 Thank you for coming today, I'm really excited to be here with you all. My name is Regina Victor, my pronouns are they, them, theirs. I would like my co-panelists to introduce themselves. Hi, my name is Yasmin Michael, I use she, hers, pronouns. Yes, and then our panelists. My name is Oliver Sava, and I use he, him, pronouns. Yes, and we'll talk a little bit about who we are, but the structure of this conversation is pretty loose, pretty open. Please feel free to raise hands and ask questions as we go. All perspectives welcome, and all questions welcome. So I'll talk a little bit about myself. I am, which is weird, but I am a dramaturg and a director in my artistic practice. I also run a website called Rescripted at rescripted.org. It is an arts journalism that aims to reprogram the way we critique each other through a lens of empathy. And we also cultivate new voices in the field through our program, the Key Young Critics Mentorship Program, which I run with Oliver and Yasmin is an alumni of. But just to speak a little bit about rescripted, we have 10 writers total. Five of those writers are alumni of the Key Young Critics Mentorship Program. Both programs were started in 2017, so we've had two classes of the Key thus far. We publish about 10 to 12 reviews per month and some essays as well. I am the sole editor, but we also have an executive assistant, Rebecca Sigmund. Go ahead and talk a little bit about the Key and also who you are and your path into dramaturgy and criticism. Yeah, so Oliver Sava, I am a freelance theater critic primarily. That is my, I'm a general arts critic, so I write about theater, dance, TV and comic books. I was a staff writer at Timeout Chicago for a couple of years. I'm currently a freelancer for the Chicago Reader, and then my main writing home is the E-Club, which is part of The Onion, and then I've written for Vulture, Vox, Entertainment Weekly, a bunch of different places. And I had gone to the National Critics Institute in 2017. I had gone to the National Critics Institute at The O'Neill Center. It's a two-week summer program where, I want to say, 15 critics from around the country gather, and we see a bunch of different productions, mostly theater. We do like a dance day. We do restaurant reviews. A lot of guests come in from New York Times, Washington Post, really big publications, and we just write reviews, workshop them. We are, it's in Connecticut. It's really fun. But so went through this program and was just really inspired, wanted to kind of figure out a way to bring something like that to the local Chicago scene. And I had been, I've already been in conversations with M. Joy Campino, who is part of the Chicago Inclusion Project. She's the founder of the Chicago Inclusion Project, and we have been talking about forming some sort of critics mentorship program, and the conversations around that had kind of stalled, and then I went to this program, and in the meanwhile, Regina and M. Joy have been chatting. Four people all emailed M. Joy, I think at once, being like, we have to do something about our criticism of teaching the youth, and she was like, why don't we just all get dinner? And that was how Oliver and I met. Abby as well, and Adriana, so we all just ended up getting, we went to dinner and had a conversation about this, and the kind of two really important pieces of the program were we needed people to take charge and teach, which would end up being me and Regina. We needed somebody who would be able to kind of organize, figure out space stuff, like kind of a producer role, Regina, like entirely Regina fundraising, all that stuff. And then we needed an outlet if we were going to be kind of training critics who didn't necessarily, it's hard to just start writing and then get a job at Time Out or at Reader Freelancing. So having rescripted already in place to give these writers a platform immediately and in place where we could publish the reviews that they were writing as part of our program was super important and Regina had already built that infrastructure out. So we were able to kind of just jump in there and make it happen incredibly quickly, six weeks or something. I came back from NCI the second week of July and we launched the first session, the key I think the first, in the beginning of September. And a large part of the emphasis to start training critics, I think from my end, was about as we generated rescripted and as we were interested in artist critics coming to this discipline, the frame of empathy with which we wanted to criticize and the way we wanted to redefine critical thought as not something that is negative, needed to be something that we could talk about from the beginning of how to write about theater. And it's also, I think, Dramaturge weaved so wonderfully into that, which we'll talk more about. Yeah, I did. So I have Dramaturge once. I worked on prowess. It was an eye-colter show about three or four years ago. Insane process. I mean, Dramaturing and New Work, that was part of a, like, what would eventually become, like, a seven-play cycle that had, like, recurring characters and all kinds of stuff like that. But also, there was a whole bunch of stuff that happened behind the scenes that just made it an incredibly crazy process. That was not for me, but... But it did teach me so much about... I had acted for a little bit out of college and that's being part of a show, being part of a process, but that is a very different role than being in kind of a more central, like, creative part of the larger production. Being behind the table. Exactly. Yeah. And being able to really craft a show as it was coming together was amazing. And then also, not giving a shit about reviews afterwards was really... It was like, oh, this was an incredible process and we all put together an amazing show and this review went up and this doesn't actually affect how I feel about what we did was very enlightening for me. Yeah. I think that's something that we'll talk a little bit about as well, that idea, the relationship between being an art maker and the reviews and what does it mean to try to engage with the work critically? How, when do you feel like your work has been engaged with appropriately, right? When did someone see the work that you were trying to make versus times that we isolate ourselves from reviews and what do those contain, right? I would love for you to talk a little bit about your journey to dramaturgy and timing the key. Yeah. So I went to DePaul University. I did my dramaturgy and dramatic criticism degree in about three years and then I needed to sleep. So I went to Spain for about six months and then when I moved back to Chicago, it was the summer of 2018 and I was still trying to figure out how do I fit within what is Chicago Theater and I couldn't afford to see Chicago Theater so I'm like, cool. If I can't see it, maybe I'll read about it. But there was a certain play that got really difficult coverage that was almost willful ignorance by a certain Chicago critic. So it made me really want to write and cover it from a different angle of like, what does it mean to cover this play that the playwright wanted to be? How did it achieve those goals and then what does criticism need to be so social location perspective is expanded? So that was an essay that I wrote for HowlRound and it was with that essay I was able to apply for the key. I had been looking for other ways to better my writing, whatever that meant. I was looking into graduate programs and I've gotten a lot of feedback of like what it means to better your writing in an academic institutional sense or a side eye and question what that means, what does it mean to better your writing. So I was looking for programs, anything and looking at like the grand school and Northwestern, whatever but these are things that are super inaccessible and expensive. So the key is completely free. They cover your transportation, they cover your tickets and we have class. So it was really fully accessible to folks that are younger, trying to get byline, trying to figure out how to write from ways that really honor the artists in the room. So immediately, we have very small cohort of about six students, all of us between the age. I think this cohort was 16 to 22. 19 to 23 was this one. 19 to 23. Yeah, we didn't have 16 to 24. Yeah, we didn't have 16 or 3. Yes, but the application range was 16 to 24 but our student range was 19 to 23 and I was really happy to squeeze right into that range as a 22 year old at the time, 23 now. And it was just so amazing to be able to sit and talk about reviews and write them and bring them to a workshop and also have everything covered. I can't stress enough what a barrier, like economics is to something like criticism and being able to see shows and it was within the, literally the last session that we had was a panel of editors and writers from around town, people showing up from the Tribune and the reader and Wendy City and within even a month I was already writing for Chicago Reader and Wendy City Times and continuing to write for Rescripted and a couple other writing homes that I found. So there's something that really accelerated what we were able to do with our writing but also the shows we were able to see because we could finally afford to be in the room. Yeah, thank you for that because that's something that our students bring up quite a lot is the idea of access which then of course makes me think about my personal philosophy as an artist is radical hospitality. What does it mean for there to be open access and to be radically welcoming to not just people who want to see art but also the type of art that is being made. The idea that critical bias and how people feel about art can limit the way that people produce art or think about programming art or think about approaching that art and with our empathetic lens set a table that everybody is welcome to express themselves at. So just some things that I wanted to highlight I guess the key is completely free, thank you for noting that. At Rescripted we also pay our writers a competitive rate in Chicago and we also during the key have artists come in, the structure of the class itself is the first 45 minutes or so is a conversation guided by myself and Oliver about a topic that might be relevant to them that week or some more structural principles of criticism and writing approach and then the center section is a workshop of the pieces that they've seen that week so we workshop each of those pieces for about 15-20 minutes and the class participates in that feedback and then the final section is a guest speaker every week comes in to talk about a different form of art that they practice so we might have dramaturgs or directors or lighting designers or actors come in to speak about how they approach their work and what they want from a critic so they're also having that conversation every week until the final panel which is all other critics and writers. It's a mix of artists who are giving the class insight into the actual creative process something like a director directing is like a kind of notorious nebulous thing that is difficult for people to write about like they don't understand is it blocking is it the way that a cast has chemistry what does chemistry like what do these things mean so like having a director come in and be like this is what I appreciate seeing in a review this is how I do my job these are the things that are important to me when I'm reading a review and evaluating other directing but then we we need to have people that are in the industry that are editors that are writers that can give like real actionable feedback about what's going on right now what you need to be doing how you should be pitching how you find the person to pitch to how you should be using social media which are all topics that we'll get into a little later too but you know it's really difficult and you would figure that a lot of this stuff would get taught in school programs but it isn't necessarily where we are which is why when you guys have been talking about a master's program and I'm just like laughing over here it's like you can get a master's and just pitching people eventually like getting a resume and you'll make money instead of paying money for it so and that's part of the accessibility and hospitality thing too right like when we started this program we talked a lot about how the age range especially I think after our first session realizing that this is one of the last professions you can write your way into and own your expertise with time and dedication to your craft without the unaccess what is the word I'm looking for without the blockade, the financial blockade of pursuing education I get a PhD or whatever it's like if you have a blog you can you can be writing about stuff I mean and build your relationships with your community like we'll see where a degree is at in like five years she's been writing reviews since she was seven years old like it's just message boards essentially and then I wanted to see shows for free like I was exactly like yeah it's like I took out a 4C theater AV club was getting invites when I was an intern and I was like do you want somebody to write about this for free and they said of course like you don't need to get paid and then I wrote stuff for them and they liked it and they kept me around and then they did start paying me for it so like there was a certain amount of like paying your dues but that's like a little bit too but like unfortunately because there isn't that barrier to entry the barrier to entry becomes how much work are you willing to put in for free kind of I mean like I was interning so that's something that I could put on my resume but it's like even before that I was online I was still online like writing about stuff and like engaging with stuff critically but I mean that's probably what everybody in this room is doing so like everybody's already taken steps in that direction but then it becomes a way of okay you you don't know where the stairs go anymore and like we're there to help you see where you go next yeah I have a structure to do all that work in rather than trying to figure it out on your own on blogs and just like writing and trying to get followers and I think to speak to personal practice too and like how it weaves in that a director and a dramaturg for many years and I think that dramaturgy linked itself to certain things, certain pieces of writing that I found myself doing as well as assistant directing a lot of the early things that I wrote were blogs for theaters about like the rehearsal experience or interviewing artists about what they've done for the Chicago dramaturgs blog or eventually for HowlRound which is my first professional piece of writing which I was asked to do because someone wanted to be interviewed by a trans artist and I was the only person that they knew and so I ended up getting that gig that was professional and stumbled into analysis that way but I didn't start writing reviews, I started writing essays I started writing retrospectives of pieces of theater that I had seen from a more scholarly approach and you know talk about that degree right like I did not get a degree in criticism but I did get a degree in theater and my professor that was most engaged with me was my dramaturgy and directing professor and we had to go see shows and write and do write ups of them essentially do reviews so that was where a lot of the way that I started to look at theater became really helpful and we'd love to talk a little bit more about that framework just by opening it up to a popcorn question what in your in your mind is the job of a dramaturge dramaturges anything no judgment right answers right unless there's no answer that's why it's important to hear from both of you yes somebody who connects art to the world outside of it connecting art to the world outside of it certainly how long does mine provide in the context for the play for the socio-political situation that is situated in yes cultural and political context the definition of the meaning can you say more about that I love that the definition of the meaning I don't remember who I heard it from I know somebody said it this weekend but it's along with providing context and when you create art you'll be conscientious of the message you're sending and you're not just making it to make it you're making it with purpose and meaning yes identifying the purpose and the meaning of the making yeah definitely any others yeah I think it offers you it offers artists in the collaboration process to expand their possibilities with their voices as a dramaturge you can open up different outlets for designers to think of how they might approach things just to give your world more of a depth yeah I think you can help everyone in that process expand their opportunities thank you expanding possibilities to something an mediator between the source material and the audience so someone to make sure that the production stage is true to the original intent and values behind the source material yes I love that a mediator between the source material and the art and the audience yes and the forms that that can take because we worked on Too Heavy for Your Pocket which I think some folks saw last night and I think that lobby is a massive mediation between the source material and the artists yeah any other quick ideas thoughts about what the job of a dramaturge is what about for new works an advocate an advocate and a champion in the back I think a lot about Fraser Mentor which are dramaturges of the midwives of the theatre and they create the conditions necessary for their co-collaborators to bring this work especially in the context of new work but in the context of all production creating a hospitable context perhaps sliding through there's one more here I'm a playwright and director I think of myself as the voice of the play I try and play with the play to speak for I tell my playwrights if you want to ask a play a question I'd like to know your play well enough to be able to answer as her play like Jeff the director yeah I think that's really interesting too talking about new works because at a co-show discussion I got asked about what is the difference between working with a living playwright and not in a weird way like I am kind of asked to be the playwright if it's not there who is past to preserve that integrity of intention and help expand the possibilities of telling about the story thanks any other ones kind of on the opposite side that could be the person that should feel empowered to ask questions oh yes I love that the person that's kind of on the outside that was something that I was told when I asked friends I was like I've never done this before what should I do and somebody said don't get kind of caught up in just that natural everybody loves the show because we're in the show and we have to love it you need to kind of be a little bit you need to be outside of that and looking at how the pieces are actually fitting together and like don't let the emotional experience of doing that show influence your judgment and how the show needs to be shaped and how they brought you in here they trust you to to understand dramatic structure to understand character arcs to bring that all together when other people are so involved in the family experience of being in a show that they might not be looking at it that way the things that we know versus the things an audience will see on the first go and I think that being an advocate for the audience is this I just want to challenge that for a second do you want to say that there is a validity to that or absolutely challenge it but I also want to say that I don't know if it's possible to actually stay outside and that sometimes it would cost to say that that's part of why it wasn't really for me because I get I do get kind of caught up in it and it's like I have such a strong emotional reaction to being in that room and I mean I feel like I did a good job but at the same time I know that that's not that so I want to say that sometimes the way I try to preserve my first take or whatever is to note things down and I think you probably find like a journal and you go oh who was that that was me but I just want to put into the mix this idea that to be it's a critically distant to be critically proximate like to be that there's something to gain for being a part of the team for being there all the time and then coming to the rehearsal by the stage manager I've not been to the rehearsal enough they're thanking me for coming I'm a visitor I definitely think that also there is a value to being on some of that first that fresh came back and so if you can try to do both by like reserving your early thoughts and then also being there to be part of the team I think that's great because I think that what you made me think of is the idea very differently like there are plays where I'm certainly a visitor and that is like the advantage that I am bringing right and I think especially let's talk about like culturally specific dramaturgy as I call it right like if I am kind of called in to be the eyes of color on a production that does not have that infrastructure it is beneficial for me to be a visitor more so than if I'm trying to build an authentically black work in a white institution where I have to be in proximity and critical and be holding that play in space I think that's really important to voice that those can be different or integrated thanks Yeah and I would also add too as one of the least paid designers on productions historically the capacity that we have to always be in the room when we want to be the room is something that we have to live with and really honor for ourselves and realize how much am I being paid for this and how many hours from the beginning am I willing to put on a show and this might be it's really super specific to Chicago but I've also heard from friends and colleagues nationwide that historically even if dramaturgs aren't supposed to be expected to be in every single rehearsal we're still putting in the same or sometimes more hours of folks that are currently actively in the room because there is so much work that happens beforehand as well and what are ways that we are compensated and then empowered to be in rehearsal as much as we have the capacity to do so Thank you Yeah so I'm just starting to final observations on the job of the dramaturge I would say something that I love about dramaturgy is the ability to define from institution to institution what my position is or as an individual artist to brand the type of dramaturgy that I do because as we've spoken to there's a huge range of services that that field can offer and I think similarly is kind of undergoing its own refreshing and its own remaking and I would be curious to hear from you all what you think the job of a critic is and how you relate to that in this moment Yeah both in terms of what kind of the fantasy of what you wish a critic's actual job was and then also what you think a critic's actual job is and in how people engage with that material both artists and non-artists Is it okay if I frame this as what I think a critic is not Because I don't think a critic is like I don't think a critic's role is to tell the readers what to see or not see I don't think any critic that concludes their review would like Yes go run and buy a ticket to this or this isn't worth your time I think both of those are presumptuous responses so I think it's more to provide I think again this depends on the context of the production and of the publication but to provide relevant context to the piece and like how the information in such a way that it actually empowers the reader to make a decision Yeah I love that about empowering the reader to make a decision that's something we talk about a lot of in terms of like it actually can have nuance and it actually can be both things like I think there have been a lot of productions that I see that I enjoy but have critical issues or things I want to talk about it doesn't mean you shouldn't see it Oh sorry It's why I think grading systems honestly because that immediately changes it into a consumer report where okay this is four star I have to go see it this is one star I definitely should not see that and like in Sox City of E-Club TV stuff all gets a letter grade but like my big comics column I don't have any sort of letter grade on there and it's just the most liberating thing in the entire world because like things are not perfect like there would be good things there would be bad things and like when you just when you stamp people will see a B and they'll say that's not worth my time like when B could be a super promising thing that had some problems and maybe you'll love it and it'll be an A for you like who knows Thanks for the question There's not enough space for that I think a specific example is when I was in college we studied Jill Hill and the feminist spectator so it's a book of critiques that she's written on film and theater and there may be other formats but she really approaches her criticism with a lot of hope for the show so she's considering the writing all of the aspects of what goes into a show who's being represented who's not the feminist perspective in that but really looking at it through the lens of how could they have made different choices that might have made this more accessible for people or I don't know it's just a very optimistic look at an exam and it shows in a way that that offers an opportunity to improve I guess Because of you totally Yeah, I love that making opportunity I was thinking of one of the early times around what you do making meaning like how do you if you're experiencing something as a critic how do you then create meaning for others who haven't seen it yet what could they take away from it but I also feel like at least what I would like it to be is really in conversation with a sort of triangle in conversation with either that artist's body of work or sort of like where it fits into a broader sort of artistic tradition and then where that person is coming from so you kind of understand what kind of meaning you're bringing to it Like what is that person's artistic lineage, right? Like if someone studies with Lori Carlos and then does this like black amorphous cabaret show like that should be reviewed maybe differently than I don't know man Exactly, because that's why I feel like it needs to be in conversation with a tradition placed within a larger context because what kind of meaning am I supposed to make from this piece and it's not going to be the same for every kind of piece, you know And for me that hits personally as someone that is more like a documentarian and wondering like what does posterity mean for criticism so very much seeing it as a way to this is how the show fell and moved and breathed here's the intentionality of the artist making sure that all of those elements are hit because theater like we know is so ephemeral what is left behind besides our programs and sometimes we have archival videos and most times we don't but it's so fruitful to know where did this happen and when did this happen one of the theater companies that was our keynote today Free Street Theater has been around for 50 years they're currently struggling to get coverage because of some of the work that they show so what does it mean for a historic theater company to essentially be on media black out well that means there's a gap in the archive we don't know who the majority of the first ensemble of Free Street was besides their founder Patrick Henry a white man who's putting together a diverse theater company to solve racial segregation we don't know what their first shows were there's not that history so when I approached writing today and I think a lot of us are being like how do we make sure that we know that this happened especially with theater companies that go up and down so quickly yeah I mean like I think a good example in Chicago is like well Dave I said American theater company that was so brief and then I think critically in terms of the history of casting and its impact that it has had on the bodies on our stages right needs to be documented for intellectual I can see even though the company has an existence there's one in the back yeah I just want to echo that because like as a scholar even working in something in the sixties or seventies like it's like goal to have even five paragraphs have a picture and even like I found one being that had two reviews I was like oh my god two reviews and I was trying to make it second but so it's so important just even for the record and you know whether you would be ready for not or whether your second is or not just to have the record the group was involved where it happened what the dates were what the you just want to be sure what it was like yeah what I could have said there's an element of reporting in theater criticism there's not in film criticism there's not in TV there's not in these things that are not experiential and something like I guess experiential but in terms of it's a live experience because even like in terms of a concert a concert's going to go around the country and a lot of people are going to see it but like a storefront show in Chicago is going to be seen by who knows ten thousand people that's high maybe five five which theater company I know houses are like this easy like one to five thousand yeah so it's there's an aspect of your writing about the experience that you are having at that show in that exact moment and that is that's a big thing that we try to talk to our students about is that your personal experience is incredibly valuable to your critical voice there is no objective opinion like people are going to your writing because they like who you are as a writer and they they agree with assuming that you're able to build up a library of work that shows what your opinions are people are going to start following you because they know what you like and they either they disagree with you they agree with you I mean there are people that read my writing that disagree with me all the time but they'll read anything that has Batman in it so they're going to talk to me they're going to mess with me about it they're going to read it no matter what but they're engaging with it because they want to see what my opinion is on some random book that came out the thing is if you're going to put yourself in the writing that makes you a little bit more vulnerable to people coming after your opinions yeah and I think that's definitely been I want to talk about two different pieces of that I mean the first part is about bias so I'm restricted we have artist profiles for all of our writers so there is like a why do you want to write for us a lot of our application questions frankly and what lenses do you bring to a show are you a mother are you a person of color are you differently abled what changes your framework of how you view a show what genres and playwrights do you love artists do you love so you can get a sense of who that person is as you read the review we also put bias alerts at the bottom if there's an immediate conflict of interest of any kind just because we have to acknowledge that we are artists we are in community and we will work with each other for father comes home from the wars that's just popped up that was like I'm black so I know all of them I just did because our community is very very technical lovely but sometimes you just have to disclose those things but speaking about bias and also accountability the accountability that can bring when someone feels like they know you in this current culture and how we've chosen to manage that it was something that I don't know we started writing with two people we were originally a I keep saying bicoastal and everyone is finding me because Chicago is on a coast but the lake is massive but Chicago and Bay area of publication because that's where I'm originally from is Oakland California and we had an incident where someone wrote about something and the associate artistic director reached out to them directly and was like this is very unprofessional like you're an artist and I wrote a very strongly worded thing being like hi you're a publication I am the editor please come to me with any issues you may have like trying to avoid it made me realize we had to avoid any power play that could come into our reviews so I've been really intentional about setting up that editorial structure you don't contact people at their own personal email which a lot of outlets do when I work with other places I get invites directly to my inbox we don't give people that kind of access to our artists or making sure that in their writing we talk a lot about saying it the way you would say it to a friend it doesn't mean that you're going to pull the punches but if you read this to someone's face is it mean or is it just true and I think that offers its own layer of protection of like if you really make good points that people can see where you're coming from there's not a whole lot of ire I mean and then speaking more specifically about where I think some of these overlaps come in between dramaturgy and criticism audience advocacy I think is the number one thing that I've heard come up from all of us today I think positioning ourselves as the audience advocate as dramaturgs doing both that distancing and that very close critical knowing everything there is to know about the play kind of work can really apply to criticism in the way that we're looking at something right what was their intention as artists what was the playwright's intention of this story and how well did everybody execute it is something that we either generate as dramaturgs or can evaluate as critics right so a lot of the way that I like to frame what happens with dramaturgy in that regard is we are producing work that is also front facing work that will be in front of an audience and it's also a way to go beyond whatever performance is on stage that's coming from my background in museum studies of like how are people going to move through this space that is not the stage that is for everyone that is supposed to be accessible yes indeed I would say too information wise right something that when we ever do a new show right it may be about 1952 Pittsburgh or it may be about you know a tear for your pocket 1961 Nashville I wasn't alive I don't know what's happening in 1961 Nashville but I know where to find that information because that's my job right and I think as a critic it allowed me to buffer a lot of expertise that I needed to begin to build myself by being able to say okay well I can look at the history of August Wilson's work I know where to find that information I can look at the history of you know Bernarda Alba like I can figure out these things as I'm going and provide a context to the work that I think can be missed also something I like to speak to and something that I think is a takeaway we talk about finding your own expertise and your own lived expertise I talk about one of our writers Linnae Hickman as a student of DePaul a very smart young person and pitched going to Jerry Lane's Matilda and I was like okay because we usually try to do like very big houses right we emphasize storefront so I was like well can you pitch it to me why do you want to see it to look back this really lovely movie well I have analyzed the book it's one of my favorite books I think we're all really tackle some important questions that are in the musical and I've seen both musicals I saw it on the west end and I saw it over here and I was like this 19 year old is an expert on Matilda you know I don't know those things so like finding your way your way into a show and your points of expertise and letting that guide the shows that you choose to see especially when you start out writing I think can be really important did you want to speak to us? I mean off of that also though like taking those specialties and kind of baking it into your like social media presence and I we love talking about the branding but like I mean I've gotten a lot of gigs off of talking about specific topics on my Twitter or whatever like I mean like if there's a the thing is if you're talking about like what's currently at the moment like using hashtags stuff like that like people it does show up in front of people like that is a way that you can get people to come and you're finding that the audience that likes the things that you like that will ideally also share your opinions and want to engage into writing as well but just kind of showing the world that you are an expert on these kinds of things I don't know if you know C-Spike Trotman at all she's a cartoonist but she also does so she's a publisher she's kind of like master of Kickstarter and like she'll raise $500,000 to kickstart a comic and this is a comic that if it was published through a publisher it would maybe sell 5,000 copies or something like she's made huge success on Kickstarter but on her Twitter she is always kind of putting almost like these little essays where it's like I have a topic that I want to talk about like that I'm passionate about and I'm going to thread it and it will get spread by people that like that kind of stuff and you guys are dramaturgies you're looking into this stuff all the time you're finding all kinds of cool nuggets and I mean I don't know how much you're sharing that but I mean you have this research you have a way to like spread it out into the world and that could ideally also get some a rise on the show too Yeah and I would also say Twitter is a great place to test out your writing I know that sounds really antivetical but that little plus button of the ad thread like you can do like 5 or 6 tweets that are one thought on something and put that out in the world and see if it gets retweeted when I was really early writing I started doing that and people would like how around when I hop in the DMs and be like are you interested in writing about that you know so there are people that are looking I do that all the time I'm always on Twitter and Facebook my joking thing when we started out Facebook post talked to me first because people do really express themselves in really articulate and thorough ways on social media all the time and sometimes those bite sized things are enough to get somebody interested it's the same as sending like a 200 word clip to somebody of something It's a really good way to get the gears going if you don't if I'm having trouble kind of aligning my thoughts for review or something it's like you know what well don't really want to tweet about show if I'm going to write a review about it I don't have a question because it's a simple thing in terms of TV the things that are not theater because that is so much more kind of centralized we don't really want to talk about it until the reviews out but those other things you know what like talk about a specific topic that might spitball into something else and I just have some more ideas so there's a way to kind of use these tools I mean of course to engage with your audience too and take ideas from them as well yeah and I think building that following can be really important and I know I think for myself it's taken a while to kind of get that going because I wasn't necessarily very insta or twitter forward but I have found there to be a lot of reward also like the way that Yasmin should all follow, what's your handle Yasmin? Yasmin Sicario? Yes, you should all follow Yasmin on Instagram because I don't know anyone that markets their work as a dramaturg and a writer better than Yasmin it's kind of incredible having the power of those stories and this is instant and this is new can be really great I do want to make sure we talk a little bit about the practice but just are there any questions that have come up as we've been talking? Cool and feel free to popcorn as we go but just talking a little bit about the practice from a philosophical place, something that I realized a few days ago a talk back pedagogy that I personally use as a dramaturg is to listen, learn and engage we listen to other people's lived perspectives, we learn from those perspectives and we engage with them respectfully from our own lived experience which is always valid and in many ways I think that that is something I impart on to our students in terms of like listen to the play and where the play is living, learn from the play which you can and then engage with it from your own lived experience what did it teach you? Some practical things I do about like trying to notice everything the first time I see a show I think as dramaturgs we are naturally maybe more disposed to do but I find just writing in my journal when I'm taking notes, lights three adjectives, sound three adjectives, directing three adjectives for the performers it sounds very basic but it really does help when you're going back through and trying to identify how something made you feel you know if it's flashy, engaging and dynamic that gives you three things to talk about in your review and feel more specific than the lights were cool because it could be really hard like you just forget those things something else that we talk a lot about is again intention what was the artist's intention did they achieve that intention and how did it make you feel but also, and this is my favorite tip as you're talking about things and the way that you saw them I find what gets most critics in trouble and empathy is what I call the second sentence and the second sentence is when you say I didn't quite understand what this costume choice was trying to tell me about this character your second sentence might be and those red shoes are really ugly and what kind of character would wear those anyway you don't need to just take that second sentence out that's about your feelings not about what you saw right? it's such a small thing but it's really really useful as you're writing also when you're starting out having someone else read your writing and just asking them to tell you what they understood about the play just period it doesn't have to be anything about grammatical editing or how you made a certain point just what did you gain from the play and that'll teach you a lot about your voice and what you're communicating as a writer I also we encourage first person which I think is not necessarily true for all outlets which I named because as you pitch other places they will want you to use a more objective point of view than a third person point of view but I think when you're starting out and finding your voice to say like I thought this eventually you'll move into the space of it's obvious this is my thought because I wrote it right? but I think it can help us to kind of get through that initial moment of like this is this was its impression on me right? and then I think it'd be great to talk a little bit about the basics of actually setting up a platform and pitching do you want to touch on that a little bit? I mean if you're just starting out and you don't have any clips the easiest thing to do is start a blog yeah and some platforms that are free to WordPress, Weebly are two that are free, are there any others that you love? Wix is really nice you're a good drop website mine is in Squarespace a little bit more pricey but I've had it for about three years and it's been really wonderful for the different interdisciplinaryness that Dr. Judy finds itself so I mean that's the easiest way to get stuff just out in the world and I mean you might not be getting to see shows free but honestly you're engaging with media at all times you're seeing theater just go home write 500 words about it I mean part of the challenge is being able to just write 500 words I mean for some people that's a number that that terrifies them I have to write 500 words at this point I'm like I'm thinking she's a slave but in order to to write for starting out it was that scary blank page I know some writers that actually change the color of the page before they start to write which I think is just absolutely genius but also starting out with where was it done, who did it who's the playwright and who's the director like you can just start there to put how you feel about it is your final sentence right and then just move from there you'll edit your opener again and again but it just helps you get something on the page that's factual If I could lift one thing too if you are starting writing and you don't know how to get free tickets I found that the best way is to frame yourself as an early career writer looking to build a portfolio can I cover your thing no one, very few theaters really are gonna feel that they won't give you the ticket because you become in five years do they want to be the theater company that said no to the person that's trying to build their portfolio and I would also add to that too like being a person who sometimes does seating for opening and stuff that sometimes it's literally about getting people in for opening so it can also help to say I'd love to come on opening but here are two other dates in really close proximity to your opening that I would just be happy to attend so they don't have to feel like there's that added pressure and they can get to know you and then next time you'll be at opening because Chicago has been very receptive at least here and especially I think in the way that we've run Rescripted in terms of like we're not sending a bunch of people like we're sending one person and there's accountability for that but that was out of me building that relationship with these theaters of like showing up all the time making sure the review is published in a timely manner if it's not communicating why and I think that that's something that as an individual artist you can also start to do and some of these places I think they do know you and you can be very forthcoming about I am an artist critic and I am trying to do this I've worked at these places and this is something I'm interested in doing and why and talking to people you want to talk to the public relations or marketing person about those things as well identifying who to talk to in an organization can often be I think the trickiest part of anything in theater hospitality but usually a press contact ask them to be on their lists for dispersals for when they send out press releases about shows so you can get on that press invitation cycle also publicists in Chicago we have David Rosenberg who's been a wonderful ally, Jill and James at Shout have been wonderful allies, Kathy has been a wonderful ally in terms of getting people into shows getting our students into shows so really pitching the why can be really helpful and also just being up front about like I'm not here to tell you you're doing it wrong I'm just here to document and explore this art with you and to essentially take our collaboration a step further I think can be really helpful I'm thinking about oh so that's like when you're trying that's like pitching to get tickets so let's say you have a blog you've been writing theater reviews for I don't know let's say you have six theater reviews up or something and you feel like I now have a body of work I want to see if somebody will hire me so I can get some professional clips basically you're going to go go to the outlet that you ideally want to write for and I mean also like be aware of where you are in your career like I mean you can go ahead and email Chris Jones to the tribute but you're not going to get any response probably um but like you know and the thing is like a novice writer is writing for a blog is not going to get a a tribute review like it's just that's so like kind of just no no ballots but beyond that just know the outlet that you're pitching to if you wanted to pitch Wendy City Times you know that they are an LGBTQ outlet if you wanted to write about a show for Pride Films and Plays like Wendy City Times would probably be into that like so you're fine you find who that theater editor is you get their email because a lot of these places will probably have a general email to send to and you can do that but I've had I want to say 0% success ever sending an email to that address like if you want to send you want to find that that exact editor's email address um and that could be maybe you know somebody who's worked for that editor ask that person maybe through the PR person even contacting at a theater they would have that information as well and they might not want to give it out though so um it depends on how nice but a lot of these places do post the name of the editor in their email address online so like that's the person you want to pitch to but then when it comes to actually crafting a pitch start by introducing yourself um and get to the point quickly um ideal pitch document is 200 words you really want to get in there say who you are um why you want to write about something the the expertise that you could bring to this piece and then a quick run down of what this piece could be if it's an interview uh who's the interview why why is this interview that would appeal to this outlets audience um and what project is coming up that that interview would be attached to um because those are important details for an editor to know if there's there's a new season of black mirror coming up and there's an actor who's in a movie that's coming out at the exact same time maybe and like you can email and see if I mean there's all kinds of things. Well I think you know a great example is like I was doing um Marini's Black Bottom with one of Jude Parson and he was about to open radio golf at court um and so I was like I would love to talk to people in the Chicago area and beyond about like what it is like to be an August Wilson practitioner at this time um and that was something that because they knew the framework when I pitched myself to a DC Times I didn't pitch a piece I pitched myself um and so I literally was just like hello I think this is maybe elementary but I was like I hear the truth right about gay things I'm very very gay I was like I'm also you know black and I'm also yeah I'm also black and trans and these are the identities that I bring this is the type of theater that I work on I've written my first interview was about the trans artists who needed someone to interview them and so making that available as well um because there are artists who will say like I want to be interviewed by a femme or a women or I want to be interviewed by a black person or I want to be interviewed by a queer person and that's well within their rights but like there aren't actually enough writers to fill that gap so sometimes like you can get gigs just by being who you are and being an adequate writer which as a dramaturge you inherently already have that skill set which I think can sometimes be the biggest barrier I'd like to talk a little bit about pitching features too because I think that would be really relevant and what a feature is yeah so the way that I frame features when I'm writing is you are covering a person generally for me as an oral historian I'm very interested in like where people have come from their places of home and like what has drawn them to their art so usually when I'm pitching on a person it's very much like a lived lifestyle who this person is but it's also really important to know word counts and read the features that have already been written on that same platform to figure out what kind of that style is because every print journalism is different than digital journalism and I've even had features that are different from what it is in print and what it is on the digital page and it also is really good to know that if you're pitching to interview someone it's not that you have to line up that interview it's like your only contact is with press and the publicist don't ask an artist for an interview I also learned this the hard way and that is the thing about having access and being an artist critic is how do you keep that separation even just today I was like I know something and I can't run that in this piece things like that you have to know what you can and can't say about what is public and what is private if I met a post show where I'm talking to people and they say something interesting well I could talk about this one because I published it so for colored girls for example I was talking to the costume designer and she talked about her experience of creating melody angels costume for the new character and for colored girls and that rainbow creation and that it was born of a conversation with Ntozaki Shange and Seret Scott the director and I was like can I point that like that's really amazing I would love to include that but making sure that you're really transparent about what is on and off the record because that will it will pervade your social relationships otherwise right if people feel like they can't just talk to you about things which can also be a great strength if people feel like they can just talk to you about things because sometimes they will come and engage you on a piece and be like this is the whole story but could you find a way to write about this core element or this piece over here I mean like personal relationships like the theater of course there's like a personal professional and it kind of dashed in the middle of it where it's like we're friends but we also have to work together and there's some like if you're a critic especially like we have to understand that there's like a boundary there but at the same time like you can use that part like I have people that will reach out to me all the time that are artists that will say hey can somebody write about this would you be interested in writing about this and like I don't mind getting pitched by somebody like and that person ends up becoming a resource especially if they have something that like they know me personally they know that this is something that I'd be interested in and maybe I wasn't even considering that at all but because they have now reached out to me I'm the person that has the connection to the editor so then I can message them and then after that point it becomes a thing of okay now we set up now we set it up at the publicist there is still like a lot to gain from having like a connection with people that are actually in the community which is like of course and that's something that's come up a lot in Chicago criticism where it's like oh guess what if you actually engage with the community good things can happen on a similar note I felt like an SOS critic of like oh my gosh something is happening in Chicago it needs to be covered or it's not being covered the way it needs to or some hot take I've done on Facebook has now exploded and people are sorry people are reacting to what is happening and how a conversation can be pushed on a social media platform and then it transitions to a different conversation that can translate into a different piece and not every critic is that critic either though in terms of the critic that the hot take critic like and part of it is knowing kind of what niche you fit in as well yeah my niche is about 1,503,000 words not real like I have very much an SIS and I know that about the way that I critique so I try to always wrap it up or Nina it's true I know it's real cause I write how I talk but like when it comes to those deep analysis reviews like I do like to my reviews are usually 800 word minimum because that's what I love to do write it for Windy City was really difficult because I had to adjust to the 450 word word count and still say as many of the things I wanted to say there was a question oh yeah I had a question you've been talking a lot about connecting to different platforms and I was wondering I've been thinking a lot about the relationship between critics and these theater companies and the way that I see it like a glowing review or a review that's more like constructive it's a service to the company I mean I think that companies should feel this way and I'm a literary manager of a company in Chicago and I was wondering is there a way that have you been thinking all about ways that companies and critics could work more closely together or is there like access that you crave from companies or like ways in which you're interested beyond the PR and like marketing contacts ways you would like to be collaborating more closely yes I mean the flat answer is yes I think a large portion of the strife in Chicago is around not having access to critics I kind of you know I do think that like if someone had sat down and talked to Hedy Weiss 5 years ago about the practices that she was partaking in and the way that they made people feel she would probably still have a job so I think that like having that flexibility and accountability is really important when it comes to our relationships as critics in theaters something that has come up a lot like I kind of did this backwards in many ways which I think is both a gift and a challenge as many things are right but when I first started writing like I went to an opening where I happened to know a lot of the folks and I was like oh is there like a after party ticket and they were like oh yeah but you know we don't really give these out to critics like don't make it weird I was like why is it weird like everyone knows me you know what I mean and I don't stick around if you don't know me if it's not something I ought to be at but like it was just a very eye-opening moment of like wow they really don't we can't really be around each other like we can't be in the same room and I started this lens of like how do we program the way we critique through empathy in the hope that it would influence the greater critical landscape I do think I see it in certain projects I think Chris Byers storefront rebellion that writing feels a lot more accessible and more free than when you write for print publication I'm really excited about that but I think this idea that we have to be able to just talk to each other needs to be blown open because when I was at TCG a lot of people were saying I didn't know I could write a letter to the editor I didn't know I could talk to that critic I didn't know I was allowed to approach that person and I think that even though we're artist critics and we're out here trying to do something fresh the reality is that that is born out of a history of a lot of hurt and a lot of distrust and a lot of pain and it's being branded as an innovative cool new thing but at the same time nobody really wishes that they had to do this right in a weird way so I hope that in the creation of this mission if we do actually reprogram the way we critique each other maybe these structures could even stay in place and have a different relationship to these artists because I do feel like if that does not happen we will not have critics in the way that we have them now in ten years there's just too much pain if I could say something too speaking directly to folks that are at theater companies I want you to be very conscientious of whose reviews you're sharing, whose voice are you continually amplifying on your own channels and who is actually writing for those largest, mostly funded publications are they people that look like the people they're on stage what does that mean what are other maybe smaller venues of magazines and journalism that is happening we are obviously here doing this work but what are you amplifying to your patrons that you're trying to see the show and I think too something that I thought was really lovely that a company in Arizona was doing is inviting critics into the whole process I think there is something to artist critics our whole thing is we know how this sausage is made but a lot of people don't necessarily have that access so having them come to the I don't know oh he's a great example when we did the key last year we went to Lottery Day in the Goodman Usages Festival and then Yasmin covered Lottery Day first scripted this year as a professional writer and that growth of being able to see where that place started to where it ended I think can really inform the way that you approach production so getting people in in that ground floor access of like these are people trying to make a thing not a product for you to consume the first step as somebody who's written a couple features where I've been able to be in the rehearsal room it is awesome it's really cool and it does change we were just talking earlier about the magic of being in the rehearsal process but it makes me wonder how many outlets really want the critics to really feel that do they want them to have that connection or do they want them to stay separate which is like an institutional thing that's like good luck breaking it yeah I'm trying I'm doing my best but that's a really important question thank you yes what are your tips for gauging the creators' intentions if you don't have conversations with them thank you I think for me some of the first things I'm looking at is like what is the feeling I think the play was trying to have me leave with a question to the play which is an old trick for my dramaturgy professor like what is the ultimate question that the play was asking me that I feel like I was given an answer to that question or was I invited to answer it myself when I left but starting with that question can really help and I think also knowing the script I ask for the script a lot when I'm reviewing if I have questions about intention and about especially what a director might have imposed on a play determining what choices were made to highlight or perhaps distract from the attention of the story so I do kind of return to my script analysis roots on that sometimes and then I also do research beforehand I do tend to read feature pieces that were put out before I read the program I read the director's note Pat, read the director's note, please oh my god and some critics have the stance of like I do not read this on purpose so sometimes there's maybe a disconnect of like what you think is like cheating and criticism of like what could I get without the context but as drama turks we know context is queen here like we need to know I love that so much, context is queen if we take nothing else away from that but yeah, thank you for that, yes considering how you talked about finding your niche and your expertise and money met by what shows you wanted critique or review and then I think what Shelly or mentioned in the hot topics about asking the question am I a right drama turd for this show is there is it a good question to ask, am I the right critic for this show or is every voice honored in that space I think eventually we will reach a place where every voice should be honored on an equal thing because that's the thing I don't really mind what you have to say talking about a decentralization of power is the ultimate thing that we would love to see personally but I think in terms of I lost my train of thought where did it go oh yes framework from a critic, sorry when it comes to asking yourself if you're the right critic for that production thank you it can come down to is this play talking to me right, is this something that I would see anyway, I find that to be really helpful too in terms of if I'm the critic for that because let's say I am not the person to go review a world premiere mammoth I would do that play no favors you know what I'm saying that's just the way it is in this moment and how I feel about it, my bias is very deep and so I feel like I would excuse myself in that situation I do think it's also okay to go see the show realize in the moment that you may not be the right critic for it if you're watching something and you are not it's just not landing for you so okay, if it comes to the point of I don't even know how to engage with it then it is okay to write the theater and say I don't actually have anything critical to say about this production because it totally went over my head you can't do it a lot but I think it's better to be honest don't just ghost, you know what I mean but definitely say hey I think another critical voice would be great if you know critics of color that should see the show recommending those people and uplifting them can be great but I think that is something that we deal with a lot and something that I have definitely occasionally recused myself from admitting that I have the luxury of writing for myself I was literally about to say like there have been times where I've had to make it happen if I was sent to review a show by the reader which if you're assigned you don't really have much choice I can say I don't want to review this August Wilson play you guys should get a black writer I mean I don't have any black writers that are freelancing or choose the choose then and they'll just say why can't you write this and then at the end I'm just going to a different white guy writer who's going to take the money so like but I also think that there's it can be problematic to feel like a show is not for you without seeing it and feeling like you're not the person to see the show because every show's for every person and every person has an opinion on every show and every opinion is valuable like you don't need to have an education you don't need to have a criticism degree to go see a show and have an opinion and write it down and have that opinion mean something to somebody else in a positive or negative way and I would also say to the tool of like this may not be for me but it might be for someone who enjoys X can be really useful as well because sometimes like gosh I saw this show and I was like this is just like got some really sexist jokes baked into it like it's just really it's about alien women who are really into sex it was a whole thing it was like an experiential show that was touring and I was like okay but I have to figure out because like parts of it were super fun and parts of it were super not you know how do I talk about both of those things what is not working for you what makes this thing like it's not for me like it's just like this is a Jetsons based family experience do you know what I mean so like you're really supposed to go with your older friends and like get and like this is how you there's drinks at the door like that are branded for the show like this is how you should enjoy it if you want to enjoy it because otherwise you're going to struggle there's probably plenty of young people that want to go see that show and they don't know where Jetsons are so it's like valuable and maybe there is a 60 year old person reading a review that says okay that 20 year old did not like this we are really close to the end so I want to honor it did you have something really quick to say if I could just say two quick things I'm hearing here that having a self-awareness of what you bring to the table is something that you're going to forefront in whatever you're writing and being honest about that transparency and also to the responsibility of like should you be in this room because I think at a certain point if there's enough people saying get a person of color, no get a person of color, no get a person of color it's going to get in someone's brain moving along at some point so it's both from a point of advocacy of your own responsibility but also having a self-awareness and knowing how to write this piece from where it's coming within you yeah like I mean I would even say right like it's like because you know it's going to go to the other way I'd be like okay sure like I will take it if you insist that these are three people I'd refer you to Jazzy next time or whatever you know what I mean something like that I know that's complicated because we're all trying to make money and we're all trying to make space for everybody at the end of the day I want to just honor, I think we're close to our ending session but I wanted to honor these questions these last quick questions or comments very quick question are there, when you're working with your student critics any text, be they articles or text books that you found particularly useful to expose them to yeah we use, we do we use articles, mostly articles and reviews I send them I send them my Thomas and Sally critique from Marin Theater Company every year because I feel like that is a lot a lot of inhales because I feel like that is the piece that I wrote with like the most naked empathy that I could like it is just me trying to communicate to someone how they hurt me like in a way that is not accusatory and I feel it is one of the best examples of that duality of rescripted so that's something that we always direct them to we usually direct them to some of your pieces as well for their reader and for Vulture and AV Club we have them read, because we have a multimedia section we have them read a lot of multimedia reviews Angelica, Jade Bastion as a writer, we have them read I usually have them read something by Kerry Reid her Muthaland review is a great example of being a critic who is white going to a show about a specific cultural context and writing about that so we pick a fresh selection every year but those are some off the top of my head I'm usually local and ideally the people that we can get to in the classroom too yeah and then did you have a... I mean I addressed it a little bit but just to follow up about transparency and writing criticism but I'm wondering if you do have that experience like you're going to a marathon play you have to take the job like is there value from starting off I have lots of problems we went to the door it is that kind of engagement because I have a pretty white pilot as a theater goer recently went to see something which is like in Bernie or whatever years of going to the theater I was like this is so not for me I actually had that experience and then I was just trying to engage with it in a whole other way I am not the audience for this show but it's just a whole thing could I tell people about it given how I was just not happy yeah, that's a great example of that and actually another one that I do send them that I forgot is my piece on B Juanito No Free Streets show about like living in back of the yards and growing up Mexican in Chicago from a variety of experiences all non-actors and it was in their story front space down on Ashland I went to that show with programs in Spanish I was chilling I really enjoyed it though I just was like this is great to sit outside of my cultural context and watch people celebrate that and how do I relate to that as someone who is constantly trying to connect to their own heritage what does it mean to put this play together on your own and to have these community resources and to teach actors what is this effort that fascinates me in the story, it doesn't matter like what I say about how authentic it was like no one cares but talking about what it was like as an outsider to be welcomed into that experience I hope we'll make people go see the show yeah, I think leading off with I have a lot of problems with Mamet there's a lot of people that have those problems that establishes early on that you share a perspective with them and that you are coming at it from that perspective and that's another really valuable thing if you have something that kind of sets your perspective apart establish that early on so that readers know that is why they should stick with that piece and keep reading it yeah, like Thomas and Sally is pretty much like I don't need to see simulated sex that is consensual between a slave and their master that is not something I'm open for business for like you know what I mean to say right away because that's the penultimate thing of the play, right? but I do want to honor our time we are at 3.45, I'll be around for any questions after the panel's closed but thank you all for coming again