 John Jory went to David Jones Sr. in 1979, appealing to him for funds to really do a new play festival right. And that's how the partnership between the Humana Foundation and Actors Theatre began. And that's why we're here. This is the Humana Festival New American Place. That partnership is the longest current and continuous partnership between a theater and a corporation in the country. And it has produced an extraordinary number of new plays. I'll just give you a couple of facts here. This partnership has produced more than 400 new plays, representing the work of more than 200 playwrights. Three plays premiered at the festival, earned the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. One was the Gen Game that Zan spoke of. The other was Crimes of the Heart by Beth Henley, which was starring Kathy Bates. Interesting little fact there. And the third one was Dinner with Friends by Donald Margulies. That was in the year 2000. So those three plays won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Eight other plays have been adapted for film and television. And other plays have just won numerous awards. So that's the Humana Festival for a year. Just to give you a little bit of more information. The gentleman that he's referring to, David Jones, is the founder with another man named Wendell Cherry of the Humana Corporation. They were entrepreneurs of the highest level. They had the vision to say that they could create a healthcare system for profit as opposed to not for profit. And they were very, very adventuresome. So when John came to them with this idea, they loved the entrepreneurship of it. They loved the bold, daring venture of it. They loved that it was innovative. And those were all reasons that they were really swept into this in a highly committed fashion. And also by that time, the Humana Festival had Gen Game in the first season. It had Getting Out by Martian Norman the second season. And in the third season was Crimes of the Heart. So at that point, I think there was this synergy or respect from the founders of Humana and John seeing that they were both visionaries who had this idea of how to change this community. And so I think that's how that, in some ways that partnership made a lot of sense because they were both of these really successful tracks. Sure. And kind of along those same lines, how exactly is the Humana Festival, there are other new play festivals in the country. Can this panel speak a little bit about why the Humana Festival is different and why John Jory's vision for this festival sets it apart from other new play festivals? Well, I think these two can probably speak to it better, but I think just to remember at that time when play first started, nobody in the country was doing this. This was a new idea. It seems probably foreign to many of you who are so accustomed to seeing new work around you all the time, but it really wasn't happening anywhere else. So I think that was the foundation of what really caught people's attention. I would agree with that. I also think that it caught... Do you have a question, Hannah? Oh, just how did the man up was set apart from other new play festivals? It's set apart for three very specific reasons. One is that we do fully produced work. Each of the place is fully realized in and of itself. So almost nowhere else in the country are they doing this many plays in full production. A couple of them do two full plays and then they do readings and workshops. So that's probably the principal thing. The other thing I think that sets our festival apart is the level of hands-on hospitality. You have all enjoyed it this weekend as you have been here. Trish J. Jones is really the person behind that. It was her very clear understanding that if you were going to get people to come to Louisville, Kentucky, which is hard enough to get to, that you had to give them such a good time that they would come back next year and tell their friends about it. And so even to this day, over our big industry weekends, people are met at the airport. They are given very personalized attention. We have so much hands-on approach to people. We get to know them. We talk to them. We make sure that we follow up with them. And people feel it's their festival. They have a real sense of personal ownership of it. And then kind of also the quality of the work, the plays that have been selected over the years. It's just got a reputation internationally that you will get at least one, if not more, superlative theatrical experiences in a weekend. I do think that this particular year, I think as an example of sort of a banner year, I think we have so many of the plays selected this year have really just taken off. I think it's a great year, but every year there's at least one play that we know is going to just leave the charge. And I think that's another reason why the festival continues to be so successful. I would also say I think Actors Theatre has a long history of making sure that the playwright is centered to the work here. I don't know that that was always true before the festival in terms of other cities and how playwrights were treated. And so I think we know that even recent surveys say that Actors Theatre is the place that many writers want their new work produced because of the care attending that we provide and really the control and listening to that. So as the human festival was going on and kind of Actors Theatre was building this national reputation, we'll transition now to the international reputation that Actors Theatre has. And that isn't a big part to the international tours that went on beginning in 1980 and continuing I believe until 1992, somewhere in the mid-1990s. So maybe Paul can speak a little bit about this because you designed the shows for all the international tours, correct? Yeah. Yeah, so can you tell us, and did you actually travel with the company when they were traveling? How did that work as far as designing sets and things like that? No, I didn't travel because my responsibilities here were always pretty heavy. And the only one that I did go on was the first one which was getting out and it was traveling to Belgrade and Dublin, Ireland and Israel. And I was a little terrified because I was trying to design for something that I didn't know or see. And the State Department representative who attacked us and had arranged for us to do this trip, I convinced her that I needed to go myself and actually look at the spaces if I were going to try to find some way to solve getting out, which was a major issue because there was a prison and bone and jail and bars and it was a fairly large difficulty in senior play. I could get away with some suggestion but there had to be at least enough. And so I went to Belgrade first and it was a very, I had never been an Eastern European city before and it was quite an interesting experience. And the theatre was very small, not much larger than the Victor Jory, if you've seen that theatre here in this building. And so that gave me a clue that I'm going to Ireland. And it was a huge proscenium stage, some 25 feet tall and some 40 feet wide. So obviously there had to be some kind of a range among me between those two cities. And the weather then turned sour and I was on my way to Israel. And so I was late getting into Israel, I was supposed to be there for three days. I actually got in, was whisked to see the theatre and I was back at the airport getting ready to leave and come back at which point they sort of arrested me. I couldn't explain why I was in Israel for less than 24 hours. I had not gone to Jerusalem, I had not done any of the things that I was supposed to do. So as a result I was detained. And finally we had to get in touch with the State Department, the lady who had arranged the tour and she was able to get me on the plane but that was quite an interesting experience. And for no other reason I didn't want to travel any more. I was at the youngsters do that for me. Well Zane was actually involved with the international tours also, correct? You actually, well Zane traveled in 88 I believe, is that when you... Definitely we're on the same tour to Warsaw and this is actually a true start, it's very funny. I knew that the theatre had a lot of trouble and I was, when I came here I was really keen on the opportunity to do some traveling, particularly to Australia. And I had said to John Jury, if you ever go to Australia please make sure I get to go on that tour. So I was in my office one day and John came in and he said to me, hey, how do you feel about snakes? Okay? And I said, no, it depends, I'm not afraid of them in theory, I don't know that I'd want to wrestle with the rattlesnake, why are you asking? And he said, well I need somebody to take a snake to Poland. I could do that. So one of the shows we were touring was called Snake Hammer, a play that is, I think it's part of Talking With, and the woman holds this snake and so I was introduced to Judy, she was a ten foot black king snake. And among my many challenges was that in Poland I also had to get her fed, which required four mice a week and the Poles had a very hard time understanding why I would be looking for mice to feed my snake. So Judy and I became very attached while we were there. The actress who was doing this role was a brilliant actress but she would walk off stage and she was really in a heightened state of emotional level at the end of the play and she would walk off stage and just drop Judy and I'd be there and catch Judy. So I really cared a lot about this snake but coming home, our plane was very delayed coming out of Poland and we got into Jazz K and we had a very short window of opportunity to get through customs and onto our return flight to Louisville and I missed my family and wanted to get home and so I said everybody ahead of me, I said everybody else go through first so that if I get delayed you guys can go ahead and go and I'll just get there. And I had the snake in the box and we got through customs and the guy said to me what's in the box and I said this is my snake Judy. She's actually a guest of the State Department. She's been visiting Poland for a while and she's coming home now and I really have to get something from agriculture over here and I said you know what, actually you can have her. I'm going to be, you can take her because I'm going to make my plane and even if you just have to do whatever you want to do with Judy and he was like hey, take her, take her. I've seen Judy's customs real fast. It's a great bluff, it's a great bluff. That's very interesting. I didn't get to go to Australia too. You didn't go to Australia as well. That must have been very interesting. What was the reception like? I mean, how did other countries receive Actors Theatre and you know performing these plays? I think we did over 1400 productions or something like that overseas. So part of the United States Information Agency had an exhibit called American Theatre Today and so you would go and there would be these long long lines. I don't know, we must have done 140 performances and people would queue up early in the morning to get in and you would make your way through the exhibit and then the culmination of the event was to see performance and we toured many of these short plays that Actors Theatre is famous for doing things like Handler and other pieces. And so all of it was done was simultaneous translation so that people could hear it in their native language and people would then want to hang out afterwards and meet with us and it was very well received and it was a big deal when Actors Theatre would come to town and we toured all over Eastern Europe. It was part of I think the philosophy of the State Department to bring American Theatre in so it was behind the Iron Curtain if you will at the time and exposure to something American that was not necessarily as political as some of the common... even I think some of the plays we were not encouraged to toured because they were too political. But it was a great experience for us and the Actors and I think people really enjoyed seeing us and it continued until 1993 I think when basically the State Department changed their focus and basically didn't have the money to do the tours. One of the great advantages for us was that we also met some phenomenal artists on these tours and two directors in particular one is Laszlo Marton who was the head of the Theatre in Hungary and he did a lot of work with us and then there was also a fabulous director by the name of Meladen Kislav who was the head of the Theatre in Bulgaria and Meladen eventually did migrate to the United States and taught at Carnegie Mellon for many many many years and then he returned to Bulgaria after the country was opened up a bit. So we were also able to form really positive artistic relationships with people and that was very useful for us as well. And another one of those talents was Miklos Fayer who was the resident designer for Laszlo's Theatre and he spoke only Hungarian and he was only about this tall and he came over when Laszlo came to direct his first production for us then he brought Miklos as the designer and it was a Midsummer Night's Dream and it was extraordinary to be introduced to the thinking process of a major designer like Miklos and the interesting thing was that the stage was all black and it was a series of pillows and the pillows was the only English word that Miklos could speak and on one side there were various shades of green and on the reverse side of the black and so by changing the pillows faces we changed locations and I designed lines for it and the other thing that it had a mechanical lift in the back, a bridge that went up with the court at the end of the play and there was a star pattern dropping in behind them so it was quite an extraordinary event. I loved it. Then two years or three years later they came back as a team and did School for Wives and I designed the lights for that one as well and then they were to come back again when Miklos passed away in the meantime so anyway he was a major talent. And speaking of other major talents that we collaborated with in our history we'll talk a little bit about some of the major names that we've worked with in the past obviously Anne Bogard and the City Company have been very influential and collaborated with us they've done multiple productions in the Humanifestival and the main stage series Marcia Norman who was our actually first resident playwright this is where she premiered Getting Out which was a huge hit as well as other shows she also wrote Night Mother which did not premiere here but it did win a Pulitzer Prize in 84 I believe I think so Marcia is from the whole community and John knew her socially and she was at that time as a social worker and was very interested in playwriting and John said to her, we'll write a play about something that you know and she based Getting Out on a situation of a person that she was working with in her life as a social worker and other notable playwrights that we've both premiered works and have produced other shows of theirs John Peelemeyer who wrote Agnes of God that premiered here at the Humanifestival in 1980 a very very powerful production Tony Kushner who wrote Agnes in America he premiered a show called Slavs that was the short end of the long title is Slavs Thinking About Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness that's a very long title as well as other works another interesting playwright who we have premiered nearly every one of her productions but no one has actually ever met her no one's ever had an interview with her no one even knows what she looks like and that is Jane Martin Jane Martin is an anonymous Kentucky playwright we think no one knows it's a two decades long mystery but we've produced nearly every one of Jane Martin's plays and they've been huge successes Keely and Dewey was one of Jane Martin's productions that was a Pulitzer Prize nominee in the mid-1990s and her is its shows have been widely popular so let's talk really really quickly before we open up the floor to questions I believe we're getting low on time I just wanted to kind of run through a list really quick of famous alumni that you all might know from Actors Theatre that we're very very proud of Ned Beattie who's a Kentucky native was in shows in the early years of Actors Theatre Victor Jory who played Jonas Wilkerson in Gone with the Wind he was the overseer he was here for many years and he's actually the father of Joan Jory Jeffrey Tambor who you all might know from the Larry Sanders show as well as my favorite Arrested Development he's George Senior yeah thank you Ken Jenkins who you all might know from what he's most popular for playing Dr. Kelso on Scrubs he was here for many many years in the early history he's also kind of credited with like Founding the Theatre which isn't true but he was here for many many years people just kind of associate him very strongly with the Founding of the Theatre Michael Gross who you all may know from Family Ties maybe not the younger ones I think it's Family Ties who's the father obviously Kathy Bates you know what more do you need to say about Kathy Bates she was here for many many years incredible incredible actress she actually won an Academy Award or no a Tony Award for Night Mother in New York which was written by Marcia Norman Joe Morton is a star Broadway film and television he was here in the early years Kevin Bacon was also here yeah Kevin Bacon what's up Timothy Busfield I'm sorry 6th 6th yeah exactly Timothy Busfield who you all might know from show called Dirty Something and he's also in the West Wing he was the one of the reporters Danny Conn Cannon I believe his name Margot Martindale from Justified she was here she was actually performing in well multiple productions but also in the Talking Wits so she went on those tours she's fabulous Christopher Cooper who is an award winning actor of film and television Holly Hunter was also at Actors Theatre in the 80s John Tuturo who's one of my favorite actors he's in a lot of the films as well as a lot of Adam Sandler of movies he's hysterical Julianne Moore was also at Actors Theatre she was in a production called Bound to Fish Calista Blockhart from Ellen McBeal she was here as well Nicole Shersinger who is actually a she's not a Louisville native but she went to Dupont manual high school here in Louisville and she performed here in the early years she was in the Pussycat Dolls just for reference Jennifer Coppenter who you all might know from Dexter she plays in Dexter she's actually from Louisville she's a Louisville native she was in productions here when she was young Dale Boyd Lindo who is who's a very popular actor of film and television was here in 85 and also came back in the late 90s Karen Grassley as well who was Caroline Engels on Little House on the Prairie Billy Porter who recently won a Tony Award for Best Actor in Kinky Boots I think it was last year he was here for Angels in America when it was performed in the 90s here at Actors Theatre Michael Shannon who is actually a Lexington native you all might know him from Revolutionary Road Boardwalk Empire or General Zod he's like the main villain in the new Man of Steel movies you all have seen him he was here in the early 2000s Ian Brennan who you all might know as the co-producer, founder of Glee he was also here yeah and Karen Henson who's been touring with Wicked he was in Girlfriend last year actually in a production last year in the spring so those are some famous alumni from Actors Theatre we have a rich history so I guess we should now open up the floor for questions I believe it was in the late 70s or early 80s when I attended the the Humanifestival and I believe I witnessed a play called The Shaper yes, okay, that's what I thought I'm going to be at the 6th 86, okay I just wondered because it was like the very, there's a scene and there's a man standing there and he's sanding his surfboard and he's entirely naked so this was my first experience with unity I just point out, you know how adventuresome, you know Actors Theatre is and left a lasting impression on me my question which I know sometimes you read plays and that's kind of how you get this but is there anything we're talking about new American plays is there anything just interested in what you all think that is a need to fill or something that you think is important right now that should be in new American plays there are plenty of people from the literary department who would probably answer this better but I'm going to start by saying that I had a class, an acting class yesterday with some of you and in that class there were 14 women and one man and I said to them ladies he's going to have a career because there's only one of him I want writers to get out there and they're going to be playing plays for women so we need more women's roles but I'm extraordinarily proud of this festival because it is the most ethnically diverse group of actors we've ever been able to achieve and I think that that is quite an accomplishment I'm excited about the fact that it is about 50% people of color I would like to see more people of color writing and I would like to see more roles for people of color but I would like to see more diversity This is kind of a more technical minded question how does one go about designing for a festival where so many plays have to have such quick turn arounds in just a couple of spaces I'll tell you I learned a great lesson let me just say this I learned a great lesson on the second human that was the getting out period there were two shows in this room getting out and remember I just said just to get it meant to me the second festival was independent woman bridge head daddy's does anybody here do the Peabody getting out Peabody Peabody and the Peabody was this delicate little show with two people and they danced and it was it was very fragile and getting out was very brutal and it was very demanding and it carried with it a ball of energy that invaded and possessed this room or it possessed the people in this room and I was one of those people and I didn't objectively leave myself enough space in room and thinking to marry those two plays in the same room in the same space and as a result I never worked harder in my life to try to save a production to save a play as I did with Peabody I designed the likes for both of them as well as the set and I finally realized and I went to the playwright and apologized and I told the story I don't know several years ago and it got quoted and I heard from the playwright after all these years and she was glad that I was still apologizing that her one effort had not gotten the situation as it should have been and that's what made her thinking about how to solve the problem of marrying four shows about the time we were doing four shows in this room and anywhere any number of shows in the victory story so the way I solved it and the way I think about it and still do when I'm dealing with Repertory is I see it all as one big problem one big puzzle and then you begin to see what the element of this play but they have in common what you can make them have in common without damaging but supporting them and as a result that was the way I then practiced the process and but that would still be the way I would have to solve it because I try to design the play as the playwright intended it to be not as I would would want it to be necessarily I'm not a signature designer in other words I don't have any givens that I'm trying to prove and so that was I laid myself wide open and used that every possible chance to put it together that way thanks of course theaters and art is always for a very specific place and time as you all mentioned there are two theaters it's a theater open for a label but also open for the world so I'm sure maybe if that's ever a difficult line to straddle being a theater for a specific community but also having the whole world watching is that something you have to think about? I don't actually think so I think that our goal is that every audience is our audience and they may come from anywhere in the world but we are imluable and we have a responsibility to our community because we care about our community but we care about all of our communities so I think we really just try to do plays that are important for people to see now Les Waters has launched it is launching an initiative that's important to him where he would like to be doing something during every season to celebrate his level he kind of started that with our town this year he's going to revisit a play that we did several years ago about a community in Louisville called Butchertown it's called At the Vanishing Point and he's going to bring that into what's gone on in Butchertown in the years since that play but all of the work that we do and especially in the festival is about all of our audiences thank you for all of our the youngest player you guys have ever worked with do you know? Max is one of them we have an extraordinary education component here with our education department called The New Voices it's kind of a human infestival for high school writers and high school writers from all across our region because we teach writing in the high schools are invited to submit plays and they go through a rigorous selection process just like our other plays do and we usually select I think it's like eight, maybe nine plays written by students from all over and they have an intense experience coming in and going through various stages of how to work with a parameter how to work with a director what does it mean to cast your play and then these plays are produced at the end of April and the apprentice company are the performers in them it's a pretty remarkable experience Max was one of them he's done it a couple of years and there are others and so I would say our youngest playwrights that we produce on our stages have been in high school do you ever search out inner city to find the plays that you're looking for to produce? I don't think that I could say that we have actually gone to that extent early in the years when we were getting the festival started John had made the statement that we would read all the plays that were submitted to us and then that had to be like several thousand and so on our website we have a fairly specific process by which plays can be submitted to the festival we use the ten minute plays as an opportunity to meet people who have not yet potentially been connected into the mainstream of agents and representation and we discover many many playwrights Jordan Harrison being one of them the first work we did of Jordan's was a little ten minute play and Lucas Knoth was a little ten minute play and so we take those ten minute plays we do seriously as a way to meet new people we have not actually gone out into a specific community to find a particular play I don't know if we would do that but we have not yet done that very much for those questions we have run out of time I did want to make a quick little plug here if you are interested in learning more about the history of Actors Theater we are publishing a 50th anniversary commemorative book in September of this year and I'd like to give a shout out to the book team who's working on that Christopher Castle Kate Chandler and Kristi Gaukel as KGT is producing a documentary about our 50th anniversary season that will also be coming out in September so check that out as well so thank you all very very much for coming today