 three variations of programs to share as case studies on how theater deeply impacts community, both as a smaller community of the people who are participating in a program, as well as that community at large, the neighborhood or the city in which that program is conducted. This is an opportunity for us to both learn from the successes of these programs as well as the lessons and the challenges that we have faced with these programs that we are doing, hopefully to be able to take that back for our own work in our own communities and neighborhoods. I'm going to briefly introduce our panelists and guide them through a series of questions about each of their programs and then leave some time for Q and A at the end. So today we have with us Marcia Koblin, the director of education of the Repertory Theater of St. Louis. Evelyn Francis, the acting artistic director of theater offensive. And Joanne Selig, director of education at Imagination Stage. The programs that they are going to share with us today illustrate how theater education and engagement can take an active role in developing that community trust and understanding that is so critical for our theaters to do in today's point. So without further ado, let's go ahead and begin with Marcia. Marcia, do you mind just taking about five minutes each to introduce your program and yourself a little bit before I dive into some specific questions for you? Good morning and thank you for letting me talk about this program. Being an ex-teacher, I have show and tell and handouts. So thank you afterwards, Bob, that you do that. Connecting community through the arts started as part of the TCG Revolution grant. And it was a cohort grant that took an arts organization and education organization and a theater organization working together to do a program over the 18 month period. You can't see the slide all enough, but it says over the past 18 months, the project engaged community members from middle school to 94 year olds in celebrating Meacham Park, which has a very vital history and also a very turbulent history. Meacham Park started in 1890. It was this amazing community, but it had no services. It had no sewer, no water. It was its own thing. And in 1970, they were annexed by the city of Kirkwood and they finally got government and sewer services. And within a year, Kirkwood declared eminent domain and took one third of the community and turned it into a Lowe's and Target and full shopping area. So a lot of the story history of Meacham Park is disappearing. On top of that, there was some very violent reactions. Meacham Park became that area. You don't go to Meacham Park and it's not safe. And it's not, you know, they're those people. And this was in current history. This is in the lifetime of these kids' parents, the story. So we worked with the Meacham Park Neighborhood Improvement Association and with the community to find a way to tell these stories. So what we did is students from the journalism class, students from the journalism class of Nifer Middle School, which serves this area as well as all of Kirkwood, did anecdotal interviews of community members or people who had connections with the community. Maybe white people that grew up in the area. We talked to high school students. We did some people by Skype. We were so lucky that Mrs. Jeanette Haley, who is 94 years old and was the first black teacher in the Kirkwood School District, came and spoke with the kids. The community members were so generous with giving their time. So we did all of these anecdotal interviews in various ways. The kids took a field trip with Pastor Ike and who they walked Meacham Park. And they saw where the different parts of Meacham Park were and different things that were happening. And then the stories and they wrote articles. And those articles became a book. We also gave the articles they wrote and what is the clinical information they wrote, which also had there the actions at the bottom and things like told me this and now I realize I need to find something or I need to think about and meet people, not just listen to them. But we gave this to visual artists, free visual artists, and to some performers. And the visual artists created this stunning artwork. Here's the book, remember, this is stunning artwork. This is stereotype. And based on the stories they wrote, and I have to tell you what are my favorites at the top of the handout, it's the cover of our book, because when Mrs. Hayley took her job, 15,000 people signed a petition to get rid of her. And there are 15,000 blocks. She was the chorus teacher. And there are 15,000 blocks on here and her hands because she took them to state championships. And all of a sudden people loved having her as a student. But people were very honest with the kids. They remembered they were talking to kids but she talked about taking her class for ice cream after a win and she had to stay outside because she couldn't be served. And these were things the kids did not heard. So we had visual art and then we also turned it into a performance and you can kind of see that we had the artwork on stage as our background. And some poets, co-show discussion, sorry to talk back. But we had the actors, the director, the percussionist that could then kind of talk about their feeling and having done this work and the others wanted to say. And then my favorite comment is a gentleman walked out and said, I thought I'd come with a rep to be entertained. I didn't know that I was educated too. I'm almost eight years old and was educated by 11, 12, 13 because these kids heard these stories and went, why are we acting like this and why didn't we know this? So because it was gonna end with these performances is the city of Perkwood is building a community theater that will be built in another year. And they would like this performance to be their opening performance. So it has made a big difference in the region of our neighborhood improvement association and it has also made Perkwood understand up and say, yeah, we have this. There are two documentaries because the kids, we also made documentaries with this. There is a 16 minute documentary and a seven minute overview which we're too long to show today that if you want this, this gives you the links to see it. And it's pretty amazing to hear these kids and to see how generous the community members were and how honest with their stories. And this is an 18 month project. So how did this project come about? What was the impetus for your theater to do this project and to become involved? We have a meaning, we are outside the city. We're in Webster Groves and we're kind of considered suburb and yet in Webster Groves, Northwestern is one of the oldest black communities in the state of Missouri. And then you have Meacham Park is a community in flux. And we felt that that's our neighborhood. That's our community. And we wanted to help tell that story. And through this brand, Webster Arts, which is primarily a visual arts foundation and then it's free board to learning which goes into schools. We kind of sat down and said, how can we help save these stories? How can we help give these people an avenue to tell their stories and their history and have it documented? So it was a way to serve our community. I will tell you, we started out with Northwestern and we were gonna tell the history. Some egos got involved and Northwestern chose not to work with us. And we went to Meacham Park and they were very pleased to have us. And it ended up being so much better because this was a medium. These kids were living this. It wasn't someone saying, let me tell you about my grandmother. It was let me, high school students saying, let me tell you what I'm going through right now. So were the students then that were heard that journalism passed? Did they reside in that neighborhood? They live in Kirkwood Bay or Kirkwood students. Some of them reside in the neighborhood. Some of them reside in the neighborhoods that don't go into Meacham Park. So it was helping them get rid of what they'd always heard and finding out what the truth was. Again, going back to the fact that this is just an 18 month project, is this something that your theater would think about doing again? And or how does this project inform the rest of your education programming now moving forward? Be part of it. So that this is something we can share. The actors are ready to do the performance again any time, but again, they had to move on with their life. So I don't know that this will ever be done. But Meacham Park will do this again. But it is a process that anybody could use in any neighborhood and have anyone, it is totally, and we do have the books that are available. It is, as with so many education departments, we're doing things for children, we're doing engagement. So will we do a project like this? I don't know that I'll have 18 months to immerse in a community again. Do I hope we will? Yeah. But it will depend on funding and time and real- Let's go ahead and focus a bit on the Theater Offensive and Theater Program right now. If you could introduce yourself, and I'd love to appreciate it. They'd apply for the Theater Offensive and Theater Program. An offer and a thing. So I think, so the Theater Offensive is an LGBTQ specific theater company in Boston. And we are working with community, specifically youth community, but we also have programs that are not really specific. So I am an activist and a performer, director, and an artist. And so for a lot of us in this room, teaching and doing educational programs has come from who we are. So I wanted to use a minute to say who I am and then let the young people speak for themselves about who they are and what this program is in order to bring some youth voice into this room, which is very central to our work. So I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and I've never met a queer person in my entire life. 17 years. And so I left Cincinnati and went to a Southern Baptist College in central Kentucky. It was a really good move when you're trying to find queer people. I went there and it was not said that you couldn't be queer, but we knew teachers were fired after they came out. And there were, I think, two students who came out and one student had human feces spread on his door and another had firecrackers under his door. This was at a religious college. And so I knew it wasn't safe to be out and to be who I was. And then I met my future wife there, which my mother, she'll kill me for saying this on camera, but she told me not to be wearing a Catholic and I didn't, I just didn't. So good Southern Baptist girl. I'm not, I'm sure that's what my mother intended. So I knew that in order to survive, I had to get out. I wouldn't survive it otherwise. So I applied to a school that my college were made to apply to and I thought, she's going to be safe. And I ended up at Emerson College studying theater education. Theater, of course, as for a lot of us, it was the same grace. It was where you could find a lot of queer people, even if there weren't saying that they were queer, you could find a lot of queer people and you could be around people who felt the way that you felt about the world. And so once I was in Boston, I couldn't believe that there were gay straight alliances. I couldn't believe that 14 year olds were coming out to their parents. It was just not a world I understood. And so for my thesis project, I decided to focus in and work with a group of community youth to see the impact of devising work from their original stories and what that impact would be on them. And I realized what an impact it had on me too. I felt like these 14, 16, nine year olds, 19 year olds rather, were teaching me how to come out as a 24 year old. So in the audience of my thesis project was the founder of the theater of Hudson. And he said, he has a little job. I wonder if you'd apply for it. And that was in 2001. And I became the part time teaching artist at the theater of Hudson in 2001. I became the education director in 2006 and 2010 to promote it to the director of programs and now I'm the active artistic director. So I've been there for a very long time. Don't do the math, okay? So I want to show you a video of young people. So in the last couple of years, documentary filmmaker Ellen Borosti made a documentary about True Colors. And this is just a clip of some of their work, them talking about what True Colors is and the work that they're doing in community. And specifically, the young people create and tour original work. And they're touring to audiences that hold power in their lives. That's a critical part of our work. So they are speaking to the principals. We make it hard for them to go to school. To the students who make it miserable every day in gym class. To the government agencies who are their clinicians and social workers don't understand how they navigate the world. So they're speaking to audiences that hold power and trying to shift the script for them to have the power for just a moment. They have to shut up and listen to the young people. So I want them to speak to themselves about what the program's like for them. In True Colors, when you meet a person and stuff like that, you feel like you know them for like a year. Like a lifetime. Yeah, like a lifetime. Yeah, like a lifetime. In a dream that there's kids from 14 to 22 in the LGBTQ community. And it's more than just about acting, it's about really spreading the awareness of issues in the queer community. Hi, Steve, how was your day? It was fine. Just fine. Yes, fine. I'm Armenian and my family's very conservative. What are you? My father discovered I was gay. He said in a very soft, monotone voice, be normal, two words couldn't just kill you. My sexuality, I didn't like to speak up as much. I'm skinned, I need to get out of my shell just to, you know, be my thumb. When we go to True Colors, labels are gone. They're gone. They're just taken away. And it's just you. Tejana says she's never been more real. She's never found a place where she can be as honest as she's been able to be with herself. As chaotic as the world can be, as chaotic as the life for LGBTQ youth can be, she feels like this is a place where she can rest. I just think they're groundbreaking. This is a space where youth can risk out into the world. I don't care what anyone else is saying. I am a gay black girl who loves God and God loves. Did you have that on stage? I was... I don't think that you could overstate the impact of this play. How does it feel to kiss your own gender? A lot of these kids, they probably haven't heard my dad when it was going to stick with a lot of these singles forever. I don't want to get my swag out of him. Yes! Wow! I always try to make a difference for other people whether you're gay or bi or transgender or apoptizum. You are a human being and you have the rights to love yourself and do what you want to do, what you heart desires. Right, that's right. So how have you seen in your years that your parents are running this program? How have you seen this program evolve as well as where do you see it going for its future? So it's changed a lot. I discovered after grad school, Boston has a lot of issues. It was safe for me, for obvious, I'm a white person, reasons. And there are many, many young people who are suffering every day. But there are also ways in which youth are supported in invisible ways. So I would say the model has changed quite a bit. The makeup of the group has not changed over the years. Though I'll say when I first started teaching in 2001, there was one trans young person and now 67% of the group identifies as trans or gender non-binary. So that has changed a lot over the last 10 years. And so we have to ensure that all different languages supported, identities are supported, making sure that they have teachers that they can model for them and role models for them has become actually in a lot of ways easier because a lot more people are coming out. And so we really pride ourselves on that, making sure that the identities of young people are represented in our teaching team. And I was the teaching artist for several years and that was the problem. And so I backed off quite a bit, not to make space for other people, but in fact to help make the group better. And I had done as much as I could do. And so I took a step back and a lot of artists came forward to say, this is my home. This is my artistic home, which colors. So I say that changes a lot when you take the white lady out of her room. It changes a hell of a lot in a space that's predominantly young queer and trans people. Where do you think that this program is going forward in strategic planning now? I did ask for that. So moving forward, I mean, there are a lot of, we've expanded a lot over the last few years. So this was an example of the True Colors troop, which is what has been running since 1994. And the young people led an initiative through the Leadership and Inclusion Council, which is a youth advisory board. They led an expansion of, we had several grants come in. And they made choices about what would come next. So they approved the documentary for that to be part of it with stipulations about what it meant for a documentary crew to be in the community. They approved a study with Boston Children's Hospital that they did. The young people approved expanding to an advanced ensemble. So it means that young people who aged out or felt they had gotten the skill they needed to in the troop would move on to a more advanced program. And then they also approved a series of workshops, so people who do one-off workshops and be in the community for shorter stints of time. Thank you. Joanne, why don't we take some time to hear about you and your program. Thank you. My name is Joanne Sobel, I'm the Director of Education at Imagination Stage. Imagination Stage is a theater for young audiences. Our home base is in Bethesda, Maryland, which is in Montgomery County. And it's about 30 minutes from Washington, D.C. But it's important to know that we also are incorporated in Washington, D.C. to store Imagination Stage and then Imagination Stage, D.C. And that influences our programming and both sort of being into each other. And we serve each as one to 18 through after-school programming, camps, school partnerships, and community programs, as well as our professional theater and it's the five main stage productions per year, as well as theater for the very young. But the program that I'm going to discuss today is our partnership with the Police Department. And we partner with the Washington, D.C. Police Foundation, the Montgomery County Department of Police, the Montgomery County Department of Recreation, as well as all of these parents that participate in the program are a large partner. They don't have a vocab. And as well as the schools that the students are in, also playing a large role in the program. So we can go on to the next slide. I'm just gonna actually, we'll just go through some of the pictures first, and then I can go on. I do agree with that, but they are the con. It's a great way to see. So the program itself is, the youth are ages 10 to 15. It depends, there's a difference between when we're working with Montgomery County versus when we're working in D.C. Both are set up really differently because of how officers' schedules are and because of just the differences in nature of police forces and how much training each has had with what they did with youth. But the youth are 10 to 15 and the ratios are generally about one officer for three to four youth. And while the main focus tends to be theater and devising, we do it for great visual arts, as you saw for many of the pictures, into the lessons as well. And the goal is really building relationships but also giving back to the community. So depending on, so when we started the project in 2016, and this is, I should say, a long journey of a project for us, we started in 2016 and I'm still very slowly developing the project, making changes and growing it. And we do not have a, the other thing to note is we don't have a specific grant for the project. So it's built into our operating budget. So for example, for those who work in D.C., there's general operating support, get D.C. So we just build that into the budget as opposed to applying for a specific grant and with Montgomery County, if you're working with the recreation department as opposed to just operating, just offer like, sink Disney for kindergartners and public contact. This is instead of doing something like that. And the reason I prefer this until I really have a solidified program because I'm constantly questioning it is it means I can make changes and I can make this program with our partners to be what our partners wanted to be, what Imagination States wants it to be without having to be what the grant needs it to be. And then at some point, as we're scaling up, there may be a great opportunity that is a natural fit, but it takes the pressure on. But we always start with ensemble and trust. So it's always improv and theater games at the beginning to really go listening. We move on to the technique and skill building, then individual personal narratives, and then at the end devising so that there is a sharing towards the end. When we work in a school setting, that audience is really, then the focus is on bettering the school. So any hard work is made for the school and the school community and given to the school and the school administrators along with the parents are invited. When we work in summertime in D.C., it's more community-based so the focus is on the neighborhood. So we choose the theme based on where we're working. What is the length of the program? How many sessions do you have through that process? What is the contact hours for that? Sure, about 20 to 22 hours is standard in the summertime. It's every day where it will be in after school time then it's once a week for a couple of hours. And do you have the, talking about the retention rate, particularly with the summers I went when you're not in that school setting, but also with the police officers? I'm sure. How do you get that consistency of attendance for that meaningful work of the school community? The summertime is actually key for that. So a dense amount of times rather than once a week is actually, that was what we were told by the officers in terms of attendance and consistency. So when we started and we did once a week, I assumed that that would be easy because it means just missing your job for a couple of hours a week, but actually that freaked a lot harder. And because of different rotations, we ended up not having consistent officers and then we saw the fact that student retention. So we had students who weren't eager to go, who did make bonds really quickly and then when that officer didn't show, it felt personal and so then they stopped wanting to come. So when we can do colony raids for summertime, it's actually easier from a scheduling perspective. During the summer, it's early DC summer, you know, so they are required to attend. During the year, the students, we do meet with the dinner with the parents and the students and the officers and the artists. So we all have dinner together at the very beginning. We do, we have dinner with the program, the officers talk to themselves, parents like to share. But then at the end, we come together for dinner again. So that has also helped me because the parents are really engaged as well. I love how you made this program is really based on we are going to do this within our own budget right now before we ask for grant funding to support it. Which also tells me that this is something that you're investing in or a potential long-term program versus something that is more just project things, right? So if you just piloted this in 2016 it's still relatively new. What was the impetus for your theater to create this program? How does it align with your theater's mission? Why not? Sure. So I'll start with our mission and then I'll tell you how to meet our mission which I usually put here, so I write it down. So I'll just put here. Is to provide students an opportunity to continue to explore and for example by their voice and their identity of how to perform in arts education. And so it does align in that sense but it really, we on a different project have a relationship with Department of Recreation and work with the Department of Health and Human Services. So we were already working with government agencies on a project that was grant funded and we still continue. And so because of that we already had some relationships but we didn't come up with a project. So the head of the Department of Recreation is friends with the chief of police in Montgomery County. They came up with their project and decided they wanted to involve theater and some of their officers do have a passion for working with the arts but they really wanted to involve more arts. So they came to us and said will you be involved in my first reaction with me? Hi, I can't do this but I did not say that. So, but I said a little bit. So we started really slow. So we had, they already have a project where officers work with great classrooms and so we invited them to come with some of the classrooms to see a play at a meditation stage and we could do a workshop together with a push-over shop and have some time together in this space. So that's actually how we started. So we both got a little bit more comfortable with the idea of working together and then we moved from there but we already had worked with the Department of Recreation and the DC Police Foundation while we were working with Montgomery County they run their own youth programming. So we are fitting into their program. They have a wide variety of programs that range from like whitewater rafting which I think I would choose that for drama in the summer but we have a lot of kids. They run ropes, they do ropes courses but most of them are physical, they do sports camp. So most of them are more physical activity. They haven't done a lot of works programming. Specifically which is I think why their interest came but I invited the head of the DC Police Foundation to come and observe in Montgomery County and give me feedback because I didn't think we were doing anything quite on target and I felt their officers and their programming was very smooth in terms of how they work with you. So I have her come and tell me everything that we needed to improve but she actually was very helpful and pointed out differences in terms of how they both operate and then we started working from there. So both programs kind of involved transition into just talking about successes. So and whoever wants to jump in first, that's fine. But talk to us about the successes that you have seen with this program. What impact not only did it have on the community and the people that you're serving but also on your theater. One thing I would say, when we did the evening performance and we made it available, a lot of people who had grown up in the Beach and Park area or who had grown up in Kirkwood and had not seen each other in 20 years came to the performance and we had as you do a little, you know, we're past afterwards so people could chat and we had to ask people to leave. I mean, it was all of these connected let go and we're starting to make connections again. So it was really wonderful to see the community that had separated. Some of them I haven't thought would happen with this. You have a lot of adults in the room and a lot of alpha adults in the room and the way of teaching artists responds is often very different to the way a police officer might respond to you thinking here. And I noticed a lot more listening towards the end and a lot, I think improv teaches you to listen to something in full before responding. And I noticed a difference in terms of the relationships with the officers and youth just in terms of, I think there was always a lot of love and care in the room but I think in terms of just really listening and hearing the full story before re-empting. And the other success I would say is just seeing that her now from the parents was unexpected. I mean, like every relative of every kid was there with every software, video casing, every moment. But I was sort of blown away because you know, I think the kids are really busy. They're very active in their schools and I didn't know how much it would be. So I knew you were going to ask this question and I was like, maybe Chi Chi. But I found it really hard to think about the successes because I'm in a constant state of saying, what can we do better? What can we continue to push? How can our work be cutting edge? How can the youth voice be centered to everything that we do? And in truth of fact, the statistical information about the lives of LGBTQ youth, particularly in Massachusetts are getting worse, not better. So young people are queer and trans, young people are four times more likely to be threatened with a weapon in school in Boston than their straight peers. They're six times more likely to use heroin in a lifetime. So I think there's this, the world sees much more queer and trans representation in society, right? And so there's this like, well, the job's done. We don't need to do any more work. We know that these people exist. But what's happening is that young people are really suffering in silence that they can't speak up, depending on what community they're from or what systems that they're part of, they can't speak up for themselves. And so they turn to other things in order to help them cope with the breaks. And true colors youth are paid to participate in the program. And a lot of them, it's their way they keep the lights on. It's the way they keep their cell phone on so that they can get that job interview. It's a source for them of a livelihood, though it's not much of a livelihood. So successes are that the space is still there for young people. And more community groups, government agency schools are open to the idea of the true colors programming coming in and doing educational programming. It was a real struggle to look at towards 2000 million of us, so I can tell you that. It was a real struggle to try and make that happen because it was seen as a recruitment mechanism. Are you recruiting people to be queer and racist? That's why you wanna come to our schools. And secretaries would hang up on me when I said what we did. They would just straight up hang the phone up. So that's a success, just community-wide, that that's not happening as much anymore, but it still happens. I'd say another great success is that the model of true colors and creative development, where it's asset-based and where the people who are impacted are the decision makers, we use a similar model for the rest of our programming, which I think was a real success, to see how does this translate to the general community, this model of working with community and that making decisions about how money is spent and what they wanna see on stage, I think has been a great success in the program over the years. Great, and let's take a look for a moment here as well, because you've already been into some of the challenges that you've had. So the next question is, what are some of those challenges that must be learned that inform your choices moving forward that you've had in these programs? Sure, yes. So, I just have to bring Nicole and Karen back in this room. They said so many things that were blew my mind. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And one of the things, when we were talking about all the systems of oppression and how they interlock with one another, and it's such a, pardon me again mom, fucking mess, there's a way in which we all, if you are working in a nonprofit organization, are working in a system of oppression. It keeps wealthy people wealthy and it keeps poor people poor and it has this model of, there's a handout for you to do the little thing that you do, right? So there's this enormous power dynamic that we're constantly pushing up against. And so how do you work in that model but totally tear it up for me as you know, right? And so I have to bring also Harold Steward who is a magnificent colleague of mine who joined our organization a year ago. And the reason I'm the active artist director are our founder when on sabbatical and we're in a succession plan. And Harold and I have been doing this unpacking of systems. How is our organization upholding white supremacy every single day, every job application, every audition posting, everything that we do is upholding white supremacy culture and how do we turn it on its head? So that is the challenge that will be for us forever. And one that I feel like understanding as a white person where I am in that fight is really significant because I think Nicole said it, don't talk to black people, don't talk to people of color about your problems. White folks need to talk to white folks about how they can better these organizations and better community and stop oppressing. So that is, that's a world challenge and also the theater best is challenged. Being a one-off program there is another challenge as was stated earlier to say thank you very much for believing in putting all of your heart out here. So I think it is when you are doing a finite project it's important to make sure that the stories that are told are the ones the community wants to tell and needs to hear to make sure that there is a lasting effect and that you have changed ideas and you've also set up relationships between participants that will continue when you're not there to encourage it or to cause it to happen. That it doesn't need you as a player, that it is a lasting difference. And so I think that's a real challenge when you are in a organization that can do a long-term or has the structure to do a long-term, how do you make these one-offs work having been done? It's finding the right artists on the project. I think it's recognizing what bias I'm bringing to the work. I have, especially in terms of really understanding reactions and understanding culture both of the youth we're working with but also of the officers. And I think the question I ask and continue to ask is how can we continue to meet and our partners work on it together? Is how can we continue making this space safe for the youth, for the officers, and also the artists working? And I think that's a challenge. Being about your biggest takeaway. You know, what is, now that you are either, you know, many years into a program, just starting a program or a completely unique project, what was the biggest takeaway or tip that you would share to everyone in this room who might be exploring similar work? I think it's patience, go slow, and like the planning and the amount, setting up complete talks. I have weekly conversations and still do with the point of contact from the unit that we're working with within the police. I think the conversations with the artists. So it's the amount of time set up for them in the planning process as well. But I think patience and being willing to sort of readjust along the way. The idea is doing things along is not the best way and finding other organizations and community groups that can bring their insight and their talents make for a much stronger program. The rep could have done this by itself. But having the Meach and Park Neighborhood Improvement Association, having what's your arts, having Springboard to learning, just made it so much better. And then the artists that we've brought in and they brought in some ideas we hadn't put in there and we were able to shift and say, okay, we haven't followed that. So I think it's having that structure, knowing exactly what you want to do and then be ready to change it in a heartbeat when better information comes along and find those numbers. Not my friend, but I'm going to attempt to say. I have communities that are impacted by decision-making, making, so this is amazing, by the way. I think this is the first time I've ever seen or facilitated something where I said, we are going to leave 10 minutes for Q and A and we did not have 10 minutes. So we're going to turn it over to you for any questions that you might have. Sure, so for everybody. Oh, sorry, I'll repeat the question. Asset management and transparency in your organization. So I have two examples. One is brand new and another has been going on for a while. So our youth advisory board, the Leadership and Inclusion Council, we have allocated funds for that program that the young people have made decisions about how that money gets spent. So they'll go through a process where we say, okay, I've done a first draft of this and here's my justification for why I put it here, right? And then they will go and make adjustments. And there are a lot of programs that say, well, we can't trust young people with money, blah, blah, but the fact is they make a much better decision than I do. They have just no lie. There are ways in which they see places to compress and expand that are really innovative. So if you have the opportunity to share that with young people, give them an overall number, give them a suggestion, here's where we would allocate, here's where we would now. Let's go through line by line and say where you would allocate. There's one example. Another example, which is a new thing for us, is that this particular fiscal year, we were trying, we were budget crunching and so we had to make some cuts. And so with the whole staff, we sat down and went through the history of budget I'm not lying to, the history of budgeting in our organization, how money got advocated, and then here's all the money that we'll make, line by line by line, every grant we'll get, here's everything. And then here's how we would make cuts. Now we want to give your suggestions for how we would make cuts. And people were like, I think I can get a big donation for that one thing. I mean, there was like dollars, people were bringing it out. And so we had never done that as a staff before to just go through in depth to say, here's how the money gets spent. And it was with every single human being in our organization that we did that with. And some people like checked out and they were like, I know who's gonna, you started talking about grants and I got lost, which means we have to go back and do work to say how can you come to the table like everybody else, or as most people have more questions and experience. So that's new for us. Like literally everyone in the room together. Everyone in the room together going through every piece of the budget. Yeah. Yeah, this is about the policing program. So our organization has been asked by the mayor's office and by chief of police to run something a little bit like this. And we just haven't found our way around it. So maybe you can help me think this through. So how have you been allowed to investigate and dig into the history and current state, the racist history and current state of law enforcement in our country and probably where you are, or definitely where I work in Cleveland? And how are you engaging in discussing questions with the ACLU to make sure you're using protected path for this program? And how do you avoid creating an unwise and unmarried and trust with the police, which could put youth of color in danger in the future? To your first, it's spending a lot of time, I'm away from the youth with them to keep developing relationships. But I am constantly questioning if we're doing the right thing. Have you been able to have that conversation with the chief who asked you that? Yes, I mean he's doing, this was his idea, he wants to make things better. So this was his brainchild with the Department of Recreation under several town halls. Can you stand up just a little bit? Yeah, my question is a conjunction with Raven's question. How do you keep students safe and protected? And I just speak, I work in a community that's a small town and by the time that you share something in the morning, in the afternoon everybody in town knows what happened. You know, and so it's a very, it's a wonderful community to experience in the way that it really is a true reflection of if it takes a village to raise a child, truly in that community and I love that. But how do you protect in a community as such students that are dealing with some of these identity issues and then how do you empower them in a community that can be very dangerous for them where they expose themselves and can be completely shunned by the community in many ways and it can be so damaging to them? Absolutely, so all of this is choice based. You don't have to tell your story. You don't have to go on tour. You don't have to tour in your community, right? So there has to be choice. And I do think that this is the place where devising and people telling their stories. It's a way in which organizations take advantage of that. Ooh, look, free stories, right? And that is not what this is. Every step of the life of the crime process, they're making choices about whether they want to share this or not. Who they want, whether they want us to come to their school or not is up to them. We don't make that decision. Someone might call us. We take the tour to the young people and if someone says, I know a young person in that program, I don't want to do that gig. We don't do the gig, period. End of story, choice, all the way forward. Empowering them in their own communities. So I would say a lot of people, a lot of young people test their limits and test who they are as we all do and exploring our identity, no matter what our identity ends up being. And so there's opportunity for them to come to programming. Now in studio programming, there's nothing public about it. So they can come to a workshop, try that out, go away, never come back again, right? So that's again, part of it as well, is that you get to make a choice. What program are you part of? Do you want it to be public? Do you want it to be private? And nobody knows who you are, right? So the empowerment part, there was a young person who would, and the other folks might resonate with this, who would change on the training. So he would be a he on the train and a she in programming, yes, and then would change again on the way home. And so that travel was part of a transition, right? And then she wrote a piece about that transition on the train, right? And then we saw, that was in the movie, Mariah, and I was like, oh, that's my young person's story. Nonetheless, that transition to a different community, because we're centrally located in a gang neutral space, and there's not, turf wars are happening in that particular community. And so they gather there and then we go out into the community of tours. So that's what I'd say, is that we're trying to create a safer space, or a braver space, and then it's a braver space that they can go back out. We have about time for two more questions. What's the reps philosophy in the education department on one off programming? Do you have a particular reason why you do it, or what's its goal, and what's its goal? The education director's philosophy is, that there would be, great programs, the budgetary philosophy, is we have a program called Wise Right, which is a residency we do with fifth graders every year, on, they learn to write plays, and then we produce some of their plays on our main stage. That gets funded every year, funders love that project, that happens every year. Other projects that are not related to any performance, audience development, depend on what funds that we're doing amazing programs like this. I was the first education director at this theater. It's also learning the importance of education and changing that dynamic. But I'd rather do the one-offs and at least get to do something than say I'm only gonna do it if I can have it. Maybe this is for the true colors, artists just because of the legacy of time. I'm always interested in impact beyond kind of the one-off, and you just have to give it why you couldn't. You actually have long time. I don't think you're going to hear a little bit about it. Have you tracked that and how it was you've done it? You're not necessarily relative to others in the use of headache coffee or program, but in terms of the well-being and self-harmacy, have you been able to follow your youth? Yeah, for sure. So a lot of it happens over dinner table, right? So there's folks that will gather together for a meal or a coffee and catch up. We have done an alumni survey, and here's, and I wrote the goddamn alumni survey, so here's my alumni survey, is that who has a computer, who has the means and the time to fill out the form, and who has an address for me to send a check to for the alumni survey, yeah? So miraculously, on our alumni survey, 100% of people went to college, and 60% went to grad school, right? And 100%, a line, 98% are registered to vote. So there are all these ways in which it's revealing to me, and it's funny because we talked about like, I shouldn't say this publicly, but I don't trust that form because it's way too pretty to be true, right? And the other part of that is if you do an alumni survey, those meals together, that coffee together, that's where you hear the real tea, where they will tell you, here's how I'm surviving, here is how I'm thriving, here is how I am suffering beyond the capacity that I have, right? And that's why I don't trust that alumni survey, so. I don't trust surveys anyway. I don't trust surveys. You're the reason that they call it a people who lose. Yeah. Yeah, I think a lot of people have done like a research, like in the head of people kind of like who is the interviewer? So you just stepped into a big whole thing. We need to have lunch because the long-term stuff and assessment and evaluation is something that we're going to get to. It is an addiction of mine, I will admit that only. And so there's a lot of data that we're going to get to and we're going to be able to do that. And so there's a lot of data out of there. I think the important thing for this audience to know is it can't just be a paper survey. Nicole said it earlier. It cannot just be a paper survey. That is not job done because if I just relied on that, it would look real pretty, real real pretty, what our alums are doing, but I know better it's not really in their lives. And it is in a lot of cases surviving, getting out of prison, getting a job, there are ways in which it's about survival. Great, so that wraps up this panel and all of the time that we have for this. So thank you so much for everything. It's now about two minutes before one. We have the lunch scheduled until about 1.45.