 I think sur la réalité, something above it is hovering. It's like a dream where you kind of know where you are. You have seen everything, but it's different. And it feels foreign. It feels alien. And it is almost like we are in a science fiction movie where actually now the reality is stronger than that fiction. We have talked for over four months with theater artists and now we have started to enlarge our scope, our focus. And we have thinkers, curators, producers with us and hamburger will be with us tomorrow. Actually students from New York City on Friday. And today we have with us a great worker in the field of theater in New York City, someone who was truly admired, beloved, I even would say, and respected in the New York City performing arts world in our field and part landscape of that big, big field of theater. It's Jay Wegman, who is the director of the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. And he's the artistic leader since 2016. Before he did fantastic in great order, the Abrams Art Center at Henry Street Settlement. He got an OB award, a Bessie award, many, many others. He was a fellow of John F. Kennedy Center Foundation for the Performing Arts. And of course, it's influential in what he presents. I think his presentations of work at the university in the United States, I think is leading on the scale of the productions when it comes to presenting. And of course, it's also a different mission than at Bard, which is part of the theater program where there's also teaching workshops and writing what, when it really comes to presenting, there are the three great places, Cal Arts, I think Montclair University, but at the moment, they're Skirball NYU seems to be a place that really is openly seeking for answers and help us to ask better questions. As we say with artists who are in the moment, anticipate the future, also Jay has to see what is going on there, what is happening, what will happen. And of course, everything also has come to a hold. This program is about listening. And as we say here, radical listening. So I apologize always for talking so much in the very beginning. Jay, thank you for taking the time to join us. Thank you. And thank you for that lovely introduction. That was nice to hear. No, no, it's all true. And you know, I mean it. I know I can only imagine on how many Zoom calls you are on every day. Tell us a bit, you know, you are the first or one of the first also we have of an artistic director of a presenting space, a strictly presenting space. How are you experiencing this time? I hate saying it's a new normal because it doesn't feel normal and it's really not new anymore. But what we did was, you know, in March, just like everybody else in New York City, we canceled the remainder of our season and we didn't know what was going to happen for the fall season. So that of course was canceled. And then I was just informed because we're not independent, we do function well within New York University that our spring season most likely would be canceled as well. And this was in light of both what the Metropolitan Opera said, it's also what, you know, Broadway announced. So fingers crossed, we will kind of pick up where we left off in the fall of 2021. It's going to be kind of as a friend of mine says a Frankenstein season, which is a little bit of what's left over and what we wanted to do. And of course, with the changing political landscape, we have to be nimble with that, with what's going on the culture. So it's, even though we're not in the theater working right now, we are certainly all working behind the scenes like we always have. So when did you hear that you won't have a spring season next year? Probably two weeks ago. I still have my fingers crossed. It is an 800 seat house. And we were planning on doing some smaller things with the audience seated on the stage. So perhaps we can still do that and maintain some very good social distancing in the house. But again, it all depends on what the governor, what the mayor says, and of course, what the president of the university says. We won't be doing any of the large things we were anticipating, such as a loop of production. But there are some smaller things that I think we might be able to pull off. So wait on that. In Europe, often it's 20, 30% in France, they even up to 50%, do you think? It is a realistic chance. Well, I'm on this informal network of downtown presenters in New York City. And so we each have our own challenges in terms of the size of our spaces. Skirball is definitely the largest of all these spaces. So we can be the most flexible perhaps, but we don't have any guidelines yet. Nothing has been stated about opening up theaters for performance. I know churches have been able to open up at some level. I have no idea how that's going, but I know that there aren't any theaters in New York City who are actually doing live performance within their venues. Certainly people have gone outside to do things. Also, certainly a lot of people have gone to the Zoom platform or to some type of internet platform, but we're all still treading water. And it does get a little surreal. I mean, thinking that it's October right now, and this is, you know, I mean, who in their wildest imagination thought a year ago that we would be living like this right now? I mean, it boggles my mind. It's incredible. I mean, we are starting our prelude festival today. We've done it for 15 years. It's online only. It would have been unthinkable. It's against everything the festival stands for. If I understand you're right, New York City will look at the theater season opening for next year, September, October, so. Yeah, at least the larger venues. So, yeah. I mean, so we need people like, like uni doing the prelude festival to keep us mindful of what's out there even though we can't be there in person to see what's going on. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is, it is truly a most serious estate of the theater at the moment. And the Marvin Carlson always pointed out that even in the history of theater, a complete shutdown, even so now it opened again in Europe and many other places. But for a while, the entire theater world shutdown has never happened in the history of mankind. So we are living in times that are unprecedented and changing. Jay, for you as a presenter, these days where you're, I assume, in your apartment and looking at your walls, at your books, in the mornings you get up and look at your computer and say, what meals do I get today? And you're not out in a group, not presenting, not talking, not. Is something changing in the software of your hard drive of your brain? Yes. What you're doing? Yes. Skirtball kind of has a two-fold mission. Certainly the presenting international performing arts is our primary thrust. But we also, since we are well within a university, we focus on discourse as well. So early on we decided not really to move the arts presenting part to the web because while some people can do it very well, Skirtball just wasn't in a place to start doing live work online. However, we have become very, very well versed in doing a lot of public talks that we used to do for the university anyway. So I have become very adept at running Zoom webinars. I've taught myself how to do all kinds of premier, Adobe Premiere Pro things on how to put little films together. So for me, I have learned all these skills that I never thought one that I would need and two never do. So, but that's unique to NYU, that's unique to where we are. So, and also NYU has been very kind in supporting all the staff. We have not been subject to furloughs. A lot of our staff members have been reassigned within the university to help with PPE distribution or helping with phone lines, things like that. PPE is... I'm sorry? PPE means... The personal protection equipment, the mask and the thermometers, things like that. And also anyone who works at NYU, before they can go in a building, they have to take weekly COVID test. And so we are... Scribble's a site at the lobby where these tests are being distributed to, I don't know how many people work at NYU, 30, 40,000 people work there. So, I mean, that includes the hospital and everything. Yeah, so we are well-established in doing all that. And then the next week, we are also gonna be, I'm very proud to say, an early voting site. So, we again are one of the few places at NYU that is both interior facing. We look in and we support the university, we support the students with our programming, with our curricular activities, but we also are very public facing. And here we are doing it, just like we normally do, but again, without the artistic part. Yeah, it's fantastic to see our, sometimes also our Segal's Theater in Mittal is used for voting. You have machines in there, you see people assembling and being part of a functioning system of democracy. And of course, we encourage everybody to vote, everybody to get out. Anybody who said politics doesn't matter, everything is so the same. You should, who cares who you vote for? It's not true, it became clear. But Jay, my question is, you also, let's say, part of the machine, part of the presenting, part of bringing great things over, fighting for the real estate and the New York Times to get a review and all of it. Is this full break of a big car, that's maybe even a racing car, what you're driving, you all know, that's now being blocked. Is it a moment where you think of what you do or is it a moment to something, say, we have to do something different or is it a confirmation of how significant it really is because we miss it so much? What is happening? It's all of that. On one hand, it feels like a force sabbatical. I mean, I had no choice but to not do this, but at the same time, we need to be relevant. So that's why we kind of shifted to the discourse, but also knowing that this isn't going to last forever. So what happens when we can go back into the theaters and will people want to go back into the theaters? And we do a lot of international programming. And that was always getting more complicated with the visas. We're getting harder and harder for artists to get them to come into the country. The costs are going up. So it's going to be much more complicated. So on one hand, this enforce sabbatical was kind of nice because a lot of us kind of get on a treadmill and we travel a lot. We're always thinking about what's happening next week in our spaces, but also what's going to happen in two years in our spaces. So it's a lot of a dance that goes in on people who are fortunate enough to have a job like mine, but at the same time it can get to be somewhat like a gerbil in the proverbial wheel. So this has made a lot of us just stop and think about what we're doing and maybe the way that we've inherited these systems, this is the best way to move forward with that. So Skirbil on one hand is looking to do more commission work, but knowing that we are not producing theater, we are presenting house. So that can be a nimble line we cross from time to time. But for the most part, we don't have the capacity to do all the stuff and dealing with the unions and things like that. So, but at the same time, we're conscious about the world and the climate and people traveling by plane to get here. And what ethical responsibility do we as presenters have in both honoring the need to make our world smaller, at least artistically, but also to save the world and not to just bring artists over for a weekend and then send them away. So that means that we have to have better networks within both North America, Canada and the United States on how to bring artists over not just for one or two gigs but maybe to revamp that touring process. It's kind of fallen to the wayside, especially with some of the more avant-garde people that I like to bring and certainly Jed over in Montclair likes to bring. It's often too risky for those type of artists to say go to Omaha. So that I can truly count on one hand really where someone like Milo Rao might be invited in the United States. So part of that is just educating our fellow countrymen about what else is out there and not everything is comfort food in terms of the performance. So I know that the visa also question is a big thing. Now, nobody can really travel because of the COVID restrictions but as an international presenter or most as you said in the way, do you feel that this country is supportive, is encouraging it or do you think it's being made intentionally complicated? I can't say that it's intentional because I don't wanna be that cynical. However, the reality is that it is getting more difficult. The bureaucracy, the expense, it costs a lot of money to bring someone to this country and forget about their artistic views or forget about putting them up in hotels or whatever. It's thousands of dollars just to bring in artists. There are people who are trying to fight that the Dance USA folks and some of those other professional leagues like that are really trying to talk to government leaders to try to affect that. I don't feel like I have that much agency in the matter but I'm glad that other people are. But it's incredibly difficult to bring artists here even from Canada. It doesn't matter where they're coming from. Well, sure it does. I mean, it's harder to bring someone from the Middle East than it is from Canada but nevertheless, Canadian artists can't just skip over the border. They have to go through the same amount of paperwork. So it is very difficult to bring international artists over especially the larger companies because then that cost is just multiplied. But for each visa often you have to pay a fee and an expedition fee. How much, what are we talking about? Well, it's even more now than it was a year ago. So I'm going to throw out a ballpark figure of around 7,000 for a company. But then visas also frequently have to get two visas. One for the artists themselves and then one for the people who come with the company who aren't necessarily practicing artists on the stage but support the team. So we're talking $7,000 to $10,000 at a minimum. So it's incredibly expensive as you see. And then because we're not commercial, we can't pass that. If we passed all of our expenses off to our ticket buyers our tickets would be $400, $500 apiece. Thank God we are subsidized by a lot of members and donors and some foundations and things like that. I frequently say that NYU doesn't support us. I mean, they give us the space but they do not give us programming money. So we have to be very flexible and creative in how we bring these people over and not bankrupt them, us or the audience members who want to see them. So that's just one of the problems facing people in my position. Oh yeah, this is, it is quite remarkable that festivals all around the world are supported with generous amount by governments and cities. It is still up to you for fundraising often and then complications to get a visa and you have to prove it. You need letters from colleagues to say this is an important company. There's a scam that you also have to get actors equity to sign off and then you have to pay actors. I mean, really it does scam might be a little too harsh of a word, but it's kind of a paid to play type of thing. And it's... And so we see perhaps less than our students or theater goes less than even in decades before because it became so expensive and then tickets became so expensive. And we see a backlash was our students sometimes say I cannot afford BAM tickets. I couldn't afford Lincoln Center Theater festival tickets. It's all subsidized euro stuff. So I'm not going to even write about it. I'm not going to engage an artistic on a way or on a way of a research or critic. So it's a great contribution that you make that NYU makes and the school makes bringing over truly significant artists things you have shown there would not have gotten here and they are some of the most exciting and the most remarkable work we have seen in New York City. And I think Carol Martin also that NYU she wrote and TDR she said that COVID is creating a new way of producing whether one of the best radical differences that will be after TAC as we say here the time after Corona will be there will be a different way of producing because of things like you learn. Now, do you feel that's true? Will there be changes in the way you produce co-produce? Certainly, I'm not aware of her article but I will jump on the internet and find it after we hang up. So I'd like to see what her perspective is but definitely things are going to change. Things are totally going to change. Anything from the number of audience members who can come in and maybe within five years we can get back to a hundred percent capacity but also, you know... You think audiences will not come back? I'm eager to go sit in an audience again. However, I hear people saying they're scared to go sit in an audience. So I'm hoping that a vaccine is going to be a silver bullet and we can all act like this never happened but that's just naive. That's never going to happen that way. So Carol is definitely right. I don't know to what extent but artists are concerned with their own safety, rightfully so. Coming back in, are the people on the stage or in the venue with you? Are they okay? So it's a web. It's a network and it's a matrix and one thread is going to influence another. So definitely, I mean, I've already talked about the international artists, how hard it is to get them here anyway. What will our government say about bringing people in from other countries? There's so many levels to this. It gets to be like a Rubik's Cube and it's hard to make all the colors the same side. Incredible. Not only you say it will be till next fall, actually around the time now until Cedar will pick up. You think it might take up to five years to get to all kinds of people comfortable? Yeah. But you know, Frank, people aren't even going back to the movie theaters. So, I mean, you can't in New York City but if you read what's happening in the rest of the country, movie theaters are going to go bankrupt. I read a week or so ago because I can't remember when because time really has no meaning anymore but AMC I think was going to shut down a fair number of their movie theaters. So, you know, and that's movie theaters. The largest British, I say movie chain, declared bankruptcy in AMC and lots of them are of course close to it. If this goes on till next summer, definitely it will be a big change that we now finally we see the industry like with Disney's live streams that films will go directly to the living rooms and that idea of the assembly of seeing something together in a space also with the movies might be a luxury and there will be many, much, much fewer possibilities. We will see it is just incredible the changes that we perhaps are too close with our eyes to really see or understand will be much more clear in the two, three, 10 years from now and I agree with you that it is a time of a radical change and we have to be part of it to create also something new out of it or something different that perhaps takes back or brings us back, you know, to the very beginning. So many people, so many artists we have talked to over 100 now said, you know, we have to go back to where we started from the rituals, the small spaces, community-oriented work. Well, I'm still pondering this article in the back of my head and, you know, there's all kinds of other issues going on. It's just that Corona has forced us to stop and think about them. So there is the climate. There is what's happening to with matters of race both here in the United States and the world and, you know, it's sometimes when you don't have this opportunity to pause, this is probably one of the silver linings of Corona is it is forcing us to pause and not be knee-jerk in our reactions to these things but to actually take this time and think about, well, what does it mean to be a college presenter in New York City and how do you reflect what's going on politically, socially, economically in the United States but then also what do you do to help save the climate? Do you just stop bringing artists in? Jerome Bell a while ago said that he was not going to travel anymore by airplane. So that's admirable but, you know, what impact is that gonna have on his practice? He will only be able to move probably within the European Union. So who knows? But so, yes, moving forward, things are going to be different. They have to be different and Corona is giving us a bubble in which to rethink how we might move forward. And I wanna say might because we really won't know how to move forward till we're moving forward again. You said we are not engaging in the kind of Zoom theater performance world at the moment, why? I think early on, everybody jumped on that bandwagon and the bandwidth was just too wide. And also, I will say that I saw some very good things but also I just saw some things that looked incredibly thrown together. So I didn't want, if Skirball is going to present something artistically to the world, there has to be a level of production that I'm not embarrassed of. So we are talking to an artist who we had commissioned to do something in February and I've given him the freedom to move it to the internet if he wants to. My only caveat was I don't want it to look like a Zoom meeting. I, you know, there has to be and that doesn't mean it has to look like it's on Netflix either. If he does something that will respond to the medium of the internet in a clever way, there's a company named Dead Center based in Ireland and for the Dublin Theater Festival they actually did an incredibly clever piece that was very well suited to the internet. I think it is online. I don't remember the name of it but if you go to Dead Center on their website, Bill, I would recommend people see this as a very interesting, very intelligent way of doing performance for the internet but Skirball isn't there right now. We present and early on it was great that, so Skirball happens to be one of the theaters in New York City that also presents the National Theater Live broadcast. And so, and I don't even know if they're still doing it but the National Theater Live was doing a lot of streaming. So of course we were advertising that as something we could say we were participating in when we really weren't, we were just passing the news along. So we just weren't in a space and there wasn't anything that we were actually going to do that could have been shifted to the internet but now there are people who are doing it very cleverly. There's New York Theater Workshop, some of the things that the public but we're not quite there yet. And because just unlike the New York Theater Workshop or the public theater, we aren't a producing theater. We are presenter. So it's a little more difficult for us. Yeah, I think I never fully thought that through that you are a presenter and actually your only way would be to present what someone already have it done but they have it on their website, they have done it and they don't need you and your great, beautiful stage. And that is quite something. Do you think that presenters will have in the future a new wing like lots of European theater have ballet, opera, drama, the small whatever, 90, 90 theater. Will there be the digital zoom theater wing for every theater? Will that be something that people will? I don't know if it'll be zoom theater but we certainly can't go back to a zoom free world. And again, one of the positive things about the coronavirus was we zoom allows you and I to talk like this. And one thing that Scribble did too, again, one of the benefits of being embedded in the university is we started an academic class that the undergraduate students get credit for. We call it the NYU Scribble masterclasses. We've invited six artists from around the world to lead six individual masterclasses for NYU students and that's every other week. And so the intervening weeks are lectures or seminars led by NYU faculty. Now we couldn't have done this without zoom. We had Thomas Ostermeyer one week tomorrow. We're having Tim Etchells. There's no way we could have brought them in to do a two hour masterclass. So that is one of the benefits of zoom. That is us looking at our constraints and thinking, well, what can we do within these constraints? How can we be creative? So that has been fairly successful. We are making those masterclasses available to the public through our website. And we might continue to do that once we're back in the realm of the normal, whatever that means. But also we do a lot of things that surround our events and one of our staff members, Jay De Leon, started a book club where the books each week were tied into the production at some level. And we've shifted that to the web, well to the zoom through our website. And sometimes we get 300 people. We were lucky to get 10 to 15 in the lobby before production. So again, that's a shocker to us. And it's a huge benefit because we're getting our name out there more. People obviously have a need to connect even though we're all just sitting every day talking only to our computers. But I can't imagine not engaging the internet like we have been. It's been a very good tool. And I can't imagine that just fading away when we can go back into theaters. That is it. These master artists who you bring in that in a way fulfill also the mission of this Kerbal to engage students, to give context, to see the dramaturgical tool to help us think things through and see that theater is an art form and that there's context and that it actually provides next to entertainment also a serious in a way philosophical statement on us. The dramaturgical part is really, really important to me. And thanks for bringing that up. I wanna say that I was really, really, really fortunate to grow up where I did. I grew up in Minneapolis back in the 80s when Lee Vu Chulay was running the Guthrie. And I didn't know what a dramaturg was and their programs were incredible. There'd be these essays in them and there'd be these costume design sketches and everything. And 40 years later, you go to Europe and that's just everybody does that in their theater but I had never seen that before and I haven't seen it in the United States very often. Lincoln Center will put together those magazines and so that's a good thing. But and that dramaturgical material that the Guthrie has made available through that their programs was such a part of the production for me. So it's been important for me and for Skirball to continue, I guess, Lee Vu Chulay's legacy in terms of throwing out all these other things that reflect their production at some level or support them perfectly by showing the design process for the scenery. So all of that is really, really important to me. And but also you don't need that if you simply wanna go watch the production, great. So again, it is additional material that could enhance the viewers or the audience member's experience of what they're seeing. So what are you seeing as a presenter of the idea of the VR world? Some people say the VR field missed the Corona time. Zoom took over. Meanwhile, it should have been or could have been everybody gets a headset and they are now down to 200 or 300 amazing content is out there but it hasn't taken on. What do you think about the VR and presenting and theater artists perform or do you have plans? Do you see things? No, I'm a Luddite. I mean, I've obviously not totally since we're Zooming but I've only had one experience with VR and maybe it's also my age but I went again to see something somewhere in Europe and it was a workshop but they were using VR and I found it very clunky and very impressive but to what end? I mean, I could be sitting here in my living room with VR on and I guess that's your point but I think part of live performance is that it's live. A hundred years from now, maybe VR whatever we can't even imagine will be the norm and no one will be talking to anyone in person but personally I can't, I can be persuaded otherwise because frequently I do change my mind but at this point in time I can't imagine shifting to VR at least at Skirball unless it had something, unless it was an integral part of a production that was part of the entire concept. So how's that for an answer? That's interesting that it is not there and maybe also it's not working maybe also it's just also to you but I feel personally also it's stunning that it is not more in present in some way. From this thing you say you saw some things that you felt were good or inspiring you mentioned your theater workshop or the public, the family plays but what else did you see? Where you say that was interesting if you could share that with your curator's eye where you see that is something perhaps where that kind of internet zooms theater or site pre-op, you could say it's site specific it's just the website at the moment. So what did you see? That's clever, website specific. It was this dead center thing it was, I should be googling here but something called like how to be a machine and when we went to go buy our tickets because they wouldn't give you a ticket until you had gone through this procedure you go to the website, a film kind of comes up and says hello please look at the screen and they're gonna take a picture of your face and then said, great, do you like this picture? If so, we'll move forward. So they gave you that choice and then the next one was they wanted to capture you laughing and then the next one was they wanted to capture you with your eyes closed or looking like you were asleep or something and I don't wanna give away the whole thing but all of that was woven into this 40 minute presentation and it was very cleverly done. It could, they could, I mean, Skirbolg technically could stream it from Dublin. It was specifically set in Dublin and I'd rather do it having Skirbolg be the venue in which this happens but right now that's not a possibility given the restrictions of international travel and whatnot as I've been talking about but that piece I thought was great and it doesn't surprise me because Dead Center is an incredibly creative theater company and this is just another one of their very good productions. So, but I also have to say I'm not eager to jump on the internet to watch things. I guess it's because I'm working, as I say, just talking to my computer all day. Last thing I wanna do is eight o'clock at night turn on yet another performance or something. I'd rather sit on my couch and watch Netflix. Yeah, yeah, it's true. There's a fatigue and also the duration that we look at as you say perhaps it will be 12 months from now where we come up. So there's a limit to what we can consume and what we can engage with and perhaps it's getting less like an overdoses of online or live streamed possibilities and it makes us long, as you say, for the life, for the real. I mean, we mentioned before and I was here it was interesting. Heiner Müller said, you know what people think what makes theater so great is that's a live audience who share, you know at the moment they're all alive. He says, but the thing is, you know actually the possibility or the potential of the audience member might die is the real importance. You know, that's maybe the last thing. Someone goes to a theater last time they see humans on a stage acting out a story, you know this is now so real in the moment for our things, Jay. How did you get into curating that art form? And I see it as an, as you as an artist as someone who collages and that idea of voice of an enlarged definition of art. It's certainly you are. And why do you do that? Why did you decide to present things? 2020 vision is great in hindsight. I have to say I would truly not have seen myself doing what I'm doing now. I'm very grateful for it and looking back it makes sense how I got here, but I moved to New York in 1990 to actually go to seminary. I was, as I said, I was from Minneapolis and I had gone through this whole three-year process just to be able to do that. I think it's a great opportunity for me to be able to do that. And I had gone through this whole three-year process just to get to seminary Episcopal Anglican. And there was an Episcopal seminary in New York City. So I thought, well, three years in New York, great. And then I thought I'd probably go back to Minneapolis and be the college chaplain or something. But once I got here, I actually had an internship. St. Anne's warehouse used to be at a church called St. Anne and the Holy Trinity. So I got an internship there, working with both the church and with the arts program. And then from there, I got another internship at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine working with the arts program there, which at the time was very vivacious. It was something was happening every weekend. And once I graduated, I was fortunate to get into this great program at Yale and I was hired at the cathedral. I stayed there for 10 years and I had some great bosses there who encouraged me to think of wild programming that... What did you do for those 10 years? Oh, a lot of different things. I was in charge of both the visual arts program. So, you know, the Episcopal church at one time, it's pretty wild. And so we showed, I brought in Andre Serrano, the guy who had done Piss Christ. He was very notorious for that. He also had a series of photographs that had been taken in a morgue. So they looked like images out of the Renaissance. So there would be a picture of a hand or whatever. So we put those up during Lent, which is the time of reflection and denial. And so we... And also it's a matter of when you kind of focus on your own death, getting ready for the Easter season. So we brought that in. William Wegman, the guy who dresses up his dogs. No relation to me. But we did a whole fun series where we dress the dogs up like, not like priests, but like they would dress up in choir robes and things like that. And because the cathedral did this huge blessing of the animals every year. So we did that to align that. We did a lot of things around... Every year Gay Pride, we would do Stonewall celebrations and, you know, the cathedral's huge. So we frequently end those celebrations with the big Apple Corps marching band, marching from the altar through the cathedral out the front doors. So it was a great playground. And the New York Philharmonic performs there every Memorial Day. So there were these huge events, but there were also small events. So it was just fun. And then, you know, I also went to church on Sunday and gave sermons every once in a while, things like that, but it wasn't... It's not why I was there. I was there to actually weave the arts back into the cathedral. And what's interesting is that my whole artistic career has always been working with the arts, but not in institutions that are primarily art institutions. So I worked in the arts in the cathedral. I worked in the arts in a social service agency. So Abrams Art Center is embedded in Henry Street Settlement. And now I'm working at the arts at a public university. Well, I'm sorry, not public private, but with public programming. Yeah. So I kind of fell into this niche of working within larger universities or institutions or social service agencies working in the arts and trying to weave the arts back into a larger mission. So when I say I would not have seen myself doing that at NYU, because I remember walking by where Skirball is right now. It's the Kimmel Center. It used to be the Loeb Center. I remember going to punk rock concerts there in the 90s. And whoever sees what they're going to be doing in 30 years. But, you know, so they tore down the Loeb Center, built the Kimmel Center, and now I'm working there at Skirball. So that that's the through line I see, but I also was always drawn to interesting takes on classics, hence the Guthrie or interesting just interesting ways to do things other than commercial theater. So I have to admit I did love going to Broadway when I first moved here. Again, at the seminar was literally 15 blocks away from Times Square. So it was very easy to go get cheap tickets at TKTS. And what I liked about Broadway, I guess, was the theatricality of it. So I've still drawn to very theatrical things. Doesn't mean it has to be big and bold and loud, but I do like to make interesting takes or entrees into artworks. So that's kind of what people see at Skirball. Whereas at Abrams, that focus is really more on raising up local artists. When I got to Abrams, that place was very, very quiet during the day. It was basically an after school program. And there were three theaters there that were rented out to make some room for the settlement. And the place was dead. So, you know, knowing that it was a social service agency, which helps people and I thought, well, the poorest people I know are artists, because if they get money, they spend it on rehearsal space rather than, you know, health insurance or anything like that. So we started making the spaces available because they weren't being used anyway. And also eventually getting money to commission these artists to do things actually in the theaters and also helping them with some of their basic human needs. You know, artists are very, a lot of them are very poor, but are too proud to go on food stamps. Or, you know, there were, we had clinics and things at Henry Street. So that was that focus. Just because Scribble is so large. We still are commissioning things. We've commissioned, as I said, this artist to do something in February, but we've commissioned Rich Maxwell to do a new work. We're, we're, we're commissioning one or two things a year. But I'm rambling, I think that I answer your question. Very, very interesting. Yeah. I think you're going to be a journey from kind of a spiritual institution to a social service neighborhood institution and now to a university. So do you, do you see that in a way? The, the Scribble is also a cathedral. Is it a spiritual side in it? Totally. Inside. Yeah. I mean, I don't talk this way normally, but yeah, I think artists are the priest of the, of the contemporary society. Going to the theater or to a dance or to a performance is a very transcendent experience for a lot of people or not. But frequently I used to say that some of my best religious experiences were in theaters that had nothing to do with specifically religious context. So yeah, I would like to think of it as a cathedral. Also because cathedrals do much more than just their religious services. So as I said earlier, Scribble is going to be an early voting site. Scribble has book clubs. Scribble invites people in to give, you know, lectures or conversations on difficult subjects. So yeah. A secular cathedral in the best sense. And I think it has always been a part of the arts and perhaps especially in America where the commercials theater in New York is so dominating in a way perhaps it's a site that has been forgotten or has not been paid enough attention. I still wonder all these Broadway theaters that made the industry is billions, four or five. I don't know what the budget is and are they engaging at the moment, you know, with artists helping, mask voting. They are not. And so they are missing one of the pillars, you know, of theater that has, and it's neglected. Yeah. I just feel awful for all those actors or stage crew or all those people who I mean, I'm sure they're on some type of. Assistance right now. I mean, they spent their whole career is getting to New York. To get it on Broadway and now there's nothing for them to do. I mean, that's true of anybody, but it's specifically a Broadway. But that's happening to the downtown scene. As I said, Frank, you know, no one's venue is open. There are places like the chocolate factory that are cleverly using their facilities to maybe film a dance movie or something. But that's not open to the public. So, you know, people are trying to be creative about how they're responding to one, then continuing need to create and to continuing need to receive and trying to dance somewhere between the two. And frequently, as I've said previously for me, it's Netflix, you know, or Amazon Prime or whatever. But you know, I, I've watched way more TV, the last seven months. And I think I ever have in the previous 17 years. Yeah. Yeah, no, I think it is part of a reality. And, and, and for many of the actors, he's really, truly great actors on Broadway. It's more about the producers. I think the people in charge who run the theaters, which also mirrors the system, you know, the shoe, but it's privately owned. It's designed to make money. There's shows at most. Make most money, run the longest 1000, 2000 shows in often in European theaters, up to 25 or 50 performances. They get tired of it. They say, we want to do something new, you know. So it's a completely different idea. But it is, it is, it is hard for, for the artist to adjust. Well, you know, England helped the United States would never do this. You know, helped subsidize theaters, not so much performances, but at least started feeding money into these theaters during the early stages of the pandemic. The National Endowment for the Arts probably threw some money out that they were allowed to within that legislation, but that would never happen in the United States. Billion euros, I think they put at museums, theaters, arts, institutions. And I think the society has the responsibility to take care of its artists. It never does anyway in the U.S. And it's, it's pickable enough. But at the moment it is devastating. And what will happen if till December or till next June, as you say, predict, I think you absolutely right. There's no doubt about it. It's musicians often performed in bars and restaurants, but now you cannot even have a drink. If you don't sit down as an, as a guest in a restaurant and order meal, you cannot listen to music. And so they don't make enough money to hire musicians, you know, because the bars and restaurants, they money on drinks. Artists cannot work in restaurants. It's disastrous. Yeah. Yes. And I do want to give a shout out to some very creative foundations out there who, you know, have let people take their, some of the money that had been assigned to specific projects and let the music in general operating or, you know, there's some really fabulous foundations out there. Um, and I do think, uh, you know, the department of cultural affairs, uh, they're hampered because it's public tax money. Uh, uh, but Scribble actually, uh, no university, uh, in the New York city areas eligible for department of cultural affairs. So, um, you know, it doesn't affect us at all. Thank God. But, um, it's who knows what's going to happen next year with all the tax revenues, you know, being cut, which feeds into what the DCA or NISCA in New York State Arts Council can feed back in. So, you know, going back to, oh, isn't it better in Europe? Well, yeah, for some things that definitely is, especially if you want to work in the arts. And we do think access to education, access to healthcare and access to the arts are human rights, basic human rights, you know, and access, you know, to participate in a democratic system. And, um, and all of it, all of it seems to be endangered at the moment. It's shocking. And I think art will have to take a stand. And, um, you know, we don't really know how to do it and how to react also to a figure like Trump that is unprecedented. And perhaps America has no memory of such, such a tone, such a discourse he brings up meanwhile, many countries in the world. So we have heard that before and we know, you know, that this will change, but I think the arts also now will have to, to stand up and, and, and, um, and do a part and remind us all of that, you know, spiritual seven also for democratic process that it's part of, um, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, it's part of, um, uh, and Floria Malsakar talked about the idea that this theater has to represent the multiplicity of the agonism. He said we now have to create arenas, areas where you show competitions of ideas where we say no side really will win, but let's talk about it and, uh, and let's listen to each other and, uh, fight things out and see who, how you can look at different things. idea that one side will win is antagonistic, it will end in civil war, it will not really work, it has to be a place of discussion. And theater has a central role in it to work through personal problems, family problems of a city, but also of a state, questions of, you know, the person and the individual and the state of the politics and ethics and morals. And while theater is a great place to do that. And but the question is how can we find it? How can we use it? And how can we reinvent it if the entire foundations of it in the U.S. are so and so endangered? What, what do you look forward to? What, what do you have plans? Do you have a I mean, me personally, or for Skirbo, or? Per spouse, maybe. What is, yeah. Well, I have no plans, personally, other than just seeing, you know, what happens here. I used to travel so much. And it was a, it was a great blessing and a curse. But, you know, just the thought that we can't even go to Montreal is kind of just mind boggling to me. But the, the plans that I have that I'm excited for the plans for Skirbo, we, we actually had a very thriving season planned. We, we didn't announce it. Because we normally announced our season in May and there was no reason to announce a non-existent season. But we have some really great things lined up. And I'm still hoping against hope that we can pick up and move some of those things into next year. And that also means the funding. It also means finding new funding because, you know, people frequently think NYU, Skirbo has deep pockets because we're in NYU. And that's, as I've said several times, it's not true. So it's always a matter of doing some creative outreach to see if some friends will give us money. But we have, I don't want to curse it and jinx it. So I'm not going to say anything, but, you know, look next May for, for maybe really exciting announcement. But I also want to say something else because you were just talking about even musicians and cafes and things like that. I know you have Annie Hamburger on tomorrow. And Annie, even before COVID though, was doing really interesting things. Well, Annie's all about size specific, well, not totally, but, you know, and was working with these artists and has been able, I think, somehow to bring them along into this COVID environment. So I'm excited to see what she talks about tomorrow, because Annie is somebody who's really thinks on the ground. Yeah. And we look up to her. She created Dancing in the Street. She did the Riza Abdul early work, you know, the Meatpacking District, a left theater for a while, but now is back and maybe she has some answers from stuff she already did and to see how we can do. And I think she also wants to create a group of, you know, perhaps young curators or curators who get together and find ways of presenting. Yeah, Jay, you really thank you. We're coming closer to the end of the talk. What do you look at? What Netflix series do you look at? What books do you read? What music do you listen to? Is there want to share some of that? Oh, I'd be embarrassed to admit it. But after she died recently, I went on a whole nostalgic Helen Reddy Jag. I was like, it was just like, you know, I was a child in the 70s, and I was just like, I find myself incredibly nostalgic lately. So I don't know, every day is different from the last, and you use the word collage earlier, it is one of my favorite words, but my days become collages. I just things overlap. There's the zoom, there's the NYU stuff there's dealing with the my staff who I haven't seen in person for seven months. And then there's what I do with everything else. So the books I read, but Oh, I will say there's a great book called Shuggie Bain. I want to give a shout out book that I just stumbled on. It's great. I think it's for the Booker and for the National Circus Circle prize. So great fiction set in Scotland. So I wish I was saying, Oh, I'm reading Hegel and I'm reading, you know, oh, I'm not doing any of that. I remember when we talked in the phone months while you say, I don't even know what day it is. I knew what today was because I knew I had to talk to you at noon. But yeah, especially if it's a Saturday or Sunday is like what day is it? So yeah, I mean, you would feel that way too. Yeah, it is incredible, you know, how time seems to be shifting our spaces get smaller, we are inside and the way we collect, connect globally. And but it doesn't seem to really even to be really even when we end our conversation, we will fold down the laptops and yep, with ourselves real long. Well, actually, no, I believe an open because I have a 115 zoom call. We have to be, we have to, we have to be on time. Yeah, so I hope the plan we talked about that you're one of the first ones we also called, you know, that idea of a 2022 to create in the summer, a New York International Festival of the Arts to call all presenting organizations, you know, to participate in the streets in the parks, but also in the venues, some of it curated hopefully reserved. And we will see if this will work out and maybe some of the things you talked about our artists talked about the new ways of producing new approaches will will be represented in that and that we might be able to to pull that off who knows but I think it's something that, you know, keeps me alive. So really thank you for for for being part of it. And since you are have a little background as a, you know, as a spiritual leader and you work in the arts and you said I one of the works at Abrams which you did so fantastically with community you created this network of people that interviewed that came up. What do you say to young artists or to artists at the moment? Do you have something? What do you say what you can say? What is of significance? What do we have to focus about? What would they be thinking about? I would just want to say hang in there. It's easy for me to say that I'm not going to be kicked out of my apartment or I not, you know, I don't have to go to the food bank or any of that as of now. Thank God. But I just say hang in there. Also, you know, my grandmother told me once we were not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but she said, you know, don't worry about where the money is coming from. Money usually shows up somewhere. So I, you know, at this level, most artists, at least the artists that I love and worked with for 10 years very closely, we're always wondering where where's the money coming from not only just to pay their artists or the spaces or anything, but just to live. So I guess trust the universe that it might be rocky and bumpy, but usually you come out on the other side better. How's that? It's a little little married sunshine, but I do believe it. We trust you, you know, this is your advice, and we take that very serious, you know, what we're talking about. And this is a significant statement. And yeah, nothing lasts forever, not the good, also not the bad. This will be over one day, and we have to hang in there and use the time. It's, of course, stretching, you know, and it's warped. And we cannot believe that it's already since March, and that it might be till next summer or the fall. It's just incredible to even think about, but it is a part of reality. And we have to we have to acknowledge it and see what we can change and what we can't to have that vision. So we will see. But Jay, really, thank you for for taking the time and give us the insight, you know, how you experience this as a person, but also in your work, you know, as a presenter who cannot present, you know, who has a space, but the space is closed. There's resources, but you cannot allocate them. So it's just incredible time. So really, thank you, thanks for the audience for listening. As Jay said, tomorrow we have the great Anne Hamburger, who will share with us a bit of her journey, but also what she's thinking is of importance. And I know she's also a bit angry about many things that are happening now. So I look forward to hear what she thinks should be doing and what actually she is doing. I think she's preparing the festival in November or December. Then we will have on Saturday and Friday is a discussion with students. I felt we haven't heard from students, you know, we have so many masters and great thinkers and artists. But, you know, now it's also a time to listen to to our two voices from people who are the future, who will be changing this world and we part of it. So I'll look forward to that next week with David and Miranda, our prelude curators. We have a selection of artists from the prelude festival. Also get a little insight, what are New York artists thinking about the ones who do sing? What is on their mind? What are they struggling with? What are they producing? What would they like to produce? So that's why I think it is actually interesting what David and Miranda put together, you know, as a little sample of what's on artist mind. Also we gave, you know, stipends and some honorariums to make something possible, very little as we as much as we really can do when we stretch. But I think we have to support the arts. We have to support artists. We have to be there. So it will be interesting. So I hope everybody might also listen in. And thanks to HowlRound for hosting us and Vijay and Ciara and Andy from the Seedles Center. And again, Jay, thank you and really all our respect for what you do for the New York theater, how open you are, the international work you present and we know how complicated that is. And that you really listen to everybody include ideas and you are creating a community center also there. And that's in New York needs you and we terribly miss it. So all the best and see you soon. Bye bye. You're the best. Bye.