 Okay, alright, we're going to get started here. All of you, beautiful people. My name is Teresa Eyring. I'm the Executive Director of TCG for those of you who don't know me. And I just want to welcome you to the conference. Welcome you to this beautiful city of Cleveland. Welcome you to this space, which is gorgeous. This session, How We Show Up, a playbook for the conference. This is the first time we've done this session. And we are so excited about how many of you have showed up for How We Show Up. This is, it's a 30 minute session, expertly scripted, definitely choreographed. You will not be standing for long, but thank you to those of you in the back. I just also want to welcome our, I was going to say listeners, but our viewers on the How We Round Live stream. Welcome to you. And finally, I would like to turn the mic over to Ty Defoe, our great colleague at TCG. How's everybody doing? Excellent. Welcome everybody. I'd like to play just a welcoming song to honor the indigenous people of the land here in Cleveland, Ohio. If we can just take a moment. This is for our ancestors past and our generations for the future, and to welcome all people here to the land. That song we also decide to play is to set the mood for everyone here today. In our indigenous native philosophy, it's welcoming everyone to the circle from all directions. And in that way, with the song, it's a song of waking up and taking steps and being and living to your highest potential. Thank you, Ty. Don't go far. We're all going to come up to this center section. We thought we would introduce ourselves before we move forward. My name is Dayfina McMillan. I'm the director of communications and conferences at TCG. And Ty, that's just what we needed. I adore you. I'm going to pass the mic. I also adore Ty. I'm Gus Schulberg, the associate director of communications. We all adore Ty. I'm Devin Berkshire, associate director of conferences at TCG. Well, you know I love me some Ty. And I am Carmen Morgan. I've been working with TCG for the past several years on a lot of their equity-based initiatives. And I am Ty, the diversity inclusion fellow at TCG, and I love all of you all. So why are we creating this space? Last year we were in San Diego and we got a lot of feedback with the things that we were doing that it felt like people were moving and having two different conference experiences. So we're creating this space to give you a little bit of information about what we're doing differently this year and what we're expanding on and building upon from past conferences. And one of the biggest learnings that we had from last year was that in San Diego we did a lot of what we called identity affinity group work. And it was very powerful for some, but others didn't feel like they had the context they needed to move into those spaces in a productive way. And so what we realized is before that we split apart and we talk about race and ethnicity and disability and gender and sexual orientation, we have to come together. And this is that coming together. And at the end of the conference we're going to come together one last time and see where we've all been on this at the intersection's journey. I'm used to being behind the scenes so I need a script. So, you know, a conference is normally a professional place. It's a place where we traditionally come to exchange professional advice and trade business cards and ideas and models. And it's a place where we usually gather by title and identify ourselves by what we do, not necessarily by who we are. But increasingly in this world and in this field we're asked to bring more of our personal selves into our professional spheres. You know, we are women and we are marketing directors. We are Latina performers and trans playwrights and some of us have disabilities that affect every aspect of our lives. And we can't always leave our personal identities at the door. So here at the TCG conference we're welcoming those personal identities, those ways of identifying as our whole selves beyond just what we do. We're asking you to bring your personal selves into this professional space. But that's a really tricky thing. Not everyone's immediately comfortable with it, but we need support from you on how to navigate that balance. Because as we all know change is often pretty uncomfortable at first. Thank you, Devin. Alright. So before I pass it on we have a few cameos that are going to make their mark. I just wanted to tell you some of the goals of this year's conference. This is our 25th conference, not our annual conference. We used to have the conferences every other year. We're hoping this year our theme is game change. Change the game and how we're actually scheduling and curating some of these sessions. One of the things that we're doing differently is creating time for you to level up game language, get some points around professional development. So tomorrow we're creating very long journeys, three and a half hours for you to select a different skills building workshop. There are about 14 or 15 of them and they are starting in the morning and they are finishing in the afternoon after lunch. So we're asking that you stay along with that journey and commit to that professional development experience. All the information is on conference 2.0 as well. In addition, we're wanting to provide opportunities obviously for you to get to know Cleveland. We move the conference around year to year to experience different cities and communities. Our host committee has been fantabulous and they've created a lot of opportunities which we're going to talk about later to get out and explore the different neighborhoods of Cleveland. So we want you to see some theater and we're going to talk about that too with Terence later. And last but not least, we pour through our evaluations every year and we create so much space to talk about how we can make our programming better. But the most important reason people say they come to our conference, the most important goal of this conference. Hey everybody. Can I get everyone to take a deep breath in? So we are here to meet people and so what we're going to do, if you can, turn to your neighbor on your right side, your left side, behind you, in front of you. Right? And we're going to take two minutes to introduce yourself to that person. If you can hear my voice clap once. If you can hear my voice clap two times. If you can hear my voice clap three times. If you can hear my voice clap four times. If you can hear my voice clap five times. If you can hear my voice clap six times and give me a woohoo. Excellent. So I'm going to tell you what you've just won. You haven't won anything yet, but congratulations. And check off one square of your bingo card. Yeah, you got a bingo card at registration. It's in your packet. It's in the left-hand side of the little folder you got at registration. And if you want to get it out, I can tell you why you have them. The conference is called Game Change. The first thing you might think of when you think of Game Change, it's a moment, a pivotal moment in time. There's a lot of weight to that idea. It has a dual meaning. We wanted to bring some levity and some fun to the game part of the conference. So enter the bingo card. Daveena, please. Thank you. It's super easy to play. You just fill it out as you experience different pieces of the conference. And you interact with fellow attendees. It might give you an excuse to meet someone new or reconnect with someone that you had lost touch with. So you might even surprise yourself when you get bingo. And by the way, for anyone who hasn't played bingo, you do that by getting all the squares in a row, either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, and you even get a free space in the middle. So, yay. Once you do that, you just turn in your bingo card at registration and everyone who wins bingo will basically be entered to win a free registration to next year's DZD conference. And remember, all this card, everything you're doing on this card, that's mostly on your honor. We're not going to always know if you did it. So play with a little integrity. Nope, cheaters. So I'm going to turn the mic over to a series of cameo appearances, right, by our conference partners who are here to tell you about various pieces of our programming. Can you flip my little page? Actually, no. Here we go. No. Annabelle is not here. So I'm going to tell you about Trend Workshop. Our first cameo is Devin. Miss me? Trend Workshops are workshops led by our business affiliates and business partners with TCG. They're happening all this afternoon in 60 minute chunks over the course of the afternoon. There's usually about three or four happening at a time during some of the other work that we're also doing. So if you're interested in Trend Workshops, please check them out in your conference agenda. They're happening today and today only. And now to talk about our Skills Building Workshops. David. Hi. I'm David Schmitz. I'm the managing director at Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Yesterday was my birthday. Thank you. We can sing Happy Birthday later. Anyway, I'm a panelist on the Friday Skills Building Workshop, Navigating Succession and Planning and Leadership Transition. And the key thing to know about that workshop is it happens in two parts two hours before lunch, two hours after lunch. And basically think of it as a horse. You're jumping on your horse and you're crossing a stream. You don't want to jump off the horse midstream, right? You want to stay with it unless you really like getting wet or you really hate your horse. If you really hate your horse and you want to jump on to a new session, you can just know you're jumping into a different conversation. Well done. Now to talk about our Friday night performances we have our good friend Terrence from the host committee. My name is Terrence Spivey the artist director at the Carimou House in Cleveland. Are we on the clock here, right? We are currently presenting the production of The Wiz and there are shuttle buses on Friday night that will bring you to and from our theater and a special discount for conference attendees. There are also three solo performances that TCG has made available on Friday nights exclusively here at Playhouse Square. Of course I hope you'll come out to Carimou House to help us celebrate our centennial. That's right. 100 years is going strong. But the important thing is to see some theater at a theater conference, right? That's all I have to say. I want to say more. Thanks Terrence. Okay, now to talk about more Friday night activities, dine around. We have our good friend Chris from the host committee. Great. Hi everybody. My name is Chris I'm the audience engagement manager at Great Lakes Theater and I know we just met. And I don't know what your plans are on Friday but I would like to have dinner with you. My friends and I have been working really hard on these dine-arounds and I just want to show you the city. I want to wait for theater goers like you and I spend some time together and see everything culturally that the city has to offer. There's no pressure but hit me up on conference 2.0 between 7 and 8. Go ahead and sign up and if you don't feel like committing right now maybe tomorrow morning at the host table we can sign you up. I just really want to get to know you and let you get to know my city. So check us out. Alright Chris. Okay, we're moving on to hearing a little bit of our lunch salons. We have lunch salons Saturday and Friday. Friday and Saturday. Go ahead, Erin. Hi, my name is Erin Califato. I'm a monologous and I'm here talking about lunch salons. And the keyword I'm supposed to say is grab and go. Grab and go with your lunch and come to the programming. Now here's the thing. Friday and Saturdays are the lunch salons. I'm doing a salon on, this is such a fancy word. I'm doing a salon on Saturday at 12.15 is called Performance, the story of the actor activist and my partner Michael Milligan who's doing a play about health care around the country is joining me and I've been doing a solo play and a monologue of the story telling about the student debt crisis around the country and the exploitation of the American student, you know, the huge and we're doing this together. We're coming together and we want to talk to you in the theaters to see what we can do better. So please come to these lunch salons, grab and go. Alright, thanks Erin. Now we have Jackie Lawton who everyone loves here to talk about the TCG bookstore. Oh, ladies and gentlemen, I'm so excited to tell you about these bookstore events because we're going to be really super fun and they are going to be located in you. Published in one of those books you can buy my plays but here's really why you want to go to the bookstore events because there is a noon cash bar every day. Every day. It starts at 12 noon. A noon cash bar, get your book, get your drink, learn, love, theater. So really quick before I pass it to the last person, I just wanted to mention one thing about the TCG bookstore. It says in most of the materials and signage that it's on the mezzanine of the state lobby that it's incorrect. We have moved it. We had accessibility issues with that area. So we've moved it to the Ohio lobby. So you'll see it when you enter through that space to go to your plenary sessions but please don't wait until then to visit it. It's awesome and I believe the cash bar is open. So we're taking that to Snehal to talk about our professional affinity groups. Hi everyone, my name is Snehal Desai and I am in the artistic association of East West players and a spark fellow. I'm supposed to also push the drinking and bonding time so I will be mentioning that. Professional affinity groups are a chance to connect with peers who share similar professional roles and to discuss shared challenges and opportunities to also drink. They're conveniently placed at the end of the day on Friday so that we can, if we want, we can continue the conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That was a lot of information. I think the only thing you probably remember was the cash bar starting at noon, right? So when people say they're going to the bookstore we know what's happening. So we're going to pause. We have literally like 2.5 minutes to take any questions you might have. Anything that we've said that you feel like it's urgent that you must ask in this space right now. We will have registration staff and anyone with a TCG badge, my badge has fallen off, the ribbon that says staff, you can ask us at any point or a volunteer or at the registration table. But there's a question that you feel like is pressing in this moment. We want to create a couple minutes of space for that. I can see this here. But you can also call the box. Actually we're sold out but I think we have a block of tickets for TCG members. There's a code on the TCG website listed and a link as well. That's a good question. The buildings in Playhouse Square are connected but we also have space in the metal building which is CSU space which you must go outside for. And we know it's like a fun playground that we're in. So our volunteers will be able to help you and we have signage just ask if any help getting around. Yes, that is a good transition to where we're going to go next. The next piece of our agenda is to talk about at the intersection. Can I move us there? Alright, I'm going to pass it on. Wonderful question, Gail. Folks, you should have an insert inside of your registration packet. I believe it's to the left. Can you pull that out? It's called at the intersection schedule. I want to just walk that through quickly. I've been told that we're really pressed for time. So you already heard Gus share that we've learned a lot from last year and that this year we intentionally wanted to start out with how we show up. That's what we're doing right now. Immediately following this discussion, we're going to move into a conversation called Ally Skills Building because we also heard from folks that they wanted, well, more skills and they wanted to know what do you mean by Ally? What are you talking about? So we're going to have a session where we're doing skills building, talking through some terminology and leaving you with some resources that you can use throughout the conference. Also today, one of the first affinity groups that we're going to be starting is race and ethnicity. I'm going to go through the entire schedule and then, Gail, I'm going to come back and explain which groups are affinity groups, which means that they are close to people who self-identify as a member of that group and then which ones are open for allies. So the first today we're going to go are the race and ethnicity groups that we'll be starting at 245 and you can see the ones that are listed there. And then later on, oh, by the way, can I just do a big shout out for one of these staging racial justice tools and resources for white folks? This is being led by Michael Robertson. Stand up, Michael. And Tiffany Wilhelm. Stand up or raise your hand wherever you are. Okay, thank you. There they are. Okay, then immediately following that is the intergenerational leaders of color. And that is an affinity space, which means that it is close to people who identify as people of color. Then on Friday, so that's it for Thursday. Those are the ones for Thursday. Then on Friday we're starting out with the theaters of color breakfast and again that is an affinity space that space is reserved for people who I self-identify as people of color. And then Friday there's also an affinity group that is going to be dealing with disability issues and also sexual orientation. And both of those are going to be happening at lunch and we're very aware that that's not ideal. We're asking for your support in terms of trying to do scheduling for a conference of this size and just recognizing that there are always challenges, but we're really aware that that's not ideal. And then on Friday, same day, we have something that's being called the mixed race mixer. And the, Gus, can you just speak a little bit to that in terms of the connection to the event? Just do you give me a little bit of context? The mixed race mixer? Sure. So this is an opportunity for folks who identify as mixed race to come together right before a performance of a play that is about the mixed race experience in the US. This is, I would never want to make it seem like people couldn't come to your show, so I really apologize if that seemed like what I was saying, but just the other piece of it is that we learned from last year that we didn't want to have the mixed race affinity group during the other race ethnicity groups because it caused people to have to choose between their identities. I think that's all I have to say on that. Absolutely. Yes, thank you so much, Gus. Okay, then also where did we leave off? Okay, Saturday. And Saturday we are having several gender specific affinity spaces. All women conversations were having gender and gender nonconforming discussion and gender queer and then also men working towards gender equality. And then Saturday later on this is a really important piece. This is where we all come together again back together after the affinity groups to check in with each other as one big community and that's called how we move forward. So the thinking is again we come together before we recognize that there are times. Some of you raise your hand if you have any kind of a community organizing background, activist background, raise your hand, folks. Okay, so a lot of you then are familiar with this tool that is used in community organizing circles, affinity spaces just recognizing that there's a time where certain issues need to be discussed for those most affected by those issues the strategies, the agenda needs to be defined by those most affected by the issues and we also recognize that there's a time when folks want to come together as allies to work in solidarity. And we recognize that in one space the conversation is going to be different when all those folks come together and that's what we want to reserve for Saturday after we've had our individual discussions. Is that helpful folks? We're asking for your support here with this because you know it was several years ago when TCG said we want to model the movement and they took that seriously. So we're using movement building strategies. We hope you'll support it. Okay, who am I having this after? So great. So we're drawing to a close. You did not get to experience the fullness of that presentation because we started a little late and we want to honor that some folks here may be intending to attend some of the trend workshops. What that means is you have not yet seen all of the glorious cameos that could be in store for you and we're going to go into a lot more depth on what we mean by ally and how to move through the conference as an ally and how to embrace wonderful learning moments that we all have like I just did. So we want to create a little space for the folks who want to go to those trend workshops to do so. So we're going to have a little music break. If you are going to a trend workshop you may leave. If you are not going to a trend workshop you may get down. Whatever you like and we will start back up in five minutes. Thank you. We are returning to our original central program. Skills are about to be all sorts of built. Ally and ally shift is about to happen. So please try your conversations through our responsible close. We grab the seats, move a little bit more forward. We're going to lean into this conversation. I'd like to welcome you all. Thank you. So Michael was not part of the group earlier. So we don't want to confuse him. We just want to acknowledge that Michael is helping us with this session. Our session around, because we parked in the field especially after last year and the work we've been doing around equity, inclusion, and diversity. That people really wanted some tangible tools and practical skills about how to be an ally, what does it mean to be ally, how to really understand privilege, and given the deeper work we're doing around identity at this conference at the At That Reception Series it's got to be so important to create a little space before we dive in to provide a little context about what we mean by ally skill building so hopefully you can model that throughout the conference. So this is what we're going to try to do together in our short time. We're going to discuss identity and social location. Yes, yes, okay. Oh I feel it on me. Suddenly everything is clear. We're also going to define some terms that we will be using today, terms like privilege, ally, and agency. We're going to be doing some group work to unpack some of that identity and social location work. We're going to report out on our findings and then we are going to review some resources, how to equalize power among us. And with all of these resources we will go forth into the intersections. A session. And we thought that it would be helpful to make sure that we're all on the same page in terms of what we're talking about in terms of privilege, ally, and what we mean by agency. So we're going to spend some time doing that. Before we do that, I thought it would be helpful to just, you know, how many of you are familiar with or have done work already on identity and social location? Just so we, okay, that's really helpful. Okay, so then I won't spend too much time on this but it would be helpful to just say one of the approaches that we have been working on with TCG is around just being clear about where you have privilege. How big is your footprint around those kind of issues? As you're talking about issues of inclusion and equity, it's really helpful first to be clear about where do you in terms of race, gender, sexual identity, religion, class, disability, ability, where do you have privilege? And by that we mean where are you most closely aligned with the systems that define our cultural norms our more race, the decision makers, the ways that resources get distributed. If you are standing in alignment with the folks who define that stuff in terms of your race, your race, your sexual orientation class, that's where you have privilege. So we thought it would be helpful to just explain this concept of identity and social location. And TCG has been working with eight categories, there are far more than that and for the purpose of this conference we have identified four, at least four that we're going to be working with. And you heard us if you were part of the first part of the conversation, you heard us talk about four of those already. Race, sexual orientation, are they right behind me? Oh, that's what I was thinking. Okay, race, sexual orientation, disability, and gender. Those are the ones that we're going to talk about in this ally building, but you can see behind me that there are more categories than that and even more than what's on that. And that particular grid is what we use as a visual opportunity to let people self-identify for themselves in that inner circle and then connect up with how they identify for themselves in the inner circle with where there is privilege and power in the rest of society. So if you just mentally did that for yourself, if you just said to yourself in terms of race, where am I and then where is the power structure, you could see if you were, well if you were in alignment then you would probably be somebody who's white and you would be somebody who had white privilege. Okay, so we're going to be talking, we're going to be using those terms throughout, so we just wanted to make sure we're all on the same page. How are folks feeling about what I'm saying? Is it making sense? Okay, wonderful. I am now going to turn this over to Ty. I believe, have I talked about everything? Have I covered all the pieces? Okay, I'm now turning it over to Michael to do a little bit more specific terminology for working with us. Hi everybody. So there's so many terms to this work and earlier this session, I think we acknowledge that people are on different places in this journey of digging into themselves, understanding what their police is in equity. So if you will allow us to share three working definitions, those of you who have done this work much more than I do know that these definitions changed, but we have three working definitions we want to share with you. There are so many other words that we need to define and make sure that we have a common language for, but we're going to start with these three because they're going to be echoed in this session and in the sessions that follow over the next few days. So the first is privilege. Carmen already I think gave a really great definition, a much more casual definition than the very technical one I'm about to share with you. So I will probably read this twice just to make sure that we get it. So this is the working definition that we're currently using for privilege. Privilege operates on personal, interpersonal, cultural, and institutional levels and gives advantages, access, favors, and benefits to members of dominant groups at the expense of members of historically marginalized groups. Privileges are unherm and they are granted to people in dominant groups whether they want those privileges or not, and regardless of their stated intent. Do we need that one more time? Great, great. I'd love to share one more time because it's really important. Privilege operates on personal, interpersonal, cultural, and institutional levels and gives advantages, access, favors, and benefits to members of dominant groups at the expense of historically marginalized groups. Privileges are unearned. They are unearned. They are just given to us whether we want them or not. This was a huge lesson for me. I have a lot of privilege and I'm trying to obey. So privileges are unearned and they are granted to the dominant groups whether they want those privileges or not, and regardless of their stated intent. Can we hold that? Can you hold that in your being? Do we need it one more time? Okay. I'm getting no's, I'm not getting any yeses. So here we go. Two more definitions. One is allied and the next one is shorter. It doesn't mean they're less important or less complex. The next is ally. Someone who understands the many layers of institutional and structural barriers can identify positions of privilege that they hold and actively work towards equity. Do we want that one more time? Great. So an ally, someone who understands the many layers of institutional and structural barriers can identify positions of privilege that they hold and actively work towards equity. Try to get a consensus of 200 people. Thank you. I don't see any nods of yeses, so I will go with a no. The final of the three definitions we're sharing is agency. Agency is the, did I hear up? Great. She's ready for it right here. Diana, thank you. Agency. The capacity to make choices and the ability to impose those choices on the world. I think I need that one more time. Agency is the capacity to make choices and the ability to impose those choices on the world. Do we need that one more time? Great. Thank you so much. We've been talking a lot at you. We thought we could spend some time in these four areas that we're going to focus on throughout the conference to get into small groups. We're going to explain. It's not going to be complicated. We're going to take sexual orientation, disability, gender, and race and ethnicity by four quadrants, so we're just going to go with Nancy Lisa's face. There's going to be disability in the back there. Lisa, you can raise your hand so you can identify yourself. There's going to be a quadrant in the latter part of the room. This group will be about the sexual orientation. We'll get in here. Race and ethnicity here. And gender in the back. So within those four loosely drawn quadrants, we're going to ask you to get in groups of about six or seven. So just find people near you. You know the space is an ideal. And that's four quadrants. And groups of six or seven to discuss two things. One, to identify in that group who holds societal privilege back by institutional power. And two, identify some of those privileges that come from being a member of that group. So one is to identify in each of those four areas the quadrant that you're in, disability, sexual orientation, right race and ethnicity, or gender in the back, who has privilege in that area. That's the first thing I'm going to discuss in your groups of six. And secondly identify some of those privileges that come from being a member of that dominant group. Does that make sense? So the idea, I think Carmen gave you a hint for one of them. The idea is looking at the overall societal structures, who has the privilege not a single person, but what type of person. So it's the idea I think here is to form a small community of people and to sort of create the conversation. So it's sort of like a test for the conference, right? So if you get into six or seven people and talk about it, we can come up with some questions and maybe answers after. So we can see how this applies in people that we choose. Does that make sense? Great. This is just a conversation about the topic. We're trying to identify privilege in these four areas. No, I think you should stay with the group that you're in, if that would be okay. Yeah, so the closest people sort of, it's a turn in talk. So don't move. Okay, thank you. Thank you.