it to sort of shine and blossom. On the on the heels of that, I just wanted to say about Gavin and, you know, we we knew that this, you know, we it was so challenging, but I think for the physicality and just like getting the text to sink in in the meeting scene. And and I just I was wondering, Gavin, if you could talk a little bit about that process, because that was, you know, came really at the at the tail end of the process, where you created quite a complex and subtle support system for the text and for Chris and for the movement. And I was just super impressed to to watch that unfold, but also to experience it today really, really like some of the synchronicities that happen there were quite subtle in depth. So was wondering if you could talk about it. Oh, that's great. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I mean, yeah, it was it was definitely like an interesting challenge, a good challenge to tackle that scene, because that was this like center third of the show that, you know, up until two days ago or yesterday, even it was like, OK, we don't the center third is just going to be, you know, one tone. And I had this piece of music that I wanted to use. But the but the issue with doing shows in YouTube and doing shows in this weird new media format is that. And of course, in theater, if you sound design, you'll you'll know about like licensing, you know, you have to. You have to pay it for music if you use it, or sometimes they shut you down if they recognize it. And so kind of my struggle through this process and through theater and quarantine in general has been how do I find material that is going to work and is not going to get a shut down, basically. And so because I've done that before, where I've actually gotten I like read, you know, rearranged a Kurt Vile song for a show years ago, and we got in trouble with the estate. They were like, nope, we're going to shut this show down if you if you keep playing this song. So it's like, OK, I guess that's kind of nice that they noticed us. But the other problem was that like. So my personal problem is that I hate royalty free music. It's so cheesy. But thankfully, it was the vibe that we were looking for was this like, you know, weird kind of this meeting situation where it seems pretty innocuous at first. And as we go on, everybody has their own feeling and theme and vibe. And then we get to this like, oh, something something bad is about to happen. This dude Rayburn is like pulling out all the stops. And so, you know, we wanted to kind of hide what was coming. And so I was a little bit like, oh, shoot, I do not have enough time to generate music. So I went to royalty free and I found a lot of this really kind of weird, like, you know, really corporate lame-o stuff that was like perfect for, you know, throwing the audience a red herring and saying like, this is just fun, fun, fun. So it was an interesting process for me to kind of like, you know, have to kind of give into the royalty free stuff, but also like have a blast putting that together into chunks. It's the tricky thing, isn't it, about about theater, right? We're used to such an in-person relationship with our audiences, but also, you know, the possible the possibility of being able to pull the wool over the curt vials, vile estates, eyes, right? It's possible. But not with YouTube algorithm robots, unfortunately. And so I think for designers all around and artists all around, we are having a reckoning moment with the type of work we're doing. There was there was also a question in the chat about how were we hearing Chris, which Gavin, do you also want to talk about that? Yeah, well, I need it. Oh, sorry. They have a great they have a wonderful, again, an incredible system at Culture Hub and the facilitation that they're capable of is like beyond words in the short period of time that we had, like, they're, you know, they're listed as creative producing as creative producers and like best creative producers out there. So kudos to you guys. And their system was such that, you know, Chris was using a wireless mic. So we had like a wire. They had a wireless system in Culture Hub and then it was going and it was everything was feeding into a mixer that was then the mixer was like bringing everything back out into you. And so, you know, his mic was was a wireless mic and we were able to kind of manipulate it in various ways due to the high level, you know, due to being able to collapse this like the Q Lab effects into Q Lab and send it. We had all sorts of wonderful sends going on. So and they were able to hear it in the space in Culture Hub. Josh is reading the comments, watching Josh read the comments is one of my favorite things. Yeah, we could do a show just to test the sink and then Josh just reading the comments but not reading them out loud. There's so many great comments and so many great audience members. I whenever I see folks in the chat, I'm like, damn, if we were all together, we would be pumped. We would be like, oh, it's you. Oh, I do feel that in the chat. I'm like, oh, it's you. I'm not seeing any of this chat, but I love you. Oh, you got to be in the chat. Yeah, yeah. It's a total love fest. It's like a smile. Well, I think the chat is kind of what what does feel a little bit like theater again, only a little bit. But it's there's a almost a feeling of being in the lobby, almost a feeling of being responsive to the audience. I've had to turn off the chats during performances, so it doesn't distract, but it's fun. And it's like the only reciprocity we can have. Can I just say I watched a seagull New York Theatre workshops like seagull via they were doing seagull on the Sims, right? Yeah, yeah. And the chat was so theatrical. It was like this new media thing. The chat is it is an incredible feature of new media. Yeah, but you guys are old hats at this now, but I this was my first experience and I have to say I was like, oh, it's like seven fifty six. And I'm super nervous. Why? Here I am sitting in my house. It must be real. It must be theater because why do I feel this way? And then I was it felt just like I was backstage, you know, it was very exciting. I know that all I had to do is like hand Chris and Mike. And I was like, yeah, it's Josh and I get I mean, we try to do as much of the like traditional theatery things as possible. But it does feel weird to like be in my own apartment by myself and just be like deep breathing, a little bit of pacing, a little bit of drinking. It feels very real in the box when you see the countdown, especially. And then being a stage performer, there's like nowhere to hide. It's like four by four. What is it, Josh? Four by eight by two. Four by eight by two. That's it. Twenty minutes. I feel like that should be the slogan of theater and quarantine. It feels real in the box. Oh, I love it. That's great. Yeah. Kind of kind of boxing ring vibes, too. That's why you're the writer. Well, you said it. I didn't say it. Josh is writing it down. I am, I am because it's eight o'clock and we should probably let Chris have a little bit of time before the next performance because we do two shows in one night. Because why? Because I think it's important here because here in theater and quarantine in one time is just luck, but twice is rehearsed. And I like to, and I think it's really wonderful. I mean, one of the weirdest things about, we didn't have any flubs in this show, which is really nice. I like that. Yeah, let's cry. Not what I was about to say. One of the weirdest things about theater and quarantine, but also making work digitally right now is the sense of the remove of that feeling of liveness on the part of the audience. And to what extent we always feel like the audience says, that was so live is whenever something horrible happens. And so we try to convey a sense of liveness here. We try to like hope within these two performances that we can allow for mistakes, but also allow for something seamless. And that's, so anyway, we should take a break and let Chris rest up for performance number two at 9 p.m. Please, if you enjoyed yourself tonight, please send a link to your social media platform of choice. We are very excited for our 9 p.m. show. It's always a blast. And again, thank you all so much for tuning in. We have another show in two weeks on Monday, November 30th. Yes. We're back with Closet Works, which is our short form laboratory. And then two weeks after that, we are back with a premiere of a Heather Christian musical, which is really going to happen. So, so thank you again in four weeks. So thank you again. We hope you check in and join us. We hope you subscribe. We hope you continue tuning in and supporting not only us, but also LaMama and Culture Hub, who are just doing such incredible work right now. And I wanna thank them. I wanna thank all of the collaborators tonight. And I wanna say here at Theater in Quarantine, it feels real in the box. So have a good night and stay well, stay safe. And thank you. Good night.