 Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the San Francisco playhouse. Whoo. Whoo. If it was a regular show I'd be standing up on the stage and you would all cheer Because We have you watching the show tonight as there are in an audience. So it's like having a full house I feel like I have a full house at any rate welcome to our empathy gym We like to think of ourselves as our community's empathy gym where we come to practice our powers of compassion By entering the experiences of the actors through the play we turn words into living flesh and we hopefully go back out into our community to make it a more Compassionate place. I'm also very very proud and honored honored to be Doing my performance at least and I think probably our guests Performance on the land that the aloni lived on long ago and for many hundreds of years in the Bay Area It's an honor to be on the land that these great humans pioneered and settled long before the white man came long before the conquest of the European powers and so I just like to thank the aloni for for Stewarding this land for such a long and beautiful time So we've been having wonderful chats week after week with some of America's America's greatest playwrights, and I'm very thrilled to to have such a playwright on the show tonight Whose work has been premiered at the Magic Theater where some of you may have seen her work also at the classical theater of Harlem and Off-Broadway and many many many many opportunities off-Broadway She's a playwright. I've long admired admired but have not yet been able to stage on our stage Looking forward to that happening very soon. I'd like to welcome Betty Shamaya Hi How are you? I am fantastic. It's nice to be on the same coast with you Yes Welcome to the San Francisco playoffs, but you're a you are a local girl. Yes, I am I grew up in Daly City, and I moved to San Carlos as a teenager. So this is home for me Where you are for now? I've been in New York for a couple decades now, but I I've always considered myself bicoastal But San Francisco is a very special and important place to me and my extended very large Arab-American community It's here. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Well, welcome. I I I In preparation for our Conversation, I read your amazing essay in HowlRound Which I just was I thought it was just incredible for so many reasons And I I wanted to ask you a couple things about it Just to start things going your first the first paragraph I think was so profound and I thought boy that is so right and I don't know who who is a Playwright or actor or producer of color has really put it put it quite that way before I Want to get it up here? sure and Read just a tiny bit of it, but my phone shut down What it says is do you mind if I do this if I quote you? Okay, okay, it's a HowlRound thing welcome everyone from HowlRound by the way because we're actually streaming Nationally with the amazing Platform of HowlRound which those of you who are not theater people don't know that HowlRound is a sort of a clearinghouse for everything theatrical and all sorts of people post on it and Essays I had one of my empathy gym Newsletters on HowlRound once and it was a thrill to be on it and an honor to be sharing our empathy gym broadcasts with HowlRound This is what I this is what Betty wrote and I'm going to read it to you because I thought it was so profound and I just and so correct so correct The debt that is owed to the black artists thinkers and intellectually by we non black Americans of color is so immense and Multilayered it cannot be quantified They've given us the language of revolution integrated all white institutions and modeled how to rise to the apex of power in America Overwhelmingly black pioneers have embraced and accepted other people of color as allies all while knowing they bear the brunt of both microaggressions in artistic spaces and the murderous violence necessary to keep a racist society and place Especially when we keep our little mouth shut. I Thought that was so beautiful So you're good in prose too Well, I guess I think I would Say that I'm fiery and I think that the role of the playwright is to be an Intellectual as well and to look at our industry but also the world and I think I Think actually the legacy of McCarthyism has kind of hobbled many playwrights ability to you know feel like that it's very important to engage with social issues and You know and agitate and provoke not just in our work So if I kind of feel like the legacy of McCarthyism like the kind of fear of engaging with the hot button political issues of our time Has infected a lot of playwrights and I'm not I'm sure a lot of them feel Many of the sentiments that I articulated in that essay But I think um, you know, I don't know who said it and I don't know about who they said and I wanted to research But somebody said I'll told the basketball player shut up and dribble when he was engaging with The black lives matter movement Yeah, and and I kind of feel like it's like shut up in the right place, you know But I'm very excited about artists like Tony Kushner or John Janay who really engage In in the political arena and kind of like, you know are there in body and spirit as well as in their theater work because You know, I think it's I think it's exciting and important and I think this time, you know We're we're kind of reckoning with all these ideas is You know, it's it's a it feels important and it also feels like this is what we're supposed to do as artists and Intellectuals are supposed to interrogate how we are uncomfortable, you know I mean what I articulate in the essay also is my own complacency in kind of modeling How one as an artist of color represents a whole community and kind of takes the lion's share of focus As long as you kind of stay within the strictures of not being too political or not being You know too bombastic in your work You kind of are rewarded for that and and I think part of my journey as a as a writer and an artist and a thinker and a person Is to interrogate how have I? participated or Gained from the structures of American theater as they currently are it's very easy to point fingers at other people and I you know Have certainly had my difficulties in you know, I'm much more widely produced in Europe and that's I think problematic and interesting also because for most of my life America has been at war in the Middle East in some fashion and Part of the legacy of Like I said McCarthyism is That we haven't inherited the 60s kind of awareness of war possibly because most middle-class people are not drafted So even though we are at war there's this kind of feeling that it's not happening And it's not real because it's not happening to a certain sector of society and not everybody's vulnerable So, you know, it's very strange to be to know that war is going on and people are dying on both sides And you kind of live in this bubble that in the 60s you didn't live in you didn't have the comfort of Not confronting the Vietnam War and what it meant so Yeah, that so that's something you know this this movement It's very important for me to kind of continually Investigate how I as an artist can push push the industry are into our beloved industry And I think nobody comes into theater trying to you know diminish Other people. I mean I say it a lot. I say it almost every time I speak I've worked in enough cultural context to know that theater people I have more in common with anybody who works in theater Than somebody from my culture who doesn't love words that were our own tribe and and you know And part of being part of a tribe is that we make our tribe better Just like part of being a family is calling out how we can become better and and not just Pointing fingers, but also looking inward and that's what I was really trying to do You know with the last kind of decade of my career, which is you know working with more You know theaters that had less less of the money and the exposure that I was used to working with Because they were willing to do the kind of work that I really felt I was wanted to do So thank you for reading my essay or part of it. I appreciate it Yeah, that's great I'm kind of fascinated by your comment about McCarthyism because we think of McCarthyism being You know literally 70 years ago a long long time ago And of course a lot of great American writers were careers were destroyed by McCarthyism forever Some came back 20 30 years later You know Waldo Salt people like that screenwriters in particular, but playwrights as well Whose careers were ruined? We think of course of a play like the Crucible which Arthur Miller wrote in a Denunciation of McCarthyism so so it's interesting because I guess I sort of thought oh, we're done with that That's the the battles we're fighting now are Are different battles, but I think I'm gonna think about that because in a way the threat of suppression Actually happening in this country in regards to content artistic content or the political affiliations of artists is I think probably still pretty real Well, I mean they're real also in our minds even the idea The concept of political theater doesn't exist in Europe in the same way in that You know and first of all even the word political for me It has somebody who's kind of a BS or somebody kind of you know fudges the truth to be political to me It's not a compliment when you so people are like, oh you write political theater I always hear it as you write things that ameliorate you exactly So but that that term was coined during the McCarthyism era and does not exist in other contexts You know the idea that and and and what is also troubling is you know I didn't get in this industry to write plays about Arab Americans Who've lived in the last decades that I've been alive? I got in because I'm interrogating and trying to deal with the human condition And I think sometimes when you are of a certain race people will label you as you know dealing with political issues When everybody's dealing with political issues, it's just You know, it's just how we see it is is meaning non mainstream or non White or non and the other thing that's very important for me is who gets to be white changes For example, Eugene O'Neill, you know was writing at a time when there was wasn't you know when a Kennedy was a dream you couldn't have a Catholic president and You know a long day's journey in tonight is to me the classic immigrant play about poverty And about the kind of how you were haunted by class even when you no longer belong to that class and You know and I feel like that could be a black story That could be an Arab story and and one of the things that I feel that's exciting about this movement is is Who gets to be universal may the the concept will be may be expanded by this kind of you know, real reckoning with Because I believe that you know, you can't understand understand O'Neill Unless you understand the Irish American experience just like you can't understand August Wilson Unless you understand the African-American experience You don't need to understand them at all at all in terms of you know when my play the black guide was done in Greece You know, it was like the easiest production of my entire universe They called me up and said let me fly you to Greece for the opening. It was like I didn't have to have any Conversations they picked up the script and they did it And so I went there expecting for them to want to talk about you know, the black guide is about poor Palestinian women across the ages There's a suicide bomber. I mean, it's it's intense political stuff. So I thought that they were very political Political in that term and that they were going to talk to me about the Middle East They didn't ask you know the whole week that I was there They didn't ask me one question about anything except the characters internal motivations nothing about the Middle East nothing about War or violence or all the things that that that play is known to be dealing with and I took the producer aside And I said why would you do a play? You know your economy is going to hell in Greece about for Palestinian women And she said we saw it as a play about four strong people We never like we know that they're of an ethnicity But we know it in the way that you would know O'Neill is about Irish people it's also about you know addiction and and Class and all the other things and it was shocking to me that even I kind of absorbed that idea of how it was being Perceived and thought that that's how it's going to be presumed throughout the world And that's what I mean about the legacy of McCarthyism because he kind of divided art into political and non political Which means dangerous to the status quo and not it those terms didn't exist in how you talked about art before that era So that's and I think that that stays with us and not only does it affect how producers see as it affects how audiences see I mean artists see ourselves, which is I think the much more pernicious and fascinating and Difficult thing to deal with you know so I had an expectation that they were going to talk about my play in the way that that plays talked about in America and they did the play because they thought the characters were fascinating and fun and sexy and complicated and So and I didn't have that same experience, you know in this in this I feel very post McCarthy era of talking about plays as universal or or non universal specific or you know Universal like I said, so I think but I also think you know one of the things about life is that we're continually changing and the theater industry is changing and and I think we can either Be freaked out by it, you know like as I was when I had to start working with smaller theaters and and with people who Were newer in the game in some ways or we can kind of embrace it and and it's sometimes Unexpectedly wonderful things the kind of the results that you want working in the way that you think is going to happen is Actually opposite of what you need to be doing as an artist or person in the world So that's been that's been my experience Yeah, well, I'm I'm 100% with you. I mean This is interesting because I I have often said that I don't really feel that theater At least the theater that I Embrace my own. I don't I don't criticize anyone for doing anything. They want to do, you know, I mean the San Francisco Mime Troop is a Validly political theater, right, right, but I I don't I'm not interested in espousing a political position Or trying to convince someone to hold a point of view that I hold You know, I'm just not I'm interested in trying to get people to identify with a position that they don't understand Yeah, you know, they have the whole just walking a mile in somebody's shoes that they didn't think they could ever Be in you know Always looking for I I agree with you. I'm looking for stories that resonate that are from specific ethnic sources whether it be Italian Americans or Palestinian Americans or Chinese Americans or black Americans or Indian Americans like yoga play I mean, there's a play that play this is is about a specific ethnic groups Absolutely, and about the appropriation of of culture and yet it's completely universal We all completely get that Everyone does and that's what I'm always searching for is stories that stories that that may be embedded in a in a specific, you know, racial community, but they resonate For everyone, you know, yes And and one of the ways that I've really, you know, after the Great Depression only people only wanted to write comedies and I feel like I'm in a space where I really think how we reach each other is to laugh together and Laugh at ourselves and laugh at each other And you know and laugh at the human condition. So I'm really And it's something that that most people who have seen roar or the black-eyed or territories Would not expect from me and it's but I think it's it kind of it's a knee-jerk reaction It happened after like I said the Great Depression that that people really wanted to to find ways to laugh and and That's very exciting to me. I think that you know, I Don't know. I think comedy does something to us that is so Exciting and if you can laugh with each other then then you can get through anything and and the thing about laughter is It's the great equalizer, you know What is is the way to make anybody see that not only are you walking a mile in somebody else's shoes? You're actually in their shoes and you didn't even notice because we're all in the same shoes So I I'm I'm really excited about, you know, the opportunities Because I grew up, you know, and everyone says, oh, you know this live streaming theater. It's terrible It's this and it's that I grew up a world away from Broadway, you know I saw a few productions of ACT as a kid, you know But how I came to the theater is I listened to cassettes at the Daily City Library and there were wonderful cassettes of not even Musicals but plays and on my little walkman and and what I'm encouraging people who are Frustrated with the lack of theaters to listen to plays like like we're writing blueprints kind of like symphonies and We're not a you know, and I and I and not everybody in the theater wants to hear this But I'm like when we can't compete a hundred percent with with the visual medium film but we can certainly compete with You know opera and and I feel like I understood theater from listening to those plays So, you know, I'm really encouraging people to to support the theaters and see these plays But also understand you can listen to them if it's if it's very stressful or or it doesn't feel as compelling to watch because that's how I got introduced to theater and I think that and The reason I mentioned that is because is because we all are Isolated and and you know, especially, you know, how how I get energy is to go see Somebody told me, you know, Edward. I'll be was in Texas for a long time and a friend of mine was also there where he was teaching I don't remember which university but he was in residence for a long time and they say He went and saw everything everything that was happening in I think it was Houston He saw whether the big or the small and that's the kind of artist. I am I like to sit in a theater I'll sit in a college production. I'll sit in a high school production I'll sit in a theater. That's aesthetic. I have a problem with and you know, I you know, or politically You know to be that I'm like What the hell are you doing with this much money? You know like but just the chance to be in a theater is very exciting for me But I do think we can gain so much by listening to these productions And I'm excited to see what SF Playhouse is going to do with with this opportunity because it also in some ways Equalizes the experience in the way that you know me sitting in Daly City Find stumbling upon these these plays, you know being able to listen to the dulces of Malfi and Shakespeare plays on little cassettes gave me access to a world that I might not have otherwise And so maybe this time will be giving You know young female artists of color like me you were sitting in libraries or streaming a chance to engage in a way that That that or in a way that they can't till they're older and have more resources than I than I had so So I'm excited about what this is going to do to our community. I I have I have no doubt. We are gonna continue to survive and thrive and you know and but You know how we work may have to morph like my last few commissions have been have been university theaters and I think they've kind of You know they pay me to come teach for a semester and and write Basically, but you know teach one class a week not a full-on loan And I kind of feel like it's the Medici's of our time, you know like how we do theater and how we fund it has to change And that's terrifying, but it's it is what it is and we've you've got a You know Embrace it the foundations the foundations of real are really shifting their shifting their thoughts towards the Playwrights of color. I mean just been I think most of the foundations that support playwriting or just that's all they're doing You know I I See but here's the thing I feel like and and what I kind of tried to delineate in the essay, you know Fifty years ago. There weren't black people on the stage. I think it was Joseph Papp who put them in Shakespeare You know and then it turned into this system where you know, and I'm not speaking about SF Playhouse But in New York, it felt like every off-broadway did one artist of color And if you did Betty you certainly weren't gonna do another Middle Eastern or Indian or African-American in your season So you were competing for that one slot right every other person of color You described it as being the chosen one exactly and you and and the chosen one has to Beat out all the other messiahs Make it to the cross and get nailed you gotta be like, you know, you get to but you're competing for that one slot So I feel like what is happening now is kind of Not a correction but a kind of you know, this is also happening when most theaters are shut down and and so, you know really What huge advantage and my my deep hope and and that's kind of what I got tried to get into You know and do we see ourselves essay is that it isn't about because there have always been artists of color in the last 20 years, but are they the artists who are really Challenging audiences, you know, you know, I don't think if you're if you're a theater and you suddenly do the same artist of color That you've been doing for the last 20 years. That's not, you know, it's it's It's It doesn't it's like a it's like kind of a game It's like who's gonna be our Who's gonna be our playwright of color this you kind of right that that's Absolutely, that's been a classic Example of the way American theater has tended to work Yeah, even women. I mean when I was the Lily Awards came out, you know when I moved to New York It was a year like I think playwrights horizon had no women Playwrights and one female director and it ignited the Lily Awards. So I think that maybe that is kind of how integration of Institution happens, you know now but what it started happening was you used to have to have that one female playwright Do you mean and so if you did a Female of color you hit both of them and then you didn't have to worry about Being tagged as the off-Broadway theater that had no women or you know, so so it's not just about race It becomes about it becomes about how do you prevent yourself? How do you do the minimum? So that you're not targeted, which you know Theater is very hard, you know, it's hard to make it's hard to To to live and and and and I think the idea that we're always gonna get it, right You know, like I say in the essay I did things and I put out plays in certain orders Because I was trying to do things right and it actually ended up being wrong But the idea that we all have to be right all the time and that we can't evolve and grow Is something that I think is detrimental to us as a community because I believe we are a community We're weirdos. We are weirdos We put lights on and then we have people pretend that they're real and everybody's quiet You know, do you know how hard it is to get people to shut up like at a dinner party or just listen? You're to you, but we we like making people shut up and listen and pretend things are real I mean if you think about it It's like an alien came down and saw the things that we do with our lives and our emotions and our careers They'd be like who are these strange people? There's no evolutionary function to this So we are a community and and I think that that we have to you know Grow together like any family because that's how I feel about the American family, you know for a long time I mean, it's very very be produced to be in it in a society that says And applies for grants saying we believe in diverse writers and Having to go to Europe to get major productions of world premieres for over a decade That's paint deeply painful because I feel like a daughter of the American theater And so so when you're you're the when you're the stepchild or you're when you're there, you know child who's not Embraced it's painful and I think that some of What is happening in our theater is is is deep deep pain, you know And and I certainly feel it and felt it and and how I dealt with it Being the stubborn person that I am was find different ways to create theater here, you know Whereas most people I think would have packed it up and moved to London a long time ago in my you know in my position Because it was so much easier but I'm stubborn and I'm American and I believe my voice should be heard here and Basically, I'm stubborn, but But I do think we have we have to grow together. We have to fail together We have to feel better. We have to become an industry that says, okay, we're gonna do that one play, right? Okay, maybe maybe let's let's Interrogate that maybe let's tip the scales and then feel like we have to do performatively only young female players of color And let's tip it back and you know, we we are gonna self-correct it. Do you have is there a doorbell? No, never mind When Amazon comes they ring the doorbell. Yes, you don't have to go there because they've just put a package by your door Yeah, Amazon, I guess I'm using Amazon so it's Confessing I confess You know I was thinking you're outing yourself though. Yeah, I myself nationally on how oh my god It's okay But I was thinking if is there are there ways in which you could articulate Be open about this all right because I think they're It's interesting that the difference between being an Arab American playwright and being a black American playwright Because there is so much enmity For them for Arab states in the Middle East. Don't you do you think that that's could you be Could you be a little bit more specific about why you think it is you have to take your place to Europe? Oh bill I was not trying to take my place to Europe European theaters were finding me We're interested, you know what I mean and well, but I mean why you think that the America that happens um I I think why it happened was um Uh what I tried to allude to was when I wrote plays like roar, which were not deeply challenging Which were Arab on Arab violence, which didn't kind of interrogate what it felt like To grow up in a place like san francisco and know that people were deeply racist And felt justified in feeling racist against your people But liked you personally and that's been my experience like people You know what I say about people like Obama is they see him as exceptional Meaning he's the exception to the rule that black men are this way So they're exceptional the rule doesn't have to change So I you know grew up in what everyone feels is a liberal society You know where it's okay to act like Arabs don't need human rights or that you know I mean the reasons we went to war in the middle east uh, and and the reasons the Democratic and you know liberal and artists did not rise up in the way that they did in the 60s to say What are we doing and why and what is it costing us? You know Is deeply painful and the only way I could understand it is You know to be have grown up in daily city with wonderful neighbors who loved me who spent every holiday making block parties with my family who were deeply racist and Afraid and and also I went to a small Catholic school called Our Lady of Mercy in daily city Where we had a nun who would make us jump under the desks and you know cover our heads because she thought that the russians were coming So as a child I had nightmares That the russians were coming to get me and when 9 11 happened. I was in new york. That was my first year actually in new york Um And I realized oh no, there's going to be little kids who think you know to mean that it's going to be scary to go drive on bridges because that's In that's how you know, we thought it was going to happen in 9 11 that there were going to be more attacks and You know, it was a crazy crazy time But but I within my relatively short lifetime The fear of being killed by atomic bomb was turned to the the fear of terrorism and and you know uh So so I understood intimately, you know, and I understood it intimately what that fear looked like because I had that instilled in me and it as an Arab girl growing up in dilly city against another race that I of people I had never met and so um So I think I think what happened is I started really trying to engage and challenge Audiences because I had done plays like roar, which you know roar is many people think it's my best play. It's it's a well-made play It's my version of a street car, you know a sexy aunt comes and kind of messes up a household Uh, and and then she leaves So it's uh in street car is one of my favorite plays in the universe. So, um But it's also not a deeply challenging play and and and I was Very considered in what plays I showed when in my career and what I thought would happen, which was you know, people would postpone indefinitely productions of roar that um Were slated for their seasons or you know, I would get you know emails that said we really want your play but we feel like you might be you know challenging or Uh You know, so what kind of happened was I feel like a little bit that my career once I started to saying Okay, I've shown you that I have the chops to do a well-made play Now let me talk about things that are really on my mind and interesting and in experimental ways There wasn't room for that in the culture. Um And and this is also to say there wasn't room for that in the culture of the Yale school of drama model of how you make plays Which is you go off Broadway and you become the chosen one So when that was how I understood how to become a playwright and had I not I might have stayed in san francisco where I have a huge loving wonderful community and family I had a model for how you succeed And it didn't work for me the minute I stepped off the path of um That had been presented to you as a part of the american dream Exactly the play which Expresses your ethnicity, but does not challenge the status quo It kind of fits into the game right And then that's that that is how I think you know Many people grow up I You know, of course, I think that san francisco playoffs is basically begun with the idea of challenging audiences, you know, we It's a big part of what we do and I think the audience the audience is that we have want to be challenged But you know, how much do they want to be challenged, you know, like I have to look I'm gonna look at myself too and I like in the same way you're talking about In the same way you're talking about with having to look at that the sort of falseness of that Approach, you know that you weren't being as honest about what you had in your heart to say as you could have been I wonder I'm still processing so much, you know, but As a theater leader I think what is my job? Right now, you know I guess I still think it's to find stories which Live embedded, you know, you know community But we still speak to everyone Yes absolutely and and and and uh, you know, I have such empathy for For people like you who have devoted your lives to creating institutions like the ss playhouse and you know, because because they deserve to survive and thrive and uh And you know, it's it's it's it's a challenge and it's a service and you know I'm very excited about the next chapter. I'm excited to see what your season will bring and Yeah You know, I I think of I've often described When I talk to people about playwriting often describe playwrights as the profits of our time Because there's never been a play in the history of theater that didn't succeed in its own time I had a history theater professor tell me that my freshman year in college I said, oh come on. There must be a play that wasn't discovered for a couple hundred years or like, you know, like artists, right? Like yeah, like all so many great artists and novelists and composers They just the they're ahead of their time and they don't get noticed until they're dead But that just isn't true of playwrights. It's never ever happened and I I tried to prove him wrong and I couldn't because because play A play is by necessity Of the moment the moment that it's happening in front of the people that are being done for Who live in the world they live and the playwrights are people with more sensitive antenna That can pull down information Out of the tumult that the rest of us are missing and translated into some into a story That can help us see ourselves. That's really What I believe about about plays and about playwriting And I so I the challenge to you, of course, here we are in a pandemic In in a pandemic and a revolution, right in the american theater. What's the prophecy? What what do people need to hear? What what are you thinking about that? You're not even necessarily a plot But a way of telling a story or what are people going to when we come out? Back out To the theater. What do we need? um Well, here's something i've been advocating for for a decade and that is Theater, uh We cannot compete with film or live streaming nor should we try to The people who are going to be attracted to theater Are people who love the live experience and that may be a limited audience and that may be dependent upon the Kindness of universities in the way that we were dependent on the kindness of medici's in the But I think something that is is really important to me is that We continue to look for stories that can only exist or exist best in the theatrical form And that means How and who and for whom we make plays, you know, we You know theater used to be the center of the culture That's how tennessee williams and arthur miller became household names their plays became Movies that that movie stars did but but the idea of a well-made play Or a family drama was really an important component of what made american theater american as opposed to You know the craziness of saucer or jane or you know or beckett And I I I think that you know, we need new forms, you know, but we we need to also kind of embrace our Our weirdness and our theatricality and and the kinds of plays we produce are going to be different because I think the kind of well-made sort of Situation is has been taken over by film and and streaming. So I think that theater Will never die There will always be people who who need like me and love that live experience who get energy out of sitting in a room With a hundred people or 20 people and laughing at an actual comedy. That's live That's precarious that somebody may fall down So I think the thing is that we need to have hope We And and the other thing is who is more adept at surviving than theater people who is more adept at improvising Who is more adept at making something out of nothing than us? So I have a lot of hope and excitement. I but I think one of the things we need to do is really embrace our Our opportunity to be more engaging politically artistically Than other forms and be at the forefront of intellectual thought I think I think that the theater by its very nature is is is is danger dangerous Just like we're doing an interview and we didn't plan this out. We didn't have an There's a spirit of danger because we could get in a big fight over something, you know, who knows We could We could we could we could have said anything, you know, and people don't know what we're gonna say, right? There's that spirit of danger Even in this even in this interchange Uh, but I think in theater that spirit of danger is I think What is essentially theatrical? Because it can you don't know that it will go right You don't know Because we all know it can go wrong or it could go It it could go off the rails or we don't really know what's coming up next And I think that's what you're saying about the well-made play I think the time of the well-made play has come and gone I think it's now it's time for Unwell-made plays or plays which are which which we don't know how they're gonna go We don't know what this character is gonna do We don't have any idea what this motherfucker is gonna do And I said that on national television howl around You know all the way around that's to me That's the thing that draws me the most is when I start reading a play And I have no idea What these people are gonna do but I can't stop reading right or I can't stop watching because They're so focused on who they are and what they're doing That I just have to follow them so that I can find out what they're gonna do, you know Yeah, and you know the other thing that's um You know when I was coming out of drama school everyone was like who's the protagonist in your play? Who's the protagonist, you know And they had this idea that there's one person who who's I who And I and I don't know if it's because I come from a Middle Eastern tradition or because I really like to mess with that. There's not one person who gets whose story it gets to be You've got to give everybody their moment And you know the reviews of roar like first I thought it was the daughter And then I thought it was the mom and then you realize it's actually the end, you know And I was like, what does this need to Make one person, you know, so even that's an explosion of the idea of this is willy loman's story or this is blanche's story That's, you know, that's that's or this is, you know Mary's story in in a long day's journey, you know, like I think even that is is Is a way to kind of poke holes in the idea of because you don't know who's gonna How you're gonna feel about these people and who you're gonna end up liking and it may not be the person you were supposed to like Or supposed to care about So even in that way, I think, uh theater can Dislocate an American audience who's used to you know, there's one person whose story I'm following and and this is the person I identify with and I'm so excited I'm really excited about the the theater that's going to come out of this time Um, and you know for me as a playwright It usually takes 18 months to font to write a play and so, you know, six months of sitting being holed up That seems about normal to me. Do you know? Seems about right. I'm sure the director's an actor A lot of a lot of your colleagues a lot of your Playwright colleagues have said that on this very show. They say hey, I see home. I write. I stare at the wall This is no big deal. This is not so different, you know Wow Well, that was thank you so much for joining me. We went over our usual length a little bit, but I think that what you said about about breaking down the Protagonist because that's that's like Aristotle, right? So that's the very beginning of western tradition of theater started then in the greek theater and then Aristotle said There is a protagonist and we all have been for 2500 years going. Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. You're right Aristotle got to be that way, you know And I think this is this is and it's you know The protagonist concept the drama has been getting broken down for some time but I think Yeah, this is a time to take a look at all of those kind of you know assumptions we make about theater and and find ways to just Rip it up and tear it up and throw it out there in a different way that we can then You know, see what happens see what see what makes it dangerous, you know Well, Betty, thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to get to talk to you and We'll have to since we're so far apart You know, I'm in point Richmond. So I'm just across the bay from you Okay We'll have to feed up for a distance coffee at like 12 Shout at each other's Anyway, thank you for and thank all of you at home in your theater seats Hopefully with something to eat and something to drink because it's kind of dinnertime That we had scheduled so we're gonna put that off Next week we're gonna have fireside cocktails with Susie and Susie's guest is going to be Stacy Ross Who is a legendary San Francisco actor and has been on our stage and every other stage in the Bay Area many many times The really the the luminous Stacy Ross will be with Susie and they will have cocktails You will find out what that cocktail will be so you can have one too And then the following Monday we're going to do a play called two pigeons talking politics See here we are back to politics the play is called two pigeons talking politics by Lauren Gunderson So we'll hope you all tune in for all of these our weekly tv shows I never thought I would be in television and now I have I have two Weekly television series So thank you and thank all of you who when you bought your free ticket To see this show made a donation because obviously Keeping the theater going is a is a very challenging Problem for us right now and those of you who contribute both before the show And after when you get the thank you email will be tremendously helpful Thank you once again. Thank you all of you who tuned in to howl round It's been great sharing this conversation with you and we hope to see you again real soon. Bye