 Center. My name is Julia. I'm the Artistic Programs Manager at the Playwright Center and we're very glad to have you here. Just a little bit of housekeeping before we get started. You'll be able to see and hear me and the participants, but we are not going to see or hear you. So wherever you're viewing this, whether that's on Facebook or on HowlRound's website or the Playwright Center's website, you don't have to worry about having a microphone or video or anything like that. If you have any questions or run into some problems, you can reach me at questions at pwcenter.org, or I'll also be keeping an eye on the comment section on Facebook if you're viewing the Facebook Live as well. So I'll try to address any questions there. And we are just about ready to get started. So I will turn things over to our producing artistic director, Jeremy Cohen, and we'll take it from there. Thanks so much. Thanks Julia. Hi everybody. I want to see all of you and especially because we've been getting somewhere between like 500 and 700 people tuning in to these events and so it would be so great to say hello to all 500 of you, or more. I'm at the Playwright Center. My name is Jeremy Cohen and I am the producing artistic director here I use he him pronouns. And on behalf of our board and our staff and the over 2200 playwrights that we support every year here at the Playwright Center I am so thrilled to welcome you to the second conversation of our four conversations summer series. This conversation is called transforming artistic relationships. We have folks tuning in online from all over the globe right now to be with us today and I want to send you all so much love and health from us here in the Twin Cities. We are thrilled this moment of justice of activism, art making and transformation we are gathering together this summer to hear from an extraordinary set of artists here at the Playwright Center. We value the centering of artist leadership and how we approach all of our work. And so today's conversation has gathered some of the smartest most incredible artists that I know to weigh in on finding more authentic, deeper and more powerful relationships with the playwrights and theaters, especially in this new world going forward. We have two other amazing conversations coming up in August the next one is on Tuesday August 11 at seven o'clock central and focuses on writing across mediums and includes the brilliant playwrights, and for Nisa Odafia, Jen Silverman and Sarah Govans, who all are writing plays and screenplays and TV shows and novels and poetry and so much more details on all those conversations can be found at pwcenter.org. This panel tonight and the four part series is co-produced with the amazing Hal Brown Theater Commons. In addition to being live streamed on Hal Brown TV, the conversation is informed by Hal Brown's amazing long standing work with the Mellon Foundation on the National Playwright Residency Program. Three of our panelists tonight are or have been involved with the program so we're very excited to share more about their experiences in a minute. I especially want to send a big shout out to my great colleague Ramona King at Hal Brown for her amazing partnership on putting this panel together in the last couple of months and this whole series. I also want to send a special thanks to our supporting sponsor for this series, Knock Inc, whose underwriting has helped bring tonight's conversation to you free of charge, while ensuring that all of the artists are paid for their time and their work, as must happen. For nearly 50 years, the Playwright Center has worked to provide a platform for a wide diversity of voices and to create deeply accessible programming by making all public events like this one free. We serve a global community of over 2200 playwright members providing submission opportunities and classes and playwright gathering script feedback and lots more resources. Tonight's conversation inspires you. We hope that you will help us in our mission and consider making a tax deductible donation gifts of any size make a huge impact visit pwcenter.org slash donate. And if you're interested in learning about our membership program, please visit pwcenter.org slash join. Another big effort coming out of the amazing Twin Cities Theater Company true roots in collaboration with the Playwright Center this summer has been a moment of silence, which is a living historical archive and celebration of blackness launched through the commissioning of over 55 black Minnesotan artists and voices in this moment of transformation in response to the murder of George Floyd, Amad Arbery, etc. So this is a very shared cage is the curator and the artistic lead on this project and the anthology is online now you can find it at black mn voices.com again that's black mn voices.com. The pieces are rotating throughout the next few months. So we really hope you'll get a chance to check it out. It is powerful and beautiful and joyful and mournful writing by just an incredible cohort of artists so we hope you will join us at black mn voices.com tonight's discussion will be approximately about 90 minutes there's going to be a Q&A section in the last third of the conversation. I'll give you a heads up when it's time to send your questions into us, and then we'll take some time to hear your thoughts and respond. You can email us as Julia mentioned before at questions at pwcenter.org. Or if you're viewing this live stream on Facebook, post your question in the comment section there and we'll pull it off. But again the email for the questions is questions at pwcenter.org. All right, let's get into the conversation. And to do so, please please help me welcome to this screen, Alyssa Adams, Pearl Clegg, Leslie Ishii, Harrison David Rivers, and Vera Starbert. 650 people are clapping for you. Hi friends how you doing tonight. We're good. So lovely to have you all here. I'm going to do please don't be embarrassed I'm going to do very quick micro bios for all of you, because I'd love to introduce the audience just a little bit to who you are. So, hold tight everyone. Alyssa Adams is the associate artistic director at theater latte da. She spent 19 seasons as the director of new play development at Children's Theater Company where she commissioned and developed more than 45 new plays and musicals that premiered at Children's Theater Company and went on to productions across the country. She also served as a literary manager at La Jolla Playhouse, and the director of playwright services here at the playwright center. Alyssa Adams. Pearl Clegg. Oh, Pearl Clegg. I love so very much is the distinguished artist and residents at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta. She's the author of more than 20 plays including blues for an Alabama sky, fly in west and the angry raucous and shamelessly gorgeous. She's also the author of eight novels, speaking of writing across mediums three books of poetry and a memoir, things I should have told my daughter lies lessons and love affairs. Please help me welcome Pearl Clegg. Leslie is she is the artistic director of the incredible perseverance theater in Alaska. Leslie is an artist a cultural community organizer at a social justice warrior for people in theater and the arts and culture sector. It's an amazing acting career in Asian American ethnic specific multicultural regional theaters on Broadway and on camera. Please help me welcome the amazing Leslie is she Harrison David River I'm clapping this is my like 650 person clap of joy Harrison Harrison David Rivers is a player. He's the winner of the 2018 relentless award for his gorgeous play The Bandaged Place developed at the playwright center. He is the recipient of McKnight Jerome and Van Lier fellowships and residencies with the Boliasko Foundation the Sienna Art Institute, the Hermitage Duke University, New York Theater Workshop New York Stage and Film and Williams Town Theater Festival, and the playwright center. Please help me welcome Harrison David Rivers. I'm a lead last but certainly not least the amazing Vera starboard. Vera is a writer and editor she was born on Prince of Wales Island and grew up all over Alaska. She is the playwright and residents at perseverance theater with Leslie through the Andrew W. Mellon National playwriting residency program she's the editor of first Alaskans magazine and writer for the PBS kids children's Mollie of Denali which by the way recently won a Peabody Award. Congrats Vera and welcome Vera starboard. So happy to have you all here. All right, we're ready to dig in friends. We're ready. Everyone seems ready. All right. So I was thinking about where we are right now in the world a little bit tonight and, you know, going through this moment together I spent time with a bunch of you. You know, we're learning whole new ideas and understandings of the world, and people are always saying how's it going at the playwright center. And we're learning, and we're leaning in we're leaning in deeply into our work of supporting playwrights and theater makers their work, their lives, their entire personage. And it remains at the forefront of all we do but of course, this period of time has us continuing to think very deeply about the opportunity that's in front of us right now. That is theater artists. The idea of change and reinvention is part of our DNA it's a natural piece of any artistic process. And even more so we're seeing this opportunity as a time where I hope we are and we will continue to look to our individual artists our freelance artists are brilliant expressive thinkers and storytellers who continue to demonstrate their leadership in myriad ways. What historians would offer and I was reading a thing about it the other day that there have been some post crisis periods where true recreation to reimagine has happened more quickly and more deeply than it would have otherwise. And I believe that about this moment I've been part of many of those conversations in the last number of months already. And one versus the attempt to go back to the way it was, could very well have us ending up in a vacuum of reaching for something that no longer exists and no longer works. So tonight, I really want all of us to share and talk about this necessary change and about new models, I put an exclamation point in my thought on it new models. It sounds like such a nonprofit phrase but I really mean it I'm really excited to hear from all of you about what's been working and what you're dreaming about. So let's start with the player it's in the panel. Can the three of you maybe talk just briefly about either your current or past relationship or residency that you're in or that you've done, and what did you learn from that collaboration that you want to take forward in your work, and into maybe other professional situations. Pearl, can we start with you. I, I was very fortunate to be one of the first of the cohorts of the melon grant, which I still think is such a progressive wonderful idea to embed playwrights in an American theater, because playwrights tend to go in for rehearsal and we stay for the opening night and then we go. This idea of embedding playwrights in a theater so that you're there every day so that you're there as a senior staff member so that you can really be a part of the, the life of that theater I think is such an important idea, and it's so important because a lot of this work that we do begins with a script written by a playwright, so that if you have a playwright around all the time, talking about everything that goes on and that's that theater I don't think it can help but be a good thing. The experience at the Alliance was absolutely wonderful continues to be wonderful after the our two sessions with the melon grant concluded. They offered to have me stay at the Alliance as distinguished in residence, which I was very honored and pleased to do so that I think that those those playwrights all have different stories about how their cohort went about how their relationships with the theater went but for me it was a very. It was a perfect time to do it and it allowed me to do all kinds of work and establish all kinds of collaborative relationships that I don't think I would. And Vera where are you in your residency with perseverance and how's that going so far. I'm in the fourth year. So the sort of just finished the first year of the second cohort, we have fun we're trying to figure out what year I'm in for four years in. And it's been. I mean career changing to be able to just be a writer and that's my job versus sort of trying to find the next job and the next job. So the very first play that I did a perseverance before being in this residency, I didn't actually realize how unusual it was for me to just hang around when you say like, they go after opening night. I hung around the audience. And last Thursday is my mentor and mentored on that play and directed that play gave me the advice to watch the audience. And I, every night I went to just about every performance. And I got a lot of comments about you're still here. You know, it was good like I'm glad you're still here but it was like what do they think I'm going to do this is my story. I'm going to see this through. And I did that, you know this last production and that's just what I'm going to do at the same time. You know I wasn't being paid to be there I was just there. I hung out every every show how it's changed to be sort of, that's my job now and that's part of it has been night and day from that first experience with perseverance to this past fall, three and a half years was a lot more confident in what I was able to ask of the theater. And what we're talking about as far as like relationships with the theater to be able to have the confidence to say, I really think this is important for my play and in some cases I expect this to happen with my play. There's an awful lot of agency that I had that wouldn't ordinarily be there. And to present his credit they tried to make all of those things happen. And what couldn't happen was pretty tough anyways. So it's, I do believe my presence there has changed it because of the relationships of artists that we've been able to work and that work in those productions and indigenize theater. And it's changed me a lot and just honestly giving me both confidence and the security to be able to say these things without being worried that they're not going to work with me again. They have to work with me. And they want to work with me obviously but yeah there's, it's, it's been a pretty cool experience and I am starting to understand how unusual it is in the sort of playwright theater experience. I have a follow up question but I'm going to hold it for a second because I want to ask all three of you Harrison can you share a little bit about. A little bit about Latida because Alyssa's here but you can also feel free to talk about other kind of either residency as I know you at Williamstown and other places where you've spent some real time as a playwright. Sure. I think since I started writing it's always been really important to me to find my people that sort of been central to my creative process is finding the people who believe in me and my voice, who are advocates for me who makes space for me. A space for me to dream, to imagine and to sort of push me forward, who don't let me sit on my laurels but are always sort of inquiring and asking and pushing. And when I first moved to the Twin Cities in 2014, one of the first emails that I sent was to Peter Rothstein at Theater Latida. I am very interested in musical theater and I had heard that he was making beautiful musical theater at Theater Latida and I wanted in. Frankly, I wanted in. So I said I want in. And I was very fortunate. I think a year after I arrived and sent that email. I think I was very fortunate to be able to be able to work shopping a musical theater Latida and have gone on to have two productions there. And I think Alyssa can sort of speak to what Latida is doing in their upcoming season, which I think is really exciting. But I've been commissioned to sort of develop two projects in the season and lieu of production but sort of moving things forward and allowing audiences access to the process. Back to my first point about finding your people. I feel like Theater Latida is certainly a home in the Twin Cities. I think along with Nambra along with the Playwright Center for me like there are good people at all of those institutions who are pushing me forward and I, I feel really fortunate to be able to create work with people who I think make me a better human being, a better thinker, a better writer, a better artist. And yeah, so I'm really excited about what's to come. I'm going to ask the follow up question and Pearl you spent so much time and because you're there now too I'm so curious to hear in Atlanta what's happening but you've been talking about the relationship between you as an artist use a playwright and the theater, the theater maybe sort of the internal part. I'm curious and Vera it was when you were talking it was making me think about it. Are there your experiences where you've connected with audiences where someone has said oh my God I love this play and you're like oh I'm actually the playwright or they had questions or or that your presence being there unlocked something for them because you were there in the audience or in discussion. Are you asking me. Yeah, all the time, but I love that I mean I think that's the, you know that's the fun of being there night after night that's, you know I understand exactly because I'm always there I always sit in the same seat near the back. So that if it doesn't go well I can slip out no one knows I was there. It's, I think it's a wonderful way for people to begin to talk to a living playwright you know talk to the writer. They've just seen your play they want to tell you something about that play. Either critiqued for you, but more often, they want to tell you that they saw something about themselves in that play, which is wonderful. And then they will tell you the story you know I would have played with the grandmother resonated with a lot of people and they would come to me and say oh my God that that reminded me of my own grandmother, and then I would say, isn't it wonderful. All grandmothers are the same they all get the same advice in your granddaughters, and then they would start to tell me about what their grandmother told them. So that I think that the, the idea that people can't enjoy a story about someone who was not exactly like them. It's just a myth, and it's not true at all. I think if you know people find a story where they believe the other human beings are really human beings. They'll always be able to find something of themselves in that story and I think people want that. That's what I want. When I go to the theater I want to find something where I can say, yes, I resonate with that as a human being, not necessarily that every show has to be written by a black woman starring a black woman all of that. But what I want is something I can believe, something that is a real person grounded in a reality that I recognize, and then I'm good. I don't care what their specifics are, you know, convince me, and then take me somewhere. And I grew up doing it, you know, where you, you learn to read other people's stories. And I think the problem comes in people who have been privileged all their lives and have only read stories about themselves written by themselves for themselves about themselves it comes as a shock to realize that they can also find themselves and other people's stories but usually it's a good shock, like, wow, this is great. All grandmother's are the same. And I think that's wonderful. I'm curious for you. What did it mean or what was even the progression of you being in the audience in terms of you connecting with people or just you being there and what that meant about people feeling like, yeah I can be in this space this is my space to be in a really different experience from that first plate. Some of that first plate. It was about this is my story and I want to see it through it was literally sort of this fictional biography of my experience when my childhood, childhood sexual abuse was started by my mother. And it was very heavy story and we had counselors there at every single performance to make sure you know that brought stuff up for the audience they were there. So there was part of that almost responsibility of feeling like I should be there. I do have training and adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse I wanted to be there. And like, initially I was prepared for that. And honestly I was prepared for some anger. The story is about how members of the family in the community. Really ostracized. So it's really very nervous about what would happen from that play. And for being so afraid and being so nervous and apprehensive and wanting to sort of be there to justify it. Absolutely. And I'm going to get emotional just thinking about it the just love that came out of the audience every single night. A lot of silence. There's a lot of just sort of quiet contemplation with spoke very loudly to me. But an awful lot of gratitude. Yes, which is nice when you're so nervous, but the most profound thing was, they came out of it saying telling about their own stories. And almost nobody came out of there talking about my story. They all came out of that, just spilling what they had never spoken before. And that was one of the most memorable things all their experience, which is what drove me to go again and again. And it said an awful lot about this very specific cultural family story I was telling how universal it felt to them and spoke to their, their stories to now bring it to the most recent production. I have so many native people, especially clinic people comment about the love of culture, which is really this, that whole play was a gift to the clinic culture that I love. And I was wanting to see that I was not expecting to see the primarily white audience come out and feel like they had experienced the culture, which was also a wonderful thing, and talk about it and ask me questions about it. Very different experiences I didn't get a lot of questions. The first one I got a lot of, here's my story. The second one it was, tell me more. So both of those so different and yet gratifying in their own ways. And it did change their experience of the play being able to take talk to the playwright, the storyteller. And in our culture, it's just a storyteller to be able to tell, talk to the storyteller about maybe what they meant by it or what was intended there, but more often than not what they got from it. Almost, almost always it was what they got from it, which I love to hear. It's amazing. It does. It's that it that to to him to embed an artist to a multiple artists at the center of your work really is there's just there's this unending well of possible conversation and experience and exchange and those are the things that you know Leslie was when Leslie got on the call early we were saying oh we miss you we will just want to hug everyone like you know probably all want to hug everyone. And the other piece of that too is, you know, I think there is this desire obviously there's this desire for connection that, and an experience like that that is so visceral and so somatic and away in their own bodies. Feels like wow to have the storyteller right there with them that's that's everything. I'm going to move to you for a sec and ask kind of what's your experience been in terms of engaging with writers and either more of a residency way or a longer term engagement at theaters and in your process as well maybe Leslie would you mind sharing first. Well, thank you so much Jeremy and thank you to how around and in the playwright Center for having me as a guest on this panel. And I'll share that in my background you see I'm on clink it on me of the Aqquan and talk upon people also noted as Juno Alaska so I'm, I'm moving in from Juno. Gosh, what comes to mind is I'm going to speak from the point of view as a woman of color, as Japanese heritage fourth generation in this country, and I'm a descendant of great grandparents grandparents and parents who were incarcerated during World War two. So I come from a history of activism and community building. That's just in my DNA about how we recovered and what happens now with the learnings that I have from that historical trauma. And what comes to mind is every opportunity is so key. When I was doing my directing assistantships at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, there was yellow face, and they were just starting into that initiative around equity diversity and inclusion. And so, gratefully they listened they leaned in and listened, and there were other instances, and I'm being an activist I just wanted to tell them that, you know, in a good dialogue, and that what that brought was over the course of two years of assistantships and actual residency for playwrights of the Pan-Asian, Middle Eastern, North African and Native indigenous from our diaspora. It's called API two by two to playwrights two plays, and Maudrey Shaker and Susan Stanton were the first candidates. They told me that to support them give them even spaces just it's just a week long, but to bring them there have that exposure, and then be able to put that on the resume. Now granted if they didn't come their fabulous writers they would have gone on and they're having wonderful careers, but I just wonder having Oregon Shakespeare Festival as having had a residence there. They started getting produced almost right away. You wonder right that that opportunity to have to be in a place that's really visible. Bill Ross was starting to shift it to do more new work in addition to Shakespeare, and to to open up. What is the Canon is it just the Western European can is it just Shakespeare's Canon, or can we start to build in what they were also calling the American Revolutionary. That initiative that long initiative is still going. What does it mean to give those voices the opportunity where there's resource. How can we share a resource so that to me that that championing of a playwrights from my own community was everything, and then have the great honor and fortune to be of service here in the artistic directorship but perseverance theater. I cannot imagine and I'll get emotional. I can't imagine they're not being here. First of all she's another BIPOC human artist with me in this theater that's historically white. You know, and as we shift that culture, and we're really working to do that. To what I call decolonize indigenized in order to liberate those spaces and and to liberate. I believe in liberation for all her being with us on staff is critical. It could not be happening the way it is as thoughtfully as deeply even as quickly. So that's been powerful. And I think she's been her presence, who she is and her writings have absolutely impacted this theater, who we are and our ability even to persevere through these times now. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, for the brilliant artists at the center of your work and there you go. Thank you for your power so she's in many meetings I want to make time for her to write for always like, you got to write you got to write, but we, I feel like gone and maybe again I'm coming from my lens my point of view. I think, for me, gone are the days when an artistic director throws up a season that they slate and supposedly they, you know, consulted with their staffer with other artists and community, but they often make the final decision. It's a very collective decision. So gone are the days where you throw up a scene or a slate of plays for the season and make everybody else scramble to make meaning, find money for it, burn out trying to, you know, market it and, and even produce it. We look at the slots. We look at is that lining up well time wise timing through the months of that season. So and I know that's maybe your next question but. But yeah, there isn't everyone in all those conversations with us. I can't think I couldn't imagine it without her. Yeah. Alyssa, you have been in you've worked in so many different theaters and so many different theater spaces but always surrounded by playwrights. And I'm wondering kind of what if you experienced versus as going back to what Pearl was talking about originally around sort of having those drop in moments when you're on a production or especially in a new play when everything is so, you know, high octane versus being able to really dig in and have a longer engagement and relationship. What have you, what have you learned. You know, I've. In the course of my career that has really been focused on, I think, bringing new work and playwrights into theaters. So lovely to hear that this that the that the melon playwright and residence program continues to create these amazing relationships and laid groundwork for ongoing things like Pearl's relationship with the Alliance. I oversaw, I think several rounds of melon playwright and residence opportunities and they were, they were wonderful. I will say specifically to latte does relationship with Harrison is that I think it's, it's worth noting that that's it. It actually it's not funded by an outside residency. It's really a relationship that began and continues because of a real appreciation for Harrison and his work, and that Harrison has continued to make it a home base in St. Paul, a home base. And the opportunity to sort of have that relationship grow. You know, it's now at the point where Harrison will say I have an idea for something, or here's the first draft of a new work does it like, you know, something that Latte doll would be interested in. And we also have ideas that we will say hey we're thinking about this and Harrison would you like to get involved and be the writer on board so it's the organic thickness of how that relationship has has happened has felt really special. Thinking about Vera and Harrison and Pearl when you guys were talking about your relationships of being in the being in the space with audiences. I was thinking, kind of from the producer side of that. I feel so often like audiences fall in love with actors, right they have favorite actors that they want to come back and see. And of course because those are the people that they get to see, usually over time in different roles in different iterations they get to learn different sides of that actor and establish a kind of sense of connection and I think even kind of pride and ownership about how they come to know that actor as an artist. And I have watched our audience our board, the other actor, the other artists, like feel that way about Harrison, like you see oh this is this is a musical that Harrison wrote and then here's a beautiful love story that Harrison wrote and then here's a historical that Harrison's working on and so to watch people kind of begin to have that sort of ongoing and multifaceted relationship with a playwright. And in the way that I think it most often happens with actors and audiences has been really extraordinary and and feels very, very much a part now of sort of who Latte Da is. I'm so a question that I get asked a lot is so like what's so great about playwrights this is mostly from non theater people theater people don't ask me to play a person who runs a place called the playwrights and are what's so great about playwrights. So theater people are like, God you've really just spent like 25 years just hanging out with them they must be really like, I, and I like well tell me about a play you love and they'll tell me a play and I'll be like, right so that happened because that person told me and that story came from their heart and their mind and their body and their lived experience or some combination and on and on and so I really go back I think Vera to you said during this idea of storytellers it's actually kind of what we talk about more. And we're having a lot of questioning about the word playwright even right now at a place to the playwright center just because, you know, we are thinking constantly about what, what is more porous what allows more people into space and what are things that are perceptions that keep people out. I think we're really looking at the constructs of all of that but so let's talk about storytellers for a moment then. And I think I'm curious for all of you. And maybe Pearl if you would kick us off with this question but I'm curious what you think makes playwrights as Alyssa was saying differently than actors. The playwright position uniquely qualified to help us re-envision and see our field forward in a time of great shift that we're in right now. I know for me personally storytellers obviously have this incredible skill and ability to create context to lay out beautiful poetry to tell that maybe many audiences Vera as you were talking about or Leslie you were talking about haven't seen before. This might be the first time that they're being brought into space and context. And I think we need those dreamers and philosophers and poets right now. My gosh in this world. My gosh more than ever. I'm curious for the five of you so maybe Pearl you'll kick us off and what are your thoughts on how playwrights can be powerful on their own in their writing. But also in this moment when you're an artist where you're seeing all these theaters really shake and tremble right now. And the future is still kind of uncertain. How can playwrights be really powerful in relation to producing theaters right now. You know I think that a playwright is always dealing with ideas. You know what is this world I'm writing about what is my idea about the world and about how I think people should get along with each other in the world. And it's a I think it's a very different kind of questioning that you have to do as a writer, then you have to do as an actor and I love actors I admire actors so I don't mean it's a more important past that we have. I mean it's a different thing because what you're doing when you write a script is starting with an idea. What do I think about something. So of course you're you're going to come back to how do I feel about it. I think the idea of looking at something and figuring out the world that it's in is part and parcel of what playwrights do. So that I think that the, you know when you look at who used to start theater companies and I know this is true in the African American community. It would usually be a charismatic playwright and a charismatic opinionated director, and they would drive each other crazy and they would write shows and they would do shows and, but it was because they were talking about ideas. What do you think about this, what do you think about this so they would have mighty feuds and all that, because somebody had a different idea about what to do. And I think we lose that when we're only talking about money. How much did the show make, how much does the show need to make on every ticket in order to keep this giant building with an air condition, so that I think that when we get away from people are doing about the ideas and sitting up late at night drinking wine and talking about ideas, then you end up talking about audience development and grant applications and money. And I think talking about money, although it's really necessary, especially when you're running a great big theater. And even when you're running a small theater, which I used to do. It's a different discussion than the discussion about why are we doing this. You know what do we think is important about telling a story. You know, when people ask me do you think theater is going to go away and I say of course not. You know, we are like the ancient art form where as soon as people could make a campfire we made that campfire. And then we all sit around it in the dark and tell each other stories I mean what a, what a great way to come through history. And now we have big theaters and we have big lighting plots and all that, but we're still doing the same thing. We're in the dark in community, listen to somebody tell us the stories of who we are and how we act, and what it looks like when we're wonderful and heroic, and what it looks like when we're horrible and we lie and we do bad things, because all of those things make us feel more alive, more human. And I think that's the thing that playwrights have to bring. What is it that brings people into the theater the idea translated to the characters. So you got to have them. The question of what makes playwrights so important if you know it almost made me feel snippy like, What do you mean what makes it so important. And I think of those discussions I've had where people say we know the plays really written in the rehearsal hall. No, it is not the collaboration takes place in the, in the rehearsal hall. People become a family who tells that story, but that story has to take place in the, in the playwrights idea. And then it becomes something you can collaborate with which you got to start somewhere. And I think it starts with the right. Can I, can I offer up a very immediate and somewhat personal response to that, which is, we're here in Minneapolis, where George Floyd was murdered on Memorial Day. And Harrison. Last fall, a play of his called broadband Arkansas. That's about musical that's about three generations of a black family dealing with violence at the hands of the police. And that's about the transport group in New York. And I went to see it because it was Harrison, and I loved it I thought it was an amazing production, and it's written as three very interesting to excuse me very interesting musical monologues. It was composed by Ted Shen. And as Harrison can tell you I, I, I cried during the show. But at the time, I remember having a very, a primarily kind of producerial and I guess aesthetic response to it, which was, I remember sitting there and thinking, this is a beautiful play that feels kind of experimental in the way that it is exploring musical theater. This is certainly topical, it's beautifully done. I would, I think it would resonate for audiences in Minneapolis. So we began a conversation with Harrison and Ted Shen about producing it in our upcoming season and we were scheduling it and we were budgeting it and we were doing all of those institutional things around this play. So, then I'm sitting here in Minneapolis on the morning after Memorial Day and George Floyd has been killed. I think the first thing I did that morning is that I picked up a copy of Broadbent and I read it, because I needed in that moment, I needed Harrison's voice, I needed to connect with those characters. An individual artist's, a storyteller's grounding in what was exploding around us. And for me that ability to, that's why playwrights matter because in those moments when the world is a little bit larger than we can comprehend it. It is, it is those stories that, that ground me and I know would ground our audiences, but it was such a specific like I need Harrison's voice, I need that play at this moment, I need to touch base with those characters to help me through this very specific moment. Thank you for sharing that. Other friends. Well Leslie you shared a little bit about Vera but I'm Vera I'm curious maybe to hear the, the reverse from you. It's been, it's been great hearing both your experience but also Leslie you saying this is what it means to me it's invaluable I can't imagine being in this position and this collective at that theater right now without Vera's voice and experience in the middle of it. And like for you Vera like what do you what do you feel like you've been, I know how it's changed you writing wise because you were sharing it but I'm curious you, you artist Vera you whole person you lived experience Vera. How has that shifted you. I think I'm actually even with what pro was saying and Leslie was saying what's interesting about specifically the clinic culture. I'll ask a native. Most Alaska Native cultures have sort of released their values and this kind of these list of values. What's funny is, with most of it starts with like respect or compassion. The very first thing that is on the, the clinic list is responsibility to plan, and then you go to obedience to protocol. It's a very. It's, it's pretty strict. Interesting level of responsibility there. And that's honestly what I first think of whether it's to the theater and that responsibility to represent the theater well as I represent my clan well as I represent clinkets well. I go through a lot of like EDI and racial equity trainings and these can they emphasize not to feel the need to represent all native people are all people of color, and that is true you should not expect anyone to represent everybody. But we're very trained to do that. That is a pretty core part of the clinic culture to represent who you're speaking for who you work for who you were taught by. I was very young when my grandma told me, you're the only clinket person anyone's ever met act like it. That is such a core part of who I am and representing my art. It's not my art. It's my clan's art, because I'm speaking for all of them it's clinkett art now it's Alaska native art. It's the only experience you know whenever has with clinkett art. Take it seriously, and there's that sense of responsibility with the theater. It's sometimes a heavy responsibility or an exhausting responsibility. It's great when there are more Alaska native staff, Alaska native people there clinkett people there. And I think with what's currently going on both with the theater, but also just as an artist as a person. I feel that responsibility. One of my first sort of things out of the gate I've been doing these 10 minute short plays a stream on. And before George Floyd I was sort of booked for the Juneteenth date, and I was like, okay, no pressure. And really thought about even saying like, I don't know if this is appropriate for in this moment of all times to be taking that spot but really feel the responsibility of examining my own feelings in that art has always been the strength I see with audience connecting with it when I sort of go super specific. So it was examining native and specifically Alaska native people. And our sort of responsibility toward the black community. And that was sort of the sort of responsibility I felt to put out there. And a lot of it from Alaska native people, not because we weren't doing it because we're just a very small community in a very big world. So it was responsibility to sort of keeps coming on and on again. And that's what I feel toward the theater today we actually was interesting we're talking about this. Just today we're going over whether we even have my play at a certain time. And that's the responsible thing to do for a native play, not for my art, but for a native play at this time. Do we have the budget to do that service will it look bad for native people if this is not done well and that sucks. Honestly, that that has to be part of the discussion, but I take that very seriously is part of the discussion it should be until that's not true anymore. I'm going to just pause us for one quick second folks who are tuning in and watching. This would be a great time to start getting your questions in and we're already starting to get some questions in which is awesome. So, then, again, you can type it into the comments on Facebook on the live stream if that's how you're watching it. Or if you want to email your questions you can email them to questions at PW center, like playwright center.org questions at PW center.org. And then we'll start queuing them up as is happening already. Leslie and Harrison I just want to make sure you all get a chance to chime in as well on this question. I'll go. Thank you so much Leslie. So, I'm going to sort of go back I think the original question was something about like playwrights and their superpowers. So I will speak to superpowers. I started writing plays because I heard voices and I didn't know where they were coming from. And I called my mother, and she said why don't you write down what they're saying to you. So I wrote them down and it became my first full length play, and I do feel like something that I feel strongly about as like a particular skill and I think a skill that many of my playwright friends and colleagues have is the ability to listen. And I do think that sometimes in this very busy, very loud, very chaotic world. We need people who can sit back and take it all in and process it, and then report back to the world. This is what I heard this is what I saw sitting back there in the corner you thought I wasn't in it you thought I wasn't paying attention but actually, this is this is where we are. And like, if we don't like where we are then we collectively need to do something about that. So I think that my superpower and a playwright superpower is this ability to listen and synthesize and report back. And I think that that's a really important process, especially when the world is turned upside down. And, and like what's left what's right. I think that it's important to have some people who can say, Here's what I saw. Here's what I hear. If we don't like it, then let's work together to change it. Say how much I admire her and since mother that was such a great answer to your job. I just have big respect to your mom for that answer. Excuse me. I'm just like, I mean, Leslie, what are your thoughts and remind me questions that why we love playwrights and I think how are you in this moment, you know, how, how are you finding it. We've heard from you a little bit about why it's so critical to have Vera sort of there and what her voice and thoughts have meant. But I guess just a little bit about, you know, that is unique. Yes, as Harrison said, what's the superpower that you've seen and it doesn't even have to be a perseverance. It can be in any of the places you for. Such a good question. It seems like a simple question there. Simple answer but it is multifaceted for me. Okay, first of all, I'm so grateful to melon for renewing various, you know, her residency because that supported her to be in this new chapter with us at perseverance where I get the opportunity to to actually experience her being on staff and being with us like you said it's not an episodic. Just come in, be in some rehearsals and hopefully show up and you know we can bring you for opening and then you're gone. But I would I love and I think the superpower is and it may be from my own research to from listening to Japanese American psychologists that are deeply invested and spent their careers as like around historical trauma for our people. And one of the things that really occurred to me was, I heard satsuki in a leading psychologist in the Japanese community, talk about DNA. Now we know so much more about DNA, but hooked to that is DNA messaging. So messages come from time, you know, all the way through your your lineage. And so now I'm starting to have this new sort of look at it that I think playwright storytellers you were saying opening that up storytellers from all the different ways we tell stories cultural traditions. You know how we tell stories can be through movement spoken music dance it can be many many ways we tell stories and in any combination. We believe they share the DNA messaging in their stories, and therefore we're getting the wisdom of our ancestors. And it could be through the dysfunction that we stopped to heal from internalized whatever you know, but it also could be the wisdom of, don't do that again, you know we know that didn't work for our survival. So I really believe it's really that really shifted healing my own historical trauma shifted how I look at storytelling, and where and how those those storytellers channel, you know, even a process their own healing process their own lived experience, and where all the influences come from, but I really think there's something in there about how that DNA messaging is influencing and informing the wisdom that comes from those stories. And that's been profound because I really feel Vera does that. She's even just mentioned how she honors our ancestors and the values, but I feel, I feel that I'm Vera, and the way that playwrights help us like someone mentioned how we experienced their culture, the culture of the storytelling that they're sharing with us, and how we actually create the environment for that to come through. I do feel that experiencing the culture and I think this is becoming. I haven't really talked to you yet for everything musing on them. I really think that's becoming a strong feature of your work people go away feeling that they experienced the clinic culture, and the way she's figuring out how to engage an audience. They're not passive. They're actually feel like they're a part of a ceremony, or a part of what's actually happening. And I wonder if that is informed by the DNA of your ancestors, and how you so generously share wisdom. And I would say to that, especially again coming from my own diaspora. I think there's something about the fact that what's a superpower for storytellers is they're making sure whether conscious or unconscious that we prevent erasure, or they're helping us recover from erasure. So those stories that come through are critical, because they help us actually learn and learn the real what Yuri Kochiyama, my one of my mentors in activism who work with Malcolm X he said, be a bridge builder. So the storytellers are the bridge builders are helping us remember and know that. And she used to say, learn the true history. And I believe the storytellers are helping us learn our true history. You know, so so that's I think a real superpower. Those are real important superpowers that they bring and even more so as we get more inclusive and equitable. That is going to be allowed the space for that to happen is it needs to happen it's justice for it to happen but it also means for going forward look at coven and what what what the uprisings are bringing. I think that to have a way it's our mandate now to make sure it happens. It's beautiful. Thank you I, I'm, I want to not synthesize but I, but I'm hearing all of that and I, that was exactly why I asked the question is, I'm curious about, you know, as we're in this moment where theaters are closed, or there, the buildings are closed. What can we be doing what can we be working on to get to these exact kinds of actions how can we get back to Pearls stories or Pearl leading a discussion or Pearl, or Vera sitting with folks and saying something's not right about this and I want to take some time and walk on it and come back and bring that to the group or, you know, how Harrison goes from one space to another, and brings with him hard work and joy, and the rigorous questions of his mom. I think it's really really really incredibly unique. And I think we, we've always needed it. And we really. I'm part of a series of conversations and discussions right now that are very much about reinvention that are very much like it is amazing to me for all of the years that I've watched same same same or same. Let's just call it same it's obviously kind of the same and even if it's not really the same, same, same, same. I'm just watching things fall like that right now. I'm well I'm, I'm sad and grieving for the loss that is real loss and I'm also. I'm really hopeful, I'm really hopeful that that that the pearls and beers and Harrison's of the world that the Alyssa's and Leslie's of the world are going to be the people whose voice are going to carry us forward. I'm going to go to our first question this is coming in from Abraham hi Abraham. This is clearly a time of massive transition in the theater world, especially for early career playwrights trying to find their footing. So, what can any of you recommend what can early career playwrights be doing during this time to foster healthy relationships with institutions. What would be helpful playwrights what are you doing artists leaders what are you, what are you, what are you, what feels helpful to you. I would say, I don't necessarily know what's what you should be doing it to tell you what I am doing. And honestly, it's just everything. I'm saying yes to so many things right now part of it is that feeling of responsibility of. There are a lot of creators who don't feel they can create right now and that's incredibly legit we're in this pretty traumatic time and people are still going through trauma. I, I process trauma by creating, fortunately for me. So that's so I'm sort of, I'm saying yes to teaching I'm saying yes to writing. I've never written a zoom play before but I've now written several of them. I am fortunate and privileged enough honestly to be working in animation also right now which is primarily still in, but on the theater landscape, we, I mean most of today was spent talking about what that means, and how I can still be creating art that goes to the public through a season that probably won't be happening in person. I have possibly overextended myself with realizing that this week that there probably should be a few more knows. But it's as an early career playwright, I'm sort of well established more in journalism and I actually wrote a novel way before I ever plays. But playwriting I still am definitely more early. It's still at a say yes to anything that looks pretty cool and fun and that I can put my passion into. I will say I don't know where I fall personally in the sort of early emerging I have no idea where I'm at, but I will say something that has always been beneficial to me is to find ways to reach out to individuals and talk with them. I feel like I would not be where I am now, if I hadn't said, hey, can we have a coffee, which you can't really do now, but you can zoom you can call there before so they can't really maybe say no to you. But I mean find find ways to sort of reach out whether it's via Facebook or Instagram, the people who you respect and whose work you love and who you want to know more about and who might have some kernels of wisdom for you or or just stories of the things that they've done and the people they've met and the things that are keeping them going that that that personal reach out and I've always been blown away by the generosity of those who have gone before me those who are, you know, ahead of me in the journey and so I would encourage you to to reach out and say, Hello, this is who I am and I'd love to to talk with you. I'm going to move on to another question. This is a question coming in from Zan. I've been asked speaking of erasure and storytelling. How do you all feel on the panel about the eraser going on in this country of the monuments being taken down or stored and facts being taken out of history. Interesting. So maybe this question is partially about. In a moment where so much change and necessary changes needing to happen how do you as storytellers reckon with as some of you had talked about sort of painful history versus other versions and how do you how do you reckon with that in your storytelling. I actually wrote this. I wrote this Facebook post that kind of went like Alaska viral, which isn't viral. We have our own little, a little Facebook community up here but it got huge really fast. Obviously a lot of opinions on it specifically about some statues around here that portray people who have enslaved Alaska Native people who have committed genocide, who have sort of brought in the white supremacy attitude, and we name everything after them we named streets we name communities whole communities. Our whole this, we call it to continue this inlet that we're on. It's still called to continue. But most people know it is in like Captain Cook. This is symbols matter. They just matter. It's not fair if they didn't matter to who put them up. In fact, an awful lot of the most contentious ones. The kind of funny part is people are acting like the ones up here are put up by like Michelangelo or something like the 80s by oil companies, some of these. And that reason, and this can go on a whole long conversation. The bottom line is it's, they were put up to support and claim white supremacy for this spot, this land, this community in different ways and glorify that glorify what they did, which was kill and enslave and rape our people. So, I don't know if the question actually that's being asked is about the statues, being the facts that are taken out of history. The statues themselves are literally monuments to facts being taken out of history. These are put up there as false facts, fake news. An awful lot of what those statues represent are fake news. They represent this glorified person that didn't exist. We're just portraying a false narrative by continuing that and we're erasing the history that was here. We are naming Cook inland and putting a statue up of Captain Cook over a body of water that had a name for 10,000 years, which spoke to the land, which described it. It was not claimed by it. Captain Cook literally didn't even get off the boat here. And we've named so much after him. The facts being taken out of history to me are the false facts. And the discussion around these histories now is wonderful. The fact that so many people are talking about Captain Cook and what he did or did not do. People had no idea. We are creating history right now by taking down these statues. We are creating history and informing that history and educating on that history, much more than sort of sticking a statue up there to claim this land. So I want to step back. Go see my Facebook posts. Facebook group. I wanted the group. That's all right. Erasing the erasure. I love that. I love that. It's so important what you said because when people say, you know, you're erasing the history and you're erasing the history, and it's, I just agree a thousand percent with what you said, what we're doing is correcting a false narrative that has gone forward. We're not saying let's take down these Confederate statues and then the wonderful history will be gone. You know, it's saying, no, we want to talk about what really happened. We want to look at who we really admire in terms of being really a great American human being. Who do we really admire but I think that's so important to always say we're not erasing anything. What we're doing is bringing forward the real history of what happened and it's so present. I mean I live in Georgia every morning I walk my dog in a park that was a big Confederate battle site. It's a whole black neighborhood. So we're walking there and it talks about, you know, how they, they took some of the people held in bondage and made them help create the battlements and all of that. So the history is very present, but it has to be told in the correct way and you can't say, no, we can't talk about that part of who Jefferson was. I think that was a wonderful love affair with Sally Hemings, you know, because it makes it easier for us to admire him. And it's like, no, we have to tell the truth. I think that's the whole idea is that we always have to tell the truth and shaping the narrative one way or the other is wrong, because what we're trying to get to is the truth. What actually happened. Who did what who said what, and what was the outcome of all that but you got to start with the truth not the shading of that narrative to make your group look better. And our groups look horrible. So then that has to be part of the story that we tell this moment this moment. It does feel to me Pearl like I was in a conversation this morning with someone and in another country and they were saying what does it feel like in the United States and they said there's millions of different experiences of what it feels like to be in this country. And right now and there has been for decades and centuries and centuries and centuries but what it what it feels like to me is partially that as sort of we're talking about what there is an unwillingness to translate and subsidize the emotional and historical pain and trauma that this country is built on in all of its different moments, any longer, like we're not going to use any euphemism for it. We're not going to. We're not going to know it's not cook this and cook that no. Nope. And when, when, gratefully the name of the lake that I live by was changed back to bed a maca ska and removed the name of the lake when I moved here. It's a it's a really different thing and it gives what a what how powerful it has been for so many different people and who've lived so many different lives to actually do the work that should have been done all along which is to speak its name and not speak a false name and and keep the blanket on that our work is to remove a blanket as much as anything else and get our head out of the sand. This country has done that long enough. I think one of the really wonderful things is that we begin to see when we talk about different groups in this country that our own group is not the only group that was ever oppressed, you know that we have to talk about there were so many different kinds of people during the history of our country for so many different reasons. But once we all start hearing the stories we can realize that all of our stories about oppression are part of what makes this narrative and who was oppressing who who named that monument who held those people in bondage and why you know what did they do because if you really start talking about the history of the country, you'll start talking about economics you know you'll start talking about class you'll start talking about all the things that as long as we and I'm in Georgia again so that's what I'm saying, as long as we are stuck only talking about black and white. That's all we'll ever talk about as to say, as opposed to saying, let's talk about internment camps let's talk about captain cook let's talk about all the different ways that people have been oppressed and how we can share those histories we can talk about Stonewall we can talk about how people use their experience as part of oppressed communities to get freer. What did that one do what did this one do and compare notes until we can all say this works let's do this. That's all vote for good people who never lied to us. You know that works let's see how that does let's have public education where people actually teach everybody how to read that works. Let's do that, but we have to realize we're all trying to do the same thing which is wrap our minds around a very blood so history in this country that we live in and figure out how we can take that blood so history tell the truth about it, and then move forward. Okay, you tell the truth about it. It's right there, that blood is right there, and it's not going anywhere the truth is the thing that begins to allow us to see each other, you know as part of one community one nation, all those things. There's a question that's come in that feels like my instinct was like, Oh, no this isn't the right moment for that question but I'm going to ask it anyway because I always think it's the right moment. I want to talk about joy for a second. Thank you. We talked about I think you're, you know others were talking about it's hard to think about how to create right now. And because we don't know what this whole thing's going to look like on the other side of it yet. We don't know. And so I'm curious about there's a question there's actually sort of a second question embedded in another question that is about how are you finding joy right now as theater artists? How are you sharing joy how are you finding it personally. And what does that joy look like in this career in this life in this in this approach. Alyssa how are you finding joy. I think I will try to address that, maybe a little bit tied to what just came before which is, I, you know, I was. Artists have artists and maybe writers in particular, not just in theater but in all mediums like that's that has what that is what artists have done through time right is to to uncover the the hidden histories and narratives and and present them and dig for that truth. It's not. So it's, it's interesting because in some ways, and I don't want this to sound naive because it's it's livelihoods and it's rent and it's purpose and communication and all of those things that I think everybody's are the very real things that people are struggling with when theater is shut down. But I think for me there is, there is a, the joy has not completely gone away, because I get to live in a space with artists who have always done that work and continue to do that work. And so there's a, I think there's a continuity for those of us who get to be around artists that that storytelling has always been done and is continuing to be done. And I think camp won't stop being done. Um, so I guess that has kept joy for me is being able to, you know, continue to talk and read and dream with with artists others joy, or inspiration or hope or I think growing up in an activist family, one of the things that my parents used to always say is that you have to find joy in the struggle, because we're going to be involved in the struggle, we're going to be involved in freedom struggle from now until we're free. And we don't know if that's going to be in our lifetime or when, but we have to find joy in the very act of struggle because that act is seeking the truth standing up, learning how to be free, getting other people together so that there is a great joy in claiming your own humanity, claiming the fullness of who you are and who you can be. And I think that at moments like this, when there are so many forces arrayed against people who are trying to tell the truth. We're trying to keep back that truth and keep back that growing sense of community and and righteous anger about things. I think at that moment, there is a real exhilaration and saying, I'm going to be part of that. I'm going to march if I'm if I got good needs and I can still march I'm going to write if I can still do that. I'm going to do theater and people's driveways I mean I'm a 60s child. So we used to do theater anywhere. We used to drive people crazy you know you drive up a bunch of kids in front of a pool room because we were going to bring the revolution to the pool room and they were like, we are trying to gamble and drink some beer would you please leave this area, but we were, we were excited we were trying to do it we were trying to make it work. And I think that's the thing is it's not bad. In moments of great struggle, joy goes away in moments of great struggle, you rise to that you feel more joyful, we have great love affairs you mark the people you've never seen and feel like you knew him for your whole life, so that it's not like, you know now I'm sad because it's like, great. I want this, I want this moment of transition in American history I want us to stand up and say there will be no fascist marching in this town there will be no police brutality like that in this town in this country in this city. And that's where the joy is, how do you find something to write at a moment when you're balancing the horror of what we see with the joy of knowing that on the other side of that is going to be something wonderful is going to be all of us figuring out how to work together. And it'll be lovely and great and confusing and messy, and it will feel so good. So I don't get depressed I'm like, okay, now we got 400 people marching down the street tomorrow we're going to have 600 marching down the street, let's go push over city hall. You know let's claim a park and live in it let's do something together. And it's not sad, it's exhilarating and wonderful. And I'm, I'm happy to be alive. And I have to say that what gives me joy is, and thank you Julie for bringing my attention to it. Erin trip. Alison Hicks. Mina Andy punker from Pandia world theater. These friends are on the chat right now. They give me such joy they are in the revolution with me with Vera with each of you Harrison Pearl, Alyssa and Jeremy I know you know them. I'm finding colleagues that are willing to risk dismantling, what does not give everyone liberation. It's being standing I know that sounds able but standing side by side with them in the struggle to actually do the, what I call the most important work you'll ever do in your career, which is that equity diversity and inclusion access work, which is anti racist anti oppression, which is decolonizing to indigenize, because you'll reclaim your own humanity. I don't realize how much has been stolen from us our own humanity from these oppressive long long now time white supremacist capitalistic colonial patterns. They have stolen our humanity from us and you may get a little privilege from it. That just kind of puts gaps in our thinking puts it off a little bit, but you're really suffering under the lack of your own humanity. So to be in the fight and the struggle with comrades that have truly stood by each other and and advocated for each other. Due to tremendous tremendous marginalization. That's joy for me when we move those move the needle forward together, and we actually reclaim our humanity together that and you get that glimpse of what full liberation is. That's joy for me. That's purpose. It's cause. It's, it's everything. Yeah. Every morning and keeps me up late at night. I'm so glad both Pearl and Leslie went first because I was like how do I even word this. What they're saying. I think that sense of you can cry and laugh in the same conversation. Grieve something at the same time you're celebrating what's coming. It's such an interesting time because sort of reading these, you know, books by that Dr. King wrote and John Lewis wrote, and you're like, we're still doing I mean you could just transpose phrases and like we're still here at the same time. So many more people agree that what they're fighting for is right. Yes, we still have so many people that are fighting I guess on the other side that are sort of championing oppression. And I think what I'm able to see right now and to sort of communities which is the elders. I think why I was having a hard time describing work why I was so emotional about watching representative Lewis's funeral and going and it's I didn't know him. We knew his work. And what I was finally able to figure out was that he was able to live to see so much progress on what he's worked for. And in that same vein, the elders, the native elders in our communities that have fought so hard. They're able to see so much progress. And a lot of them are like, right now, we've been we've been seeing worse. Because this is no big deal you don't even know. And for them to be able to see like, oh, we got this, because we've seen it, and to, and to have them say, wow, how far we've come. An episode of Molly Denali that my grandmother commented on, because it was literally just about how far we've come, and then the other community, being the children. It's been a month of two weeks of an entirely native theater camp, clink it, for the most part. And we produced 25 new, cutest, most adorable native written plays ever. And to see how much more confident that they are in their culture. And these things that were literally illegal in my father's time. They are probably claiming and correcting us on. Oh my goodness, when you've been corrected by this little child on a language culture. How one bus ego a little bit, but to that you're so proud of like wow this is amazing and how much. This makes me think about where we're going so those are a whole bunch of things I find joy and right now. Harrison bring us home. Wrap us up. Everyone went so deep. I mean just that was beautiful. I would say. I made a mix on Spotify. And it includes Nina, Gladys, Aretha, Dina. And I listen to that every day. And that right now is not just giving me joy, which it is giving me joy, but it's also giving me life. That's, that's all I will say is I've got a bomb, a bomb playlist on Spotify. Joy. Harrison David Rivers ladies and gentlemen, Gladys and Aretha, talk about people who are actually telling the truth. There you go. There's the actual truth we don't need statues. I just want to hold a little space that for this idea that you know tonight and these conversations are not so much about coming up with the solution there's obviously no such thing also a fallacy. And mythology that there's a right way to do anything that's what got us into the trouble in the first place I think with so many things. I don't know whether that zoom is the answer or that that's our path forward in theater. I, I, I also really do. I know we're talking about these bigger ideas and I really do want to hold some space for the individual artists and the theater practitioners and those who are working at theaters who are going through what they're going through in the last number of months there's not enough. For those folks who are our community and will be still and we will figure this out together. But at the same time I am really hearing increasingly more arts leadership discussions, not just in theater, specifically, the talk about putting the values and the vision of these organizations at the center of it, and I just can't think of a way I think because we've heard tonight so beautifully from all of you of a better way to do that than, you know, hire a playwright. I was on the I was on a panel the other day and someone was struggling and something and they were like I just, I don't know what to do how will we we actually have a little bit of money but I don't know how to do solve x problem and I was like hire a playwright. It literally is my answer to everything. Oh that didn't work out. Yeah I mean you could hire a playwright. So my feeling is surely there's like 3500 bucks somewhere that someone has, and let them speak, ask them to come pay them for their labor and their work and their time and their experience, pay them to come in and have conversations with you with a board with a staff but less, you know, cynically than just the infrastructure of all of that with all the people, let these beautiful storytellers be at the center of all we do, may that please be a hallmark of the time ahead of us, where we are leading with our spirit and our spirit and the spirit of John Lewis and so many others as we go forward into the world. I want to thank Pearl and Alyssa and Vera and Harrison and Leslie so much for your great spirit and thoughts today. Thanks so much to HowlRound and Knock and all our great friends out there. Please tune in for our next conversation in two weeks from now, with Imponiso Udafia, Jen Silverman and Sarah Govans. And thank you all so much for being with us tonight. We look forward to seeing you very soon. Have a great night friends. Hugging, Zoom hug. Thank you.