 and maybe let's pull the chairs. They're already starting to. Yeah, okay. Yes, I love a full room. Let's pull the chairs, because I'd rather add so that we can say we're sold out only. Yeah. Thank you, everybody. Thank you all very much. You're all implicated in the show. This'll be us here. We're gonna let them all come in. This is gonna fill up pretty soon. I can feel it. Then if we need to add more, we can add a little bit more around it. And I think we're gonna move this one side. That's the whole thing. They want that over there? Yeah, because it will pick up. We're gonna be getting started in just a couple minutes. We'll hold it for hours to see if we can. So go ahead and get, do that. Hi, Emmanuel. Good morning. Good morning, Emmanuel. Silence. It's traumatic, though. That's a whole thing. Oh, no. I'm getting pictures from all over the place. Is it me? Is it? Come on, brother. Yeah. Come on, brother. Oh, no, no, no. You're fine. Come on, brother. Okay. I don't know. Yeah. Okay. Recording in progress. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. We're gonna start off with just a grounding moment as a group. And Roger's gonna leave that. How y'all doing? Good morning. Good morning, everybody. It is not even 11 o'clock in Fabulous Pittsburgh that this last night's sunset was something else. Did you all see the child? I ain't never seen anything like that before in my life. It was outstanding, and we were just so blessed to see that. I want to start us off by just finding the energy that we collectively have to change the world. So for those who feel comfortable, I would love for all of us to join hands. And for those that don't, you can leave your hands open and in prayer, in open prayer receive. And for those that can't leave your hand open to you. And I would love for all of us to close our eyes and take one deep breath in and hold. And one exhale and one more deep breath in. And I'm gonna say a few words, and I would love for you to repeat them and start to believe them. I am brilliant. I am brilliant. I am beautiful. I am beautiful. I am perfect. I am perfect. Exactly as I am. Exactly as I am. Find somebody with their eyes. Release the energy. Now we're here. Good morning, everybody. My name is Jordan Stovall. I'm a playwright, a drag artist, career events producer, and the director of outreach and institutional partnerships with the Drama and the Skill of America. We're here together for our Together We Rise, a dream session for queer American theater. Part of what we do at the Drama and the Skill is advocate for writers and part of advocating for writers along with advocacy and industry practices is taking a look at the industry and seeing who's not there and why, and then figuring out how to tackle that. So a lot of us here today and the reason we are here today is because we've been asking that question and trying to figure out the answers and doing the work for the last several years. And we'll talk a little bit more about that in a bit. One of the things that we do at the Drama and the Skill is something called the COUNTS. And the COUNTS is a periodic survey of who's getting produced in America. And in the last COUNTS, COUNT 3.0, we found that less than 1% of people being produced in America identified as transgender and not performing. And that's just the reality. And we're not gonna get Simon down today. I think in our conversation about those kinds of things, but it's important for us to have a foundation and a grounding point to recognize where we're at and ask the question why that is the case. So part of what we would like to do in our work and what's brought us together is asking the questions about where those stories are, how they manifest currently, how we can sort of question how those pathways are formed who's in charge of the pathways? What are they looking out for? Are they looking out for potentiality? Are they allowing them to manifest? Are they able to see what queer work is in the unique form that queer expression brings and see it towards potentiality and for what it can bring into their spaces and do what we've done today which is bring the community together and find a way forward with that. So that's what we're talking about today. And we'll kind of go through a few points and engage in conversation about what queer theater is. Some of the things that gets in its way from sharing authentic stories because I think that's an important thing as well is the authenticity of those voices, the authenticity of the ways in which these stories are being told authentically and figure out what we can do together as a collective and you're all a part of this portion of the conversation at the end of what stands in the way and what we can do about it. So this is part, it's a conversation but we're not talking at you. It's going to be a collective action that we can push forward with and share with the rest of the world to continue on with accountability and give folks tools and resources to create effective change and make way for these authentic stories. And that's why we brought the cameras because we need the receipts. We need the receipts but also what I want to say too is that we were granted the opportunity to do this talk on the premise of leaving here with a list of action items that we are going to demand of the American theater for it to change its mindset around reading and programming trans and gender non-conforming theater artists on its stages. So we ain't leaving this place. Do we have the little board? Do we have a little whiteboard? Yes. We got a whiteboard. We're not gonna leave here. Now this is two parts because I don't believe in lip service. So we're not gonna leave here until two things happen. One, we're gonna fill this whiteboard with our demands of the American theater. Two, we are working on this and I'm saying this on here so that how around TCG and everybody recording this can see. We are going to publish this list. I can't talk about who and when because you know. But this list and the accountability that it is meant to embolden is going to be published so that our industry at large can know and understand our earnest prayer for the future of the identity majority because let's just be very real. We have done in the last, really within the last 10 to 15 years I would say especially, we have done tremendous work as a society to dismantle the binary system of identity in this country and in this world but we have just begun that work. And I believe that the theater is the seeing place. It is the place where we see ourselves, our lived experiences reflected back to us from the stage and the theater needs to represent the people that are living the life outside of it whose stories are inspiring and sometimes being exploited by or appropriated. We need to work on that too. But we also need to see ourselves have the opportunities to tell our own stories with our own production teams and our own sets of support systems for us by us in conversation with us. We've talked a lot yesterday about the power of being local. And I think an extension of that conversation is the power of community, particularly here the transgender non-conforming theatrical community of this country needs to come together, rise up and say, we don't need the affirmation and validation of certain institutional factors and power structures. We don't need them to tell us that we're great. We know that we're great because you come uptown and take our stories from the club and then bring it to them. Let me stop this. Let me stop this. Let me stop this. So each of the people that are here today as part of the conversation have all in their own capacity throughout for a long time been working within the industry, outside of the industry in their own lived experience to find ways to shepherd those stories in and that's why they're here. So I'd like to introduce Basil. Hi, Basil. Hi, everyone. Yeah, this is... I mean, Roger's still amazing. Thank you for starting that off with that kind of power and intention and leading us in that kickoff. That was amazing. This has become a really amazing collaboration. The seed of this kind of... I think I'm supposed to be talking about how this kind of originated. I'm a Mellon fellow playwright, which as most of you probably know, it's this amazing fellowship that's like three years that Mellon offers for a playwright to be in residence with a favorite company. And I'm with Radelstik, who I've had a long relationship with and Daniela Tobold for a really long time. And a part of the application is sort of was what's the work you wanna do during this residency? And one of the things that I outlined in my application was that I wanted to create a database of some kind that would help facilitate anyone who wanted to produce trans non-gender conforming playwrights because there seemed to be such a lack of production, a lot of development and lack of production. And just sort of asking what is in the way? How can we be helpful? What are the issues theaters come up with, lettering managers? Can, is there resources that we can make available to people that just help this? And a part of that was holding TCG conferences to find out what are those issues? And when me and the Radelstik team got together to try to figure out, okay, what trans playwrights are getting produced? What's happening with their work? We saw a lot of development, not a lot of production. And we also realized this is big. This is like a little bit too big for our small team to be trying to manage all on our own. So Daniela reached out to National Queer Theater who then also brought on dramatist guilt and brought Roger, thankfully. And through multiple conversations with a lot of people, a lot of people, we kind of came up with strategy for this panel, but also we were like, what can we do to just help, you know, and meet more immediately, had taken action. And so we created a kind of speed dating between the trans and gender non-conforming playwrights we found who had had a lot of development but not production. And we put them in the speed dating rooms with artistic directors and literary managers to have those one-on-one conversations that we all know in the industry can really benefit, start building relationships, no expectations. And it seemed to be a really great success. People made connections, they enjoyed the conversations that they had with each other and it really was a get to know you with no expectation, which we hope is the seed of something. And that then brought us into our panel here. And I'm gonna turn it over to Roger now who's gonna continue this conversation. Oh, I'm next. I said, I already said a lot. I would like to take this opportunity to allow our other three panelists to introduce themselves. And if the three of you would please tell us what your name is and your pronouns and maybe one thing that excites you about queer theater making. Okay. Hi, my name is Gaven, rhymes with Raven. Like that's okay, it's the future I can see. And everyone's on Zoom, hello. My pronouns are they, he. I mostly work as a dramaturge and that's why I got my MFA and so I'm a dramaturge. I also work as a director playwright. I grew up born and raised in the lower east side of New York City. And something that I'm very excited about, queerness in space is the change of processes, how we come into a space and the rituals that we have created for ourselves in the club or because of trauma are not being allowed to be in space. To change the way we create equity in American theater. Just for example, the ritual that we had right before, the start of this meeting, that is in many ways the start of how queer people come in and also is in the DNA of a lot of our work. So I'm very excited to share that. Hi everyone, good morning. My name is Joey Reyes. I use they them pronouns and I am the line producer on staff at Longworth Theater in New Haven, Connecticut. I'm also the associate producer at The Soul Project, which is a national theater initiative dedicated to amplifying the voices of Latin playwrights and artists of color in New York City and beyond. Word for word. I go back and forth between New Haven, New York City, currently for about another couple months and then I'll be leaving those positions to start my master's at Northwestern in the fall. Thank you. And what excites me about queer theater in general, I think is the forced expansiveness that you're kind of like met with, right? When you, when an individual has come into themselves and realize that they are more than what society tells them that they are, whether that's understanding their gender, their sexuality or any sense of their being. And that then influencing the impact of those around them and the community that they build. We escape, people, we get to choose our family, right? So it's for me in terms of like making queer theater, that's, yeah, that's what excites me the most is thinking outside the binary and going beyond traditional linear white supremacist structures of storytelling and getting the stories told and giving people the props that, you know, we, that mainstream culture ends up taking from, right? And pulling from, like you mentioned, like going, people going out to the clubs and then all of a sudden it's like a television show where people who have nothing, who know nothing about that culture and did not live in that culture and are, you know, using it for their own financial gain. So yeah. No. No. No. Thanks, Joe. Hi, my name's Ali. Hoffnig, oh, my partners are they then and theirs. I'm from Chicago originally, worked as the education and now I'm a director of the Pop Face Theater there for several years. And recently left a position here at Dreams of Hope which is a queer youth arts organization working primarily in theater there. I'm working now as the inaugural LGBTQIA coordinator wanting an inclusion at the University of Pittsburgh. They don't know what that position is yet, so don't ask. Don't have to pay people who are like, what are you doing? And I'm like, you know, gay stuff, just gay stuff. Don't ask. Don't ask. We'll tell you. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, my background has been primarily working at the intersections of theater, social justice, and education, working with young people age 13 to 24, primarily. I do my own work outside of that, but that has been where my lens and my focus has been for over a decade. And the thing that excites me the most about queer theaters is more tangible. I think it's when I tell a young person I've said 30 times that you can actually do whatever you want. You can really, really do whatever you want. And I give them many examples, and I tell them that it doesn't have to be stop right or check off, and that you don't have to do things in the way your high school theater teacher told you, or you think it's the right way. And when that clicks, they actually do something really weird. They write something really weird. And it's really exciting to see that shift. So we've all gotten to know each other a little bit better, what that kind of work has been for each of us. And I'd like to kind of transition and talk about, we mentioned a little bit earlier about the authenticity of the stories and the authenticity of queerness. And in part of this work, we had a conversation with some agents and managers. And there was something that stuck out to me in that conversation when we, I asked about what advice you have for folks who are sort of multi-medium performers, because I think a lot of time with queer artists or folks who are sort of sharing their expression, you find different avenues and different spaces and different ways of expression that fall sort of outside prescriptive ideas of what's shared with us about our thinking. And the answer was about a certain person that maybe their work was a little too downtown for them to sort of consider it, which sort of stuck with me. And there's something about that that I think is sort of inherently built in to the systems that inform what that art is and where the barriers are. Because I think there's that idea, there's an inherent barrier or an invisible barrier between what is perceived as like downtown or uptown. So I'd like to ask to anybody who'd like to answer in the conversation to you sort of what is queer theater? How do you feel it manifests? How does it look like to you? How does it share its own message? And basically you can go straight away and see the center. You're at Zoom. Oh, sure. I'll pick it up. I'm sure everyone has a much smarter, growing and amazing things to say about this than me. But what I think queer theater is special in that the makers of it being queer have a perception of the world that is different in terms of humor. I mean, for queer people, humor is incredibly important. And there's a way of healing and dealing with things that are looking at darkness head on and finding the humor even in that and finding hope in darkness. And also, we have had to live in a world that sees a binary as a non-binary person. And that is such a shifting. There's such shifts in that. There's shifts in the way we talk to each other, to the world, to different people. And all of that creates a language that is unique. And a view of the world that's unique that gets imbued in everything from character to location to structure of the play. And I think that's something that when we first started this conversation, Roger really had a passion for how his queer work being read because it is so different. It has just a different lens on it and every facet of it in the very fibers of it. So I'm really curious for Roger to now talk a little more about that and his view of queer theater and what makes it unique. One of the things that I will say is that queer theater has the potential to exhibit radical care not only in the stories that it tells, but for the audience that has come to see it. Because for that hour or two hours, we have become a chosen family. We are a self-selected group of individuals that have opted into an experience that will be ephemeral, yet long-lasting, because of our investment emotionally in it. Now what I mean by saying radical care is that we're seeing a trend amongst a lot of queer writers. And I will name two of them now. One of them is Donye Love, whose piece, Soft, is at MCC right now. And another writer is April Ranger, who is currently in page 73, I73 with me. Both of these are artists who embed in their scripts an opportunity for the actors to break the fourth wall to address and somehow care for the audience. And I think that kind of generosity and that kind of empathy is something that we have to learn as transgender non-conforming folks who are living under so many different levels of disenfranchisement that the only thing we can do to find healing in the world is to rely on the care of each other. That then translates into a care for the audience that has opted into becoming part of that family for the two hours of change that they have chosen to come to these craves. So I think one of the things that queer theater has the opportunity to do is to redefine what the fourth wall is, who is on the other side of it, and how can we make them active, compassionate, and imaginative members of the storytelling process that we have been active through the production of the show. Basil is talking about, and Jordan has talked about it a bit earlier, and we will get into this, how do we read queer plays? How do we read them? So during a truth talk, I could read, but I have to read the people. There's great power in humanism. That's what she was really talking about. So we will talk a little bit later about some ideas that we've formulated on new ways of reading these plays and new people that need to be reading them, because I think the old models don't necessarily serve this work because the old models are not the way that that work is being made. I'll leave it there, and I want to go down, and then we'll kind of come back to that. Yeah, I'd like to kind of open it up, because you said something about the fourth wall and how queer work is sort of breaking down the fourth wall. Are there any sort of like specific, other sort of specific instances of queer work and sort of like the dramaturgy, or like how they might differ from other sort of normative structures, so to speak, or ways of storytelling? I mean, what's interesting recently, I was part of a TJNC festival at La Mama in downtown New York, and what happened, Roger, you were there in spirit, but what I'm saying is that it was very interesting how for the first time in many instances they brought folks who were performance artists or from the club into a theatrical space, and what did it mean for folks who may be familiar, but mostly theater folks to come in and see things that I would see in someone's tiny apartment just doing what we do, and I never thought at some point that, I knew it was theatrical, I didn't know it was theater, and in that queerness it doesn't, I love how it's legible to some folks and how it's illegible, and the beauty of that constant creation because we don't necessarily know what it is. Something I also wanna say, because when the question of what is queer theater, and this is a hot tape, and you could fight me on this, but as, and I will say, I love this because I write this on my applications now, I'm a brown first generation Asian American, gender non-conforming kinky bear cub queen, and the reason why I say that is that, and there is a conf, if I don't feel I'm safe in this space, in a ritual with all of that, it is not necessarily queer, and this is my hot tape. A play that has gay characters or written by cis gay men is often completed as a queer piece of work, but not necessarily always has the politics of queerness, and I see nods, thank you, I was like, oh, I'm scared, but as a brown person of color, as someone who identifies as gender non-conforming, there is often, I go to a gay play, which is not necessarily always queer, and again, there is that erasure of history and separation, where are the black foot, where are the brown foot, where are trans sisters and brothers, what does that mean within this invisibility, the continuum of erasure, and because of that conflation, there's a lot of lack of producing a queer place that shows that intersectionality, and so, just going back, yeah, hot tape, that's my hot tape, but there is something about, I think as a dramaturg, what excites me is that in the silences of queer plays, there's always something magic, there is the late scholar of Jose Esteban Muñoz talking about the legendary Kevin Avias, in the way that Kevin moves in performance, one flick of a hand shows a multitude of possibilities of living, and I think that exists, there's a consciousness in particularly queer TGNC theater in which even in the silences, there's a tenderness that allows that openness of all the feelings, whether it's anger, frustration, or celebration, and joy, to take up space unapologetically because bodies are always controlled in the outside world, so these plays are very conscious of what does it mean to take up space and be resonant in one's body, yeah. Sorry. Really quick, I want to share one of my favorite quotes from Bell Hooks. Queer, not as being about who you are having sex with, that can be a dimension of it, but queer as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live, and I feel that really encapsulates what I view as being queer and sort of needing to expand outside of yourself and just feeling so contained by a society that is lived within a binary and structured in such a way that tells you that who you are as a human being is incorrect, and the opportunities that arise when you have trans and gender nonconforming artists that are being able to just let loose and tell the story that they want to tell and let the audience, leave it to the audience to figure out what they want to pull from it and what they want to, or what they're going to take from it and not have it be so straightforward. The Soul Project is collaborating with Silver Repertory Theater right now on Mara Velezma-Lindez's play Notes on Killing Seven, Oversight Management and Economic Stability Board Members. And it's just like, it's been described as this sort of fever dream of a play and really centering on this theme of like, one of my favorite lines in the play is, do we fail to kill our leaders because we hesitate or are we, no, I'm so sorry, I'm messing this up right now. Something about hesitating to kill our leaders and feeling exhausted and it's this, it's this very trans, Puerto Rican, beautiful, beautiful play that's closing this Sunday. So if you're going back to New York, please catch it. And, you know, when you're going through that experience, you're, it's just this wild ride. It's a drag show within a play in the show and just, Mara is just this genius of a person who has created this world and that the play itself was born out of her own coming into herself and very much rooted in her own transition as well. And so we're kind of taking on this beautiful, like intimate ride of someone who has come into transition and someone who's sort of finding and discovering the expansiveness of their own identity and gender and also this like radical revolutionary act of killing this board of people who manage the finances of Puerto Rico. But that, yeah, so that, and as a producer, I'm like, you know, when you read, I remember reading the play for the very first time and just like what being taken on that ride and thinking like, how is this even gonna work? Everything that's happening, like how does it work? But that's the exciting part of it, right? And not allowing your whatever budget or whatever or who or what other people are gonna think or certain funders are gonna think about you producing the show and saying, let's do this. Let's like take that leap. I don't wanna say risk because it's not a risk to produce these stories but take that leap and show people what we are capable of doing as theater artists, right? And because I've seen, I've seen she done Broadway that is like garbage, right? And it's, I'm like, how do you have all that money? And it looks like that, but then I can go and see something in this like 69 seat theater and feel like I've had a life-changing experience and come out of it and know like learning what something knew about myself. So that, yeah, that for me in terms of like the dramaturgy and just, you know, investing and saying yes, and also having like a mostly trans design team, you know, and general and conforming director. And what happens when you have that organic representation happening, you know, and not just having a trans writer go into a room with a white, a cis white director and cis white designers and everything and then leaving it up to them to sort of like teach everyone about a lived experience but being able to have that, I just have that community leading the way. And that thing about you, if you were kind of saying like Broadway is sort of being, you know, not necessarily representative of that. I mean, as it currently stands, I mean, the trans erasure is part of that system and we've seen it happen. And it's, you know, there are like incredible things happening like with Elmore and Lee and A Strange Loop, but, you know, that is sort of an exception to a lot of stories that we've heard, which I think is true. Yeah, Allie. I mean, I don't have like a hot take or anything. I just know that I don't really wanna spend time with straight people very often. I just don't really wanna be around it anymore. I don't wanna sit in a dark theater with a bunch of straight people taking in stuff that they enjoy because I just, it's not, I just feel over it. And I feel like I'm too old at this point to spend too much more time taking in theater that doesn't challenge me and doesn't make me feel things really deeply and doesn't, that that is confined in any way. I want to be taking things in that I know are created by people who don't think in a, who are coming from a place of abundance. And can challenge me. And I think queer theater makers do that better than any other theater makers. And we wanna encourage all of you, if you have a little note pads or things, because we wanna get these definitions to write them down as we're continuing to talk, if any hot takes come to you. And also on the screen, I think I'd speak here. And also for those who are in the zoom land, if there are any definitions or hot takes of queer theater, what is queer theater? Hello, John. We're talking to you. Please feel free to put them in the chat. We have an illustrious team that is going to be displaying those definitions. So your voices and your perspectives are heard and received and valued in this conversation as well. So make sure that it gets a dialogue between all of us, what is queer theater? That is your prompt. So talking a little bit about the barrier between the perception of downtown and commercial stages. You still are. Well, you see where I'm going. You see where I'm going. I know what you're going. I read the outline for the tape. Right. Because gay. I'm going to outline a little bit of the truth. See, we'll talk about optics. So, Gaby, you talked a little bit about it, like in the showcase with Lamama, of these types of performers and performances occupying a space that is that they maybe not necessarily, folks are sort of used to presenting this kind of work or this kind of art form and storytelling. Roger, we didn't talk about this earlier, but we had something similar with Jubilee for New Vision. Can you talk about that for a little bit? What were the questions specifically for you? Jubilee for New Vision, which you can share a little bit about what it was and... Jubilee for New Vision was a showcase of trans and gender non-conforming writers of color that was held at the MCC Theater in February. And the writers that were involved with this were fellows and finalists of the New Vision Fellowship. And talk about a queer evening. It started out as just a reading of two plays. We were just gonna do a staged reading of the two plays. And I said, honey, these girls wanna sing. They wanna dance. They wanna, and suddenly the evening became this interdisciplinary celebration of the various ways in which queer folks use the theatrical medium or expand the theatrical medium in order to tell their stories and connect with audiences. And what was interesting about it was that the feedback we got was so overwhelmingly positive because it provided hope for programmers of theater in this country of a model of positivity and a model of inclusivity and expansiveness that they had not seen. But we basically just followed a very simple set of precepts which is that we're gonna trust the artist to do their best work. We're gonna give them the time, the space, the opportunity and the microphone to do their thing. And then we're gonna foster this culture of affirmation. So the one thing that we did was after each person finished they introduced the next one. And I said, girls, I want you to say something fabulous about the next person. So that the entire evening was just this ever-flowing journey of affirmation. What was happening was we were celebrating trans and gender non-conforming storytelling but we were also creating a love spell amongst each other. And by doing that, we then inspired the audience to start, one, loving themselves and also loving the possibility of stories by trans and gender non-conforming folks to be the main event at major venues around New York and around the country. So, and the work was interdisciplinary. We had some of the composers, we had a performance art piece, we had a couple of more traditionally scripted work, we had some cinematic poetry. It showed a range of the different definitions that trans and gender non-conforming folks had for what the occasion of a theatrical event can be. And I think in doing that, we were able to expand the imaginations of programmers to think about when I'm reading a script and when I'm looking at an event or a blueprint for an event on the page, how can I expand my imagination about how to support that event through development and production? Because we have, and you're tempting me to go here and I know that this is in part three but I'm gonna start it now. We have, I believe, I suspect, a two-dimensional and literary relationship to reading scripts. And the reason for that is because the arbiters of merit and of production are receiving the work as an email or a submission that they judge from their computers here. And they read it as a piece of literature. What I'm calling for us to remember as an industry is that the script is a blueprint for a performance event to be manifested in three dimensions. And so what I'm basically asking folks to do is to use their imaginations and dream when they read. Don't just look at this and say, how does this please me? How does the dialogue answer all the questions that I have narratively? Sometimes, and this is what Gavin is talking about, the narrative is just somebody coming out onto the stage and doing this and standing and looking at the firmament. And in that moment, I have all of the character-based change that I need. Now you look at that, you're reading it in a literary way, you're not gonna see the potential of it. But how do you learn? How do we create in these reading rooms, how do we create rubric when we have, I won't say submission, we decolonize that word. Opportunity for engagement with a script. How can we foster amongst the readers who many times volunteer to read 10, 12 scripts each? How do we embolden them, not just to look at a piece in two dimensions, but use their imaginations to see it as a three-dimensional piece of work, a suggestion for something? I think part of it is asking a different set of questions and re-imagining and redefining what those rubrics are for when we read script, because the first level of engagement, the first opportunity that a trans and gender non-conforming playwright has to either be, as A.J. Muhammad from the fire this time called it, anointed or rejected is on the page. And it's not our job to be the cultural ambassadors for our lived experience. It is not my job as the transgender playwright to have a weight in character that makes your reader lead journey comfortable for you. The reader needs to do the work, but the reader also needs to be given the tools to do the work. And that comes from the literary departments, the dramaturgy departments, the director of development departments, really assessing how are we thinking about scripts and how are we empowering and inquiring of our readers to interrogate the script? I think there is, because it's volume, I mean, we heard an instance yesterday of 800 scripts. There is a tiny sieve, a tiny sieve through which thousands of people pray for an opportunity to be seen. And of those hundreds or thousands, maybe 30 will get the finalist position, maybe another five or six will get the program. So many prayers go out every single day. Now I really, I'll never forget this and I know I'm going on a little bit of a rant, but I will never forget this moment. I have received a rejection letter from Juilliard. It was not even a, it was a very, they had said, child, you ain't getting this, goodbye. Of several thousand. But I will never forget the handwritten note that that person wrote to me saying, I have read this and while you can't, we can't engage with you now, I want you to keep writing. There is a level of grace. When you're reading a script, you're getting a chance to be a part of somebody's life. They're inviting you into their life. You need to honor that. And I know that it's impossible to say, we want you to write a thousand letters, but I think we really do need to find much more compassionate ways of engaging with writers at the level of opportunity to engage with their script. I really do think we need to think about that because what you say to that person and how you say it and how you engage with them will impact them for the rest of their life. That was 20, almost 25 years ago I received that note. And I'm telling you all about it today. That's how much it meant to me. There's somebody on this Zoom screen, there may be somebody in this room that could really benefit from a note like that. So I think part of it is learning how to reevaluate the way that we read scripts, but also reevaluate the way that we treat people, particularly the way that we treat writers in our business because we are human beings and we are sensitive and we are at the most vulnerable positions I think because we are, and we were talking about this in this talk yesterday, writers are independent contractor entrepreneurs out here with nothing to their names but a script in their pocket and a bucket of dreams. And we go from place to place and sing our song hoping somebody is going to hear it. And we do that for 50, 70 years, how long we are blessed by Providence to be on this earth. We go from place to place singing that song hoping somebody will hear it. And the least that we can do as arts administrators is say I hear you, thank you for sharing that, keep on, good soldier. That is the least that we can do in my opinion. And that is radical care and that is queer. That kind of scene, intentional scene, I think is the culture that we need to foster in the American theater. In that sense, the entire theater could be queer because I think there's something to be learned from looking somebody in the face and letting them know that they are seen and valued. And that's something, that's the medicine that we as trans and gender non-conforming folks have to give ourselves in each other every damn day we wake up in the morning. So, what was that? What was that? The reason we brought up the Jubilee for New Vision was to sort of show how it is possible because that was at MCC theater in New York City and we sold out the house and that was produced by Carnegie Hall. And that was a real moment of celebration and success and visibility. So, with that in mind and what you sort of said sort of organically flows into the next part, which is who are the players? What are the precepts and what do we, how do we feel, what stymies its visibility? So, what gets in the way of queer theater being produced in the American theater? And that's for you all too. And you. Please. I'm rad. How you doing? Hi. Thank you for having us and hosting this. I guess I'm a little confused. Is this conversation for us to try to teach the establishment how to deserve us? Or are we asking them, like, do we tell them who deserves us? I'm just like getting, I don't know. It's making me feel things. Cause it feels like we're like, I don't know. I'm just like, who is, who are we and who is this conversation for? You know what I mean? Like, are we making a list to be like, accept us? You know, like bring us into your center. Or are we defining like who we are for each other and do they deserve us? You know, cause it's, I've been lucky to work as a trans performer in some of the biggest theaters in the country. And I don't wish that for our people. It's a lot of violence. And I'm like, are they ready? Are they ready for us? Do they deserve us? And so I'm just curious about this, this bridge to deserving us, you know? Like, what is it going to take for them to actually, sure, learning how to read our plays. Absolutely. That's important. But like, yeah, do they deserve us? And so I'm just, I'm just, that's a little clarity for. That's the missing piece I think. And that's what I think we wanna try and articulate, you know, at the end of this is to have these kinds of conversations and figure out what are actually the real things that are rooted or that need to change in the infrastructure in order for these things to happen. And not just the actual sort of presentation or the active inclusion, but to care for the folks who are a part of the process as well. I wanna get to CeCe in a moment, but I also wanna say one thing. We also need to learn how to read and respect each other because there's a whole lot of bias that goes on within the rainbow of LGBTQIA plus. LGBTQIA plus world possesses the same potentials for violence and exploitation and abuse that the cisgender world has because it is a microcosmic reflection of that impact on us. So we are just as capable of harming and misunderstanding and misreading each other. So I really think it's both. If I may proffer that as my opinion, I think we are just as much learning how to honor and treat each other with grace and fullness and abundance as we are about ambassadorship to whatever may or may not be deserved by the current power structures that define, though they should define who gets CeCe, who gets hurt. My darling. So as I was telling Joseph, I was like, you know, of course the word transgender is broken down into various syllables and definitions. But before that terminology, you know, and before queer and gender non-conforming, it was just trans, okay? So you can't throw. It's really wrong to throw trans, those that identify as trans with gender non-conforming and being queer. Me as a black trans, a proud black trans woman of color were always not invited to the function. We're not given the platforms to speak for our scripts to be red, brandy of that. But guess what? We're targets, like grant that auto. Every time we step out of our comfort zone. The girls gotta go back to the streets because guess what the industry does? It shuts the doors on us. And again, those writers that have never been part of our community have walked in our shoes, platforms to tell our narratives. That's wrong. It's wrong. I don't see no visibility at conferences. I don't see them on stages. I don't see black and brown trans women and boys getting these opportunities. There are on the top of my hands, like the replay houses that give us these opportunities, rattlesnake, long war, rep stage. Do we not matter? Are we not invited to the function? That hurts. It hurts. I'm tired of seeing my brothers and sisters get murdered on a day to day. Change has to come. I'm tired of having these conversations and sending these conversations because guess what? I could be watching the trade somewhere. And yet don't get weird because we need you. Because you're a timekeeper and you have always been historically and presently the one who keeps us honest with ourselves and with each other. And I just want you to know that we all see and value and appreciate you, ZC. Thank you so much for being here in this room with us today. And don't worry, we're gonna come back to you because I've already played, I got something to tell me. What was the question? You went off her. It's okay, because I think, so I want to say firstly, I want to commend both of you for speaking up and for naming those things because these things are important to share and those raw feelings are important to share. And the reason we're here and the reason we're having this conversation I think is to share those things and those feelings from a raw and earnest and honest place with the people who are listening and the people who are interested in these conversations. And the way in which I think we can institute change in the industry is by being honest and naming those feelings and being unapologetic about it. So the question was sort of, what do we think sort of stands in the way? What are the precepts? And so, with the timing, I want to make sure that we do this and I'd like to maybe do this as a group and as a collective and I'd like to invite the folks who are on Zoom to also be a part of this and Basil, you can come back in with us too. We'd like to name sort of two things, which is we'd like to record some of the things that we feel like are standing in the way of these things happening. What are the things that are instituting or causing some of the feelings that have been shared in the room? Some of the things that have been discussed amongst the panelists. How can we name what are the actual, how can we name the specific mechanisms and things that are happening in the industry that we feel like might contribute to some of these human reactions to what those barriers are. So we'd like to record what some of those things, how we think those things are. Oscar. Oscar will be taking this list down too because we believe in receipts over here. Yeah. I'm just gonna, it's all right, take this off for a second and I have some chest up. You mentioned instituted and I just thought of institutions and the irony is, I mean, you all know, like I am a staff member at TCG. I don't know how live and open this conversation is, but also as a queer woman within this institution, I do want to name that I do think even large institutions get in the way. So, I mean, I'm more than happy to have that on record. I think the space is super special, but it is also not entirely inclusive, right? The gay keeping that continues to happen even at larger institutions that may have good intentions. It's challenging to observe and also sometimes be a part of as a queer person because what I find and a couple of folks mentioned this, there's a scarcity mentality that happens and what hurts me more is to be a bystander or experience in fighting within the larger LGBTQ community because there are these gatekeepers that, I mean, let's be real, money, resources, things like that to get things published, produced, presented sometimes. So, I mean, there's a huge hierarchy all to say, I do think institutions also get in the way. The final thing is because folks, I'm supporting a couple of other folks in other sessions, the final thing is I think even TCG with the conference could do a better job at clarifying what spaces are actually affinity spaces versus things that are gonna be open to everyone because what I'm quickly finding even in my time here is I do feel like so many folks here are from the queer community and some of the things that are already shared, I'm even questioning what parts of this vulnerability and this empowerment is for the queer community versus other folks from larger institutions seeing our shit and like taking notes because some things are also for them to learn but there are also conversations that just need to happen in community. So, I'm not even sure that that's clear and I just wanna say this for folks in both the virtual space as well as 3D, whatever you share, I mean, please confirm with me, this is not an affinity space, right? So, folks will have access to this recording just for safety reasons, I just wanna name that. This is something I'll bring back to my own team and say that we could do a better job because I appreciate the vulnerability also that folks are sharing. Thank you so much. I think, thank you for sharing that, thank you for being honest as that's what we came for, I think. But I think for this conversation we wanted to open it beyond an affinity space intentionally because I think some of these conversations need to be heard and some of these honest feelings need to be heard as well. So, you said you named a few things, you named institutions, you named gatekeeping, you named, so in terms of like the specific components that break down into those, what are the pieces of that? What are the components that we can talk about and name specifically that might contribute to that? Yeah, I'm just part of the broader side of this submission process, right? This very wide, very broken process somehow of playwrights, particularly those of our community. I just know personally from the queer and trans work that I've produced at my theater, it's come out of conversations and I believe it was Gaven who mentioned community and knowing our local communities and I think that's really, really important to get out there and see our community in our local communities and say, hey, let's have a coffee, what are you thinking about? What do you wanna write about? Like I said, these plays that I've produced have not come from an email with a script. It's been me being responsible and going out and saying, what is the story you wanna tell? Great, here are the resources, right? Because I do think it's a broken system, submitting plays and those of us that produce get hundreds and hundreds of scripts, right? And it is a skill to switch how we look and I'm not saying we don't need to, we do need to switch how we do that, but I think that like the bridge or maybe the next step is actually going to be on like find those artists in your own community where you're producing and say, let's have coffee, let's have a cocktail, what is your story? What do you wanna write about? What have you been writing about and let's do it. Can I just name something I know Gaven I want, I wanna bring you, but you're giving me a great idea that I wanna put on record. If theater is local, then one suggestion that I would have is that local institutions put out a call to say, I'm here and I would love, here's a space for anyone that self identifies as a writer, whatever that means to you, writes their name or a way of contacting and let's schedule an opportunity to speak. There is a literary manager who was working at a theater in Southern California who created a list of all the writers that they knew were living in that area or had recently moved to that area. And I'm talking about dozens and dozens of people and they were not being paid extra for they were doing this on their own time. They would go and schedule meetings, coffee meetings with every single person that they knew was self identified as a playwright just for the sheer sake of wanting to get to know the people in that community. I think that's actually a really important step forward because it makes this now a human exchange as opposed to a electronic negotiation because at the end of the day, what needs to be assessed and we have to be able to assess, this is the other part of it, writers also hold the power to say, do I want to be in community with you? Yeah, yes, yeah. Is this worth me sacrificing the licensure of this play for its premiere or its second production wherever the stage may be? I am giving you the opportunity to participate in a story that is really beyond me. I'm just the vessel through which this is happening right now. I'm also advocating for humility within playwright. We're doing the ancestors work. They're coming through us. We're telling it to you so you can take it home, you can take it to the next generation. That's how this works. That's queerness, intergenerational, grio work. That's what we're doing. I learned how to put on my makeup because I said, Cece, girl, listen, you know that contour that she did over there? You know how to do it? And Cece goes, baby, listen, come on. He sent you down in the room. But you know what I'm saying? That's how it's learned. So we need to bring the people back to the people business. We're in the people business. We're in the business of investing in the future of each other. And you know, we were meeting a writer, Gaven and I were talking to a producer yesterday who said, you know what? I don't have a season. I have a list of people that I'm excited as hell to be in the room with for right now. And I don't know who's coming next. And I can't remember who I did last year. I'm here with these folks right now. So it's just the idea of investing in the present as well. That restructuring of how we engage with each other is one of the first steps, I think, towards how to build a queer American theater. I love, it is going back to the human experience because often as a dramaturg, also I keep forgetting I'm part of an institution, I'm part of a New York theater workshop, which is important to say because I work freelance and I'm out and about, but also as part of New York theater workshop. And going back, it's the voice is to center the voice because, you know, as a dramaturg, I'm well aware of the biases of many institutions to always pick a wisely writer or another writer coming from another institution. And they don't see the person. You don't see the actual potential for crap sometimes. I'm saying, I love my friends, I'm sorry, I love my friends at YSD. But, you know, those kinds of classes and these biases often then erase all the possibilities of what can be produced on stage. And also I will add this as a dramaturg and also as someone who's neurodivergent, please, please encourage your readers to look one for potential. We talked about this, always look for potential. Everyone's writing in draft and to learn about multiple modalities of entering a piece. A lot of the transgender non-conforming writers that I've interacted with and collaborated with are not just simply writing with words, it's with their bodies. And sometimes you just don't get that on the page, but that takes a lot of imagination. We're still talking about barriers. Yeah, okay. I think I said this when we were sort of like in the planning of this session is that sometimes, and you referenced this already, sometimes the cost coming from inside the house. And so what I want to name too, and it's been sort of been named in the space already, is that black and brown, transgender non-conforming people end up being robbed of their own experiences and of their lives and their art from our white counterparts. And I feel that they feel that they can not have to be held accountable for their xenophobia and anti-blackness because they rest on their courteness or their transness or their gender non-conformity. And so I think it's really important to name that when we have folks who are so disenfranchised and that I think is a huge barrier. And so for, you know, for Jacob at Longworth to say to Dane Fitzgerald at DD, yes, let's, you have this, you're coming to me with this idea of a short play festival that centers black trans women. That is all of black trans women writers, all black trans women directors, all black trans women actors. And just simply saying yes and sort of stepping inside and then me having the honor to be able to work with her to make that happen, right? And right now that exists virtually, but we know Dane has this vision that I am so wholeheartedly invested in in making happen for the future. And CeCe was part of our first cohort of those writers in 2020. We had three writers last year, this year we have four and continue to expand. And it is my personal honor to be able to just be, it's part of that conduit, right? On behalf of the institution that has just said yes. And also working with Dane to say, can we pay people more money? And just, you know, and have it come out of the institution's budget, not just a grant funded program. You know, one of the things that I feel a lot of leaders have been saying in recent years is show me your budget, you show me your values. And so I think that's another piece of it too, is, you know, transparency. Lack of transparency I think is also a huge barrier here. But yeah, just again, to speak to the anti-blackness of it all, I mean, a few of us just yesterday found out that there was misrepresentation of each other from a white counterpart. That's really frustrating, you know, folks that you feel that you have been in allyship with for multiple years, and then to sort of like have this like sort of common realization, it's frustrating and I think, you know, people just need to like, people need to be held accountable. I'm sorry, may I just add one thing about paying? Because it happens all the time now, sorry. So we're all, I know we're all doing now work by queer folk and folks of color. If your theater is gonna make up a committee of folks from that community to then tell you the cultural competency of the production, you better have money in that budget because I know multiple off, it's on record, off Broadway theaters who like to bring people from the community and not plan to pay them. And not plan, let's repeat it, and not plan to pay, meaning from the inception of the idea, exploitation was already in the stew. I want to just name from a grammatical standpoint what you have just said, that you have come to a moment of fellowship, planning to disenfranchise. That has to stop. So I wanna take a breath because this time, this conversation has been really intense and it's been intense and it's been hard to get into this place and to dive into this place. And I wanna say thank you to everybody for going there. But in this last 15 minutes, what I'd really like to suggest is that we kind of pivot towards, we've talked about what the barriers are, we've talked about being tired about being in these conversations because we feel like nothing comes out of it. We've talked about how it feels like we just keep sort of spinning and cycling and that things don't happen and then we sort of go back into institutions and this harm is done. So what I'd like to do in the last 10 to 15 minutes is talk about what are some feasible ways that we can dream together, right? About how we can actively address these things and part of the reason why I think we intentionally did not want this to be an infinity space is, and it was interesting, so when we were putting this together, we did ask people from outside of the queer community to be a part of this conversation and on the panel as well. And it didn't happen because they felt like they shouldn't be a part of the conversation. When in reality, the ecosystem that we exist in is all components of this. And we don't operate within a silo and the way that these conversations keep continuing and nothing happening is when they become contained in the silo. So I think it needs to engage outwardly. And so I'd like to sort of pose the question and ask and I wanna make sure that we bring Basil and Ali back into this conversation as well is what we can do to actively address some of these things and create a list of action items. And we're not gonna do the full list today because we only have 15 minutes and that's not possible, but this is the beginning of the conversation. And we can begin to think about what some of those things are. We'll end in 15 minutes and the conversation will continue outside of this room. So let's at least get the starting point to that in the next 15 minutes. Basil, I wanna bring you in to speak on this a little bit. Yeah, I just, I wanna say I just have been really moved by things that have come up. And I think this might be in this realm that we're on now. I'm not quite sure. It might be a little off what everybody has been thinking, but when people started sharing from the audience and everybody on the panel, yeah, I just kept thinking about a production that I had like 10 years ago, maybe more in San Francisco. And it was a really absurdist play that was very trans and the theater company, you know, we had a trans woman who was cast in that play and she pointed out to me things that I didn't see. And one of them was the marketing for the show. And I feel like, you know, who are we marketing to? I know that the other thing to make money, they need to like bring in an audience, but sometimes even something like that can be people. And it's just, I don't want to scare people away from doing trans work, you know, that they feel so like, oh, there's so much I'm gonna have to do. Like we're gonna have to change this and change that, but it's like, yeah, I know you do. And things like marketing, like who's making it? Who's designing that marketing? Who's it going out to? There's lots of queer people in that field. There's, I'm tired of hearing that they can cast something that they can, you know, get together a team that can make queer work. And, you know, that performer who was inside of that show, I mean, she talked about, you know, you're asking me to be vulnerable in rehearsal, but I have to walk out of this building and I have to walk home. And I have to, you know, have a veneer. I have to, you know, protect myself when I walk home. And just things like that, like how can we talk about that and, you know, provide support. And things like marketing is something that I feel is really important. So two things from that that I'm kind of hearing is making sure that the artist is part of the marketing conversation. So that it feels it's sort of tied into your artistic intention in a way that is sensitive and sensible to how you want the story to be portrayed. Does that sound about right? Yeah. The second thing I think is transportation and ensuring that there is a safe way for the artist to get to it from the venue. Is that fair? Is that? Yeah, if that's needed, you know, to, yeah. Let's go down to you, Alan. Sure, I'm aware of the time. I don't want to take up too much, but something that I'm hearing. So I haven't been a part of a large institution for a really long time. And I've been a part of smaller institutions, but you know, then there's similar bullshit, but not the same as if you're in, you know, a really big one or operating within a large institution. And if you have an education department at your theater, which so many of you all do and you're telling these young folks that there is one way to do things or like there's a right way to do things that's clearly from a straight lens, clearly from a white lens, you're fucking up. Left and right. And I was told my whole life that I couldn't perform that because of the way I carried myself, because of the way that I looked, that I had to take dance classes to be more graceful so I could get cast into things. And when I left school, I believed that. And I was in Chicago, it's a huge theater city, but I believed that. And so I had to make my own theater and make my own spaces. And it, you know, I haven't thought about that in a really long time, but in being here and talking about this, I was, I'm feeling things too, right? Where I'm like, wow, I had to suppress so much of myself for so long because I thought, because I was told that this is what I had to do to do the things that I loved. And so I've spent a long time trying to tell as many young people who like theater, love theater, that you can really, you can do this and your voice is what is important. And your story is one that we inherently value and need to be seen. And if you have an education department, I'm not gonna tell you what to do, but do something. I don't know, you have an education department, like, don't, you know, do it. And there's a, I know there's one other deal, one other person in this room is affiliated with something called the Private Theater Alliance. There's an alliance of activists and theater artists across North America who work with queer and trans young people, primarily queer and trans young people of color. And we, you know, we're trying to make this continually like a burgeoning movement. So that's something to look up. There's a lot of resources. If you are a theater company that has an education department and you want to know how to generate or create a queer youth theater with your own company or anything like that, that's a way to start that. Education, particularly children. The key to this is developing a vocabulary of compassion, expansiveness, generosity and inclusion from early education. I didn't learn who I was until I went to a bathroom in Chicago at 30 years old. That's when I learned who I was because there was no vocabulary for gender expansiveness before I went to that bathroom that had another sign outside of the binary. And because of that moment, I was then emboldened and empowered to start writing in the ways that I do now. It was going to that bathroom that taught me that. I had wasted easily 10 to 15 years of my life trying to comport myself to one or another mode of identity. Now, we're existing in a country that is criminalizing families for helping their children to express themselves as they see their bodies and their identities to be. We exist in a society that is so uncomfortable with certain words that empower folks to live outside of the binary that they can't say those words publicly. That's how powerful we motherfucking are. We are making people quiver when we say our name. So I think what we really need to do is find ways of creating a new sex and gender educational model at the very earliest level of education. What you say to a child about who they can be is how they will comport themselves for the rest of their natural born lives. And I do believe that theater can play a role in helping people imagine that fullness of self. Go ahead. I think also when we think of education and we think of queer families, create spaces in which it's intergenerational. There are queer elders who are soon leaving us due to age or to other circumstances, and they have so much wisdom in which the youth can come in and learn from them. This is gonna be the gayest thing I've ever said about myself. We're ready. I co-teach an LGBT intergenerational wall-based theater program on Fire Island. And so I spent two weeks on Fire Island. It's beautiful, but the idea is that you have these folks who have discovered the spirit for themselves, a sense of liberation, but they're soon passing. And so what does it mean to pass on that knowledge? And we have queer trans youth coming in and feeling for the first time the sun and sense of like who they are on this island that promises this is another conversation. There is a limitation to that liberation of Fire Island, but the sense of trying to find community and to be with each other. I didn't feel I had, elders always existed. I just didn't know how to have access to them, how to speak with them. And then I found some folks and said, okay, found some houses and some folks in the Kiki scene and I grew up in Lower East Side, so that was actually easier than I thought. I had that privilege, but again, if you can make those spaces, please do, because it's rare to pass on that history. The queer history is often oral. It's oral tradition, it's done through dance, it's with our bodies. And so when it's not written down, you truly miss generations. And of course, with HIV, AIDS and still ongoing, we have a missing generation. So how do we fill that in? Gaven whispered a little request in my ear earlier. Oh, I don't hide anything. Gaven whispered a request in my ear that we dedicate the last two minutes of this conversation to naming some particularly POC, trans and gender expansive writers that we want everybody to know about. This is absolutely not an all-inclusive list. This is just the beginning of a provocation for us to start thinking about who's in the room. So I will invite all of you and I will name one person right now, Hot Tape, is Storm Thomas. I live in London, so there's a really wonderful writer there named Travis Alavanzas, Burgers. That's a good starting point. I'm not gonna do a writer, I'm gonna do some designers. Okay, cool. Costume, as you may know, Queen Jean. Queen Jean, Jules Pierpoll, I might be mispronouncing their last name, but you could easily Google them. A sound designer, Chris Debossi, and then a lighting designer, Cyrus Leslie Gray. C.C. Swazo. Desi Bing, Adisa Steele, Morticia Godiva, Mikaela Bradford, Andrea Jenkins, Danielle Davis, Davia Spain, Blessing Notion Rock, all Black trans women. I am not a part of this whole world, so I'm just gonna say myself, okay? Oh yes, he got pulled with performers, and we identified him as human lead. Don't pick this up before you go, and pass it around, okay? Lead us home, C.C. I wanna let my sisters, my little sisters, that fight with me every day. Night sheen, Lady Dan, Hazy Jane, Daniela Carter, Ian Stewart here, L. Morgan Lee, and I also wanna lift my brothers, Azure Lee Osborn, Jayar, Seven King, Shabastia Noi King, and my all-time favorite, favorite, Jevon Martin. We got, we're gonna take yours here, and then I wanna close this out. Please take it. I'm working, thank you. I'm working with a playwright that is trans, Mexican, and Aztec. I'll lift him up. Name is Santiago Castro. And I'm practicing to name myself, so I'm gonna give him Santiago Iacinti. Say your name one more time. We wanna get this here. Santiago Iacinti. Thank you so much. And for those, this is for you children over here. For those of you there, I hope you've been naming names. If you haven't, please use the last moments here to do so. While we do our closing ritual, we're gonna end how we began with our hands together. And we'll take one last breath in and hold and one breath out. And we will say this, I am everything, baby. I am everything, baby. And thank goodness you have the blessing to meet me. And thank goodness you have a blessing to meet me. Let the church say amen. Thank y'all so much. Amen. And thank you to this wonderful room. Thank you to our fabulous team back here. Thank you.