 So the next session was established in conversation with our planning committee. Members of the planning committee believed that education departments are the front line of equity, diversity, inclusion in our theaters. They wanted a discussion about how we talk about class, race, and socioeconomics in our education program. What kind of cultural competency do we need to cultivate? Other questions we considered were, how do we support our education department staff and teaching artists who are attempting to embody the EDI values not only within the organization but within schools? How are teaching artists approaching topics of race, class, and socioeconomic challenges in the classroom, in post-show discussions, and in community engagement sessions? How do theaters for young audiences prepare their audiences to engage the topical issues that are so highly charged and ubiquitous nowadays without the cover of overly political themselves? How can education departments encourage or lead their theaters toward examining all of these issues? And how do education departments bring these very important EDI practices from the department to scale through their theaters? So to lead us through this work, I am delighted to introduce Nicole Brewer, who is adjunct professor of theater arts at Howard University, who will lead us through her conscientious theater training. Please join me in welcoming Nicole. Okay, bye, good morning. Good morning. I'm Nicole Brewer, as Lori was saying, and I just want to start off by saying right now I'm in a total present moment of just writing to you, yeah? So I want to thank Lori, I want to thank TCG for inviting me and listening to what I have to share. So I have been thinking about a little bit, like the last five weeks, and now I get to see your faces, so please don't mark me as weird as I scan the room, just to put faces to the bodies that have been holding a space in my head. So conscientious theater training is what we're going to talk about today. From the intro that Lori gave, you can maybe believe that this could be an uncomfortable conversation, yeah? So we want to start a little bit of session agreements here. Now, any workshop that I normally do, I always have session agreements. I stole this from a workshop that I was at, and I thought it was brilliant, yeah? So I have been in so many unsafe spaces that it has become just a part of who I am that I want to create that for other people. And as if this workshop and this community was like, safety's subjective. And I was like, shit, you're right. I don't know what Lori gave me to think I could create a safe space for anyone, right? But she said we can create spaces with shared expectation. And that way, making space great for someone to participate. So we're all educators and adults and we get it. So I'm just going to truncate this list that I normally have of like 10 things to three. Maybe four. So the first one is speak from the eye, right? So I'm going to talk a little bit, but I don't pretend to know everything, right? I am one person walking in this gym and have my experience, okay? There are a lot of us here today. Yay, educators. Yeah, and so the collective knowledge in the room, I think is astonishing. And we should be using each other to answer questions that I may not have the answer to. And I will not, even though I am an actor, stand up here and act as if I do. Yeah? So know that that works two ways. Yes, I don't have all the questions, but I'm going to listen to what your question is. If you have something that you can add to it, I'm going to say let's talk about it, okay? So, but speak from the eye. So I don't want to hear about your co-workers' experience or something that happened in a class that you weren't at. I just want you to talk about things from your perspective, okay? So speak from the eye. Trust, intent, but name, impact. So we're only talking about race. There's an exercise we're going to get up and move around, get the blood flowing, both in the brain and in the body. And so things might come up that make folks feel uncomfortable. We don't have to swallow that, okay? You can name the impact of what someone has said to you, but trust that today, for this session, the intent was not to be malicious. The intent was not to hurt your soul. The intent was not to attack your identity, okay? That it comes from just a place of ignorance. And if we could just take away the negative connotation of the word ignorance and hold it up for what it is, which is lack of knowledge. Yeah, okay? So, trust, intent, name, impact. Don't assume identity. I'm working on this one every single day. We don't know, right? So you don't know to attack. Don't assume, okay? I feel like there was one more. I love you looking at my older brother here. But I felt, oh yes. Lead and stay present, right? So when talking about race, I've created this imagery. So I also like to do photography. So many of you are also photographers, like, not on your phone, but you've got. And I always say that, not to be funny, but just talk about apertures. So I say our emotional aperture, right? And I'm gonna speak from the eye, look at me. I'm gonna follow it that way. The emotional aperture for myself. When I feel like I'm being attacked, it begins to close, okay? So this idea of leaning in and saying, president's about propping it open, okay? With whatever you're gonna prop it open. To just stay present in that uncomfortableness. I'm not saying that you'll find resolution and then you'll become comfortable, but I'm saying there is something to be gained from being uncomfortable, right? We live in a society that just values comfort all the time. But sometimes we just need to push through and be uncomfortable, okay? So lean and stay present, speak from the eye, trust, intent, name, impact, and identity. Is there anything, almost four, that you all feel like we need to add in order for you to feel brave enough to engage in the conversation we're getting ready to have? Like what's the conversation, I don't know, right? But do you think you need to add anything? Yes? I don't know if there is any particular order. Trust, impact, name, intent, don't assume identity. So lean from the eye, okay, so that's more. That's more. All right, so are we good? So can we all agree to that? And if you can, you can just nod your head and say yes. Even when it's fine. Excellent. Shall we move on? I think we should. Okay. Right, my friend. Did you have that coming for us? Absolutely. I just took that for my best friend. I don't know. Okay, all right, let's look at this first one, right? So we're in this conference, we need a little bit of humor. I don't know if you want to know this. I don't know if you want to know this. Theater training, we're all talking about change. We're all on the EDI or the idea of bandwagon. But there is some problems that we're gonna further discuss with what really, what it takes to really keep change, right? Change is just as dynamic and fluid as life, okay? So there's never a point of arriving in the work, okay? All right, so, let me get to my cards here. This is theater training. It's a response that confronts embedded national ideas, okay? On what the standard of excellent theater education is. Theater training. The idea or the logic behind that for myself was this. I see all these posts. I see all this information about the industry and the bias in the industry and what the industry is lacking. And industry this and industry that. And I think to myself, as an educator, right? Well, where do they get the knowledge to be implementing the ideas and practices that they implement? It's the education, right? So for me, instead of engaging in conversations about the industry, I went back. I took a couple of steps and I said, let's look at the education. What are we teaching people? Well, consciously and unconsciously that tends to find its way into the industry and present as white supremacy. Let's not mix words. Bias, right? Ableism, sexism. We can keep going on and on, right? So addressing that. So consciousness is here, training came out of me. Just going like, wait a minute. And also a very horrible experience I've had in graduate school, which if you're interested in more, I wrote about it. It was published in American Theater in January. It's called Trading with a Difference, but I will not waste your time with that right now. Okay, a rhetorical question that I'd like to ask you before we go to the next slide. Don't go, look at the floor. And then we're gonna circle back to this question at the end of our time together. So what I'd like to plant in your mind right now is how do you, and by you, I mean you and your organization that you represent a role for, how do you address oppressive policies, curriculum, and bias in your program or programming, okay? And then here's a little bit that Karen was touching on too, accountability. How do you vent these initiatives, right? So this is accountability. How do you measure success? You know, bias, gone, oppression, gone, right? How are you able to go like, yeah, that's what it is, okay? So we're gonna cycle back to that at the end, but I wanted to plant that seed right now. Okay, go ahead, we'll do the next slide. So just because we're all on different schedules and you might have to get up and go, I'm kind of documenting where these sources are slide by slide so that you know I am not way away from what other people's work. So in the 80s, they had like seven good principles for education as a general thing. And then in the 90s, it was revamped to include technology, like seven good principles for including technology, all makes sense. And so I can't cross this document in an online training class that I had to take. And oh my God, some of these are quite good for conscientious theater training and principles, right? And so I won't bore you by reading. Oh, I assumed, come stop. So they all say good practice, right? And so I'm gonna say, encourage this contact between staff, administration, and participant and staff. What I mean by contact is both physical and listening. There was a study done where people went into a bank, okay? And the teller was the barrier. As the person goes in, they have their exchange with the teller. The teller was told not to make any physical contact with the person at all. The person walks out of the bank, la-di-da. They're stopped, hey, can we just take a quick survey? How did you rank your service? They ranked it. The only change that was added to the teller was just find a way to touch the person in a way that, let me just touch your hand. Shake your hand. Maybe you want to touch your shoulder, right? So in a way that we can call alarm and panic, okay? And then that patient went out and they were surveyed and they found, not every time, but the majority of the time, the people who were touched rated their service higher, right? Than those who were not touched. So also my answer to that is some of the communities that we're dealing with come from trauma associated with touch. So just as we go back to the don't assume identity, you also don't want to assume that someone wants to be touched. And then they feel awkward that first time, but remembering to ask, may I give you a hug? May I touch you? May I touch your shoulder? Something like that helps to create a relationship. And when we're talking about racial issues, we need to be using everything in the toolbox to mend relationships because the relationships are broken, okay? So, I encourage contact. So I was on touch, and sometimes people just talk about listening as a contact, but touch is also contact, and it's important, right? So conscious theater is asking people to develop reciprocity and then cooperation amongst the students. So this is another way of giving people agency, but if I respect you, you respect me, but I can't assume you know what respect to me looks like, yeah? So how do we have these conversations about talking about what that looks like within the classroom? What's gonna vary from age, culture, where you're from, in the United States, so on and so forth. So being available to somebody else's vision of the world and not judging them, which is hard, right? I know it's hard for me, okay? Cooperation, people wanna cooperate normally when they know they have value in whatever it is that they are participating in, that they know that I, if I was missing, it would matter, okay? Not that I'm a number, not that I'm checking off the box or something like that. So you can foster cooperation by letting people know that they matter in that space, in that time. There's a myriad of ways you can go about doing it, and I'm sure many of you are already practicing these things, right? So promoting agency and participants' learning experience. Some of your communities, this may be the first time these students have been asked to think about how they want their education to go, right? And so it can be scary, and they can be like, I don't know what you're talking about. Tell me what the thing is, I'm gonna do the thing, and that's it, you know? And so you have to keep coming back to giving them that kind of agency over their life, and their learning, okay? Excuse me, I meant learning, not their life. It is space for no thank you, from an incredible friend of mine who taught me the power of no thank you. As an African American woman, born in their early 80s, my parents beat into me education, okay? And that you had to succeed, you had to get good grades, right? And in that, there's not much wiggle room for a no thank you. I'm exhausted, no thank you. It's not that I won't do this assignment, I just, maybe I'm doing it right now. I actually don't feel good, I'm a little sick, but before it blows into a big, huge thing, I think I'll just sit down on the side of the classroom. So ways in which you're saying no to thank you, okay? So with conscientious fear, you have to be giving people that right to say no thank you, and no thank you without the excuses. Because when I do this in my classroom, students always come up to me and go, ah, I can't be classed today because I wanted to prove to you that I'm really a good student, but I'm not good enough. So I'm just gonna sit in the corner, is that okay? Don't ask me. Is that what you need to do to be okay in class today? Yes, if you need not to be here and affect the rest of us, then go home, right? So you'll find that people will be mistrusting of this concept of no thank you, but it goes under this idea of self-care and it's important, okay? So you also wanna make sure that you're emphasizing ways to bring people's cultural heritage and identity to the work. Using this to bridge the gap between identity and whatever it is that you're looking on, right? But again, I wanna be clear, crystal clear. I'm not talking about typecasting a person, right? So because you are this thing that you identify, that is the only way you may explore the world, okay? And I'm gonna stop you if you're trying to do something different. No, that's not what I'm saying at all, but I am saying it is right now in many institutions unique to tell someone it is okay to bring your differences into the room and not just bring them into the room and body them. Unapologetically, with no, you know, I'm sorry. It's a unique situation, it's a novel situation and it shouldn't be, right? In the theater, if we are really attempting to get that humanity in some way, right now talking about the thing, then why not bring the whole of who you are as a conflict human being into the work and into these educational practices? I have many a times been asked to come teach hip-hop theater. I don't know anything about hip-hop theater. Why are you asking me to teach hip-hop theater? I'm like, now I didn't say I love hip-hop. I just don't know anything about it, right? And so we have to just be paying attention to how we're identifying people and what we assume their knowledge base is, okay? But then again, as I said before, we can support repeating, making it okay for people to bring whatever it is that they want to bring into the room without you pushing it, okay? Good practice, right? Listen, I have, I've been a high school teacher. Right now I currently teach on a collegiate level. In California, I worked at a high school that was specifically for students who had been kicked out of regular school, okay? And so this high school had a lot of brown babies, a lot of excellent brown babies, a lot of brown babies who had a lot of trauma, okay? But when I looked at these brown babies, I saw potential. When I looked at these brown babies, I saw the roughness of their environment but did not conflate that with the intelligence in their head. Now, I cannot say that was true for the majority of the people that I worked with. And so therefore, my babies stitched out these people who they considered to be weak, inferior, and stupid, and they ran all over them, okay? Now, not to have myself in the back but I went into the classroom with high expectations. And if they could not reach the expectations, let me figure out the path to get you there because I'm not gonna lower the bar. So if you can't read, that's fine. On my off-time, I went to special education, I got packets for lower grade, I brought them back to my students without telling them, okay? So it didn't make a big deal out of it that a 16-year-old is reading at a fourth grade level. I don't need to know that, can you do this work? Right? That's what's important. And so time and time again, even in the theater world, I see this, I see like the educational outreach, you hire your teaching artists, they go out into these schools, they encounter something they're not familiar with and they're just like, ah, I don't know how to deal with these students, okay? Or something's up with these students and it's not, something's up with you, right? You need to be figuring out not just what they need, but how you even see these people, right? So have you come in as the savior with your artistic programming to save these people from their sad, sorry lives? And I mean, are you chuckling, but some of y'all write grants for this stuff. You get that money and you go into ground neighborhoods and you do work that's actually damaging. So, you know, I got this platform, I don't know, y'all might not find it. I got this platform on my plate, okay? Create these high expectations for your students, right? Create it in a culture of self-care. Just like I cannot create safety for you, you don't necessarily know what self-care is for your community, but hey, you can find out. And I mean things that go beyond the no thank you, things that go into, if we're gonna have a conversation that brings up trauma, how do you bring that person back to balance before you say adios, peace out and about, right? So too many times I've seen that too. In the training, you have people walking on the floor, crying, spit everywhere, and then it's like class is over. Wasn't that great, wasn't that cathartic? No, it's not great, it's not cathartic. Many brown people in many marginalized communities, as soon as they walk out of that door, have to face a flood of trauma. And I'm not sure as theater people, we understand that with some of these things that we're teaching people. I just need to be neutral, right? How can I be neutral? When the moment I walk out the door, my color is what's seen. How can I be neutral when I'm always like, have I done the right thing to make another person not come for me? So I think you have a duty of care to these communities that you are working with, to institute self-care practices so that when you ask someone to go to a vulnerable space, that you bring them back to balance. And that could be burning some Palo Santo. It could be burning sage. It could be hubs. It could be, it's something, but it has to be acknowledged. We need to restore ourselves to a place where we can go back out into the community, okay? Talking about the first talents and ways of learning that causes collaboration and not compromise. So this isn't about me giving up something so you feel something. It's about you giving up something so you, you know, we can work together. It's about collaboration. Some of your students are visual, so no matter how much you yack, yack, talk, talk, talk, they wanna draw about their experience. Some of them that are sitting there who are drumming and making noises or tapping, right? They're being percussive in some way, shape or form. It's not our right to be like, hey, stop that. Focus it tight, pay attention, right? I don't live in that world anymore, okay? So how do you figure out a way to incorporate that type of way that they understand the world into your programming, okay? So that you have other avenues for people to be able to express themselves, okay? Okay, this one can be hard because there's still very much stuff in a colonial understanding of education. I don't know, I would throw that in there too. All right, so, next slide, plus the things, yeah? So if you're implementing conscientious practices slowly and I know you know this, right? So please don't think that I'm talking down to you, but I am, like, going back to some basics and how we do it. You have to have the community at heart and not for what they can do for you, okay? So not this idea, hey, happy World Cup Day, by the way, my husband's a fanatic, he's already started texting me stuff, I don't wanna bring that up. Because some of these teams have like schools that they send the little kids to, like they farm them up and then they get them into these professional teams, right? No judgment, okay. And so sometimes I think about that with certain institutions who I come into contact with, that their programs are about putting butts in seats eventually, okay? And so that's like, that's a monetary gain that you're looking to get and this is the way that you're doing it. And I'm not saying that's right or wrong, I'm simply asking you to think about the community and why you want to serve this community. How are you dedicating yourself to that service? Some of us come from communities that don't have any people, brown people out, right? This work is for you too, okay? It's not indicative to, oh my God, I have a minority, I have to do conscientious theater training. It is about wanting to educate everybody, oh, about everybody. So learning the values. When I say that I mean of the community, not yours, you know what your mission is. What are their values? I'll give you an example. In the African-American community, we tend to talk when we go to the theater, okay? It's just something that will do this call and response thing happens, okay? We're not trying to be disrespectful, we're not trying to bring attention to ourselves. It's a part of the culture, okay? And so when we're talking about that value, well how do we talk about call and response in going to see the theater? And that's hard to do when you're the only person talking back to the theater and you feel like a sea of white people are around you and they're the only way they make is to wrap them in the candy. And you feel so kind of way. So you have to learn that, right? And say here's how for different. That's interesting that you wanna experience theater that way and not shame somebody from wanting to participate in a way that they understand and they feel comfortable doing. Creating spaces, right? I think that Metro Theater did a very wonderful job. As soon as I walked in here, I saw a lot of spaces on the wall. That's important. So the type of space that you're creating for people that shows them reflected back or mirrored back to them. It's an unconscious way of saying, yes, you are welcome here, okay? And I think that's important because I've been in a lot of theaters and I know you all have too. And I'm Washington, D.C. I'm not gonna throw anybody out of the bus in Washington, D.C. But there are certain theaters that just have one black show, right? They got the black musical slot. They know that's gonna make some money, okay? And then you look at the wall and you look at the coasters and what do you see? A sea of white stories, okay? So when I walk into that space, me as an adult, not me as a child or a young person who wasn't as aware, I go, this space isn't for me, okay? I'm not welcome here, except for that one slot in the season when you decide to do some show you've done 50 times because you're scared to do something else, okay? So that becomes important too. If you're saying that you reach out to diverse communities, I know you've written this one before. Stop putting these people on your brochures but not in your hearts. That's not okay, okay? And that's my own little like, yeah, I'm home. So how do you create spaces with unconsciously and consciously the low-kindhood community that you wish to serve? Because I will tell you it is a myth that I've heard it many times that they don't wanna act. Blacks don't wanna act, Latinos don't wanna act, Asians don't wanna act. Are you crazy? Of course they wanna act. There are people coming to me all the time talking about wanting a career. And who wants to pay money for a place that's telling you everything about you who's wrong? So wait, sound, wait, look. Right? So we gotta think about that too. And we also have to stop this myth that these communities don't have money to spend on theater, okay? The most easiest thing I've ever heard of one. So feedback, you're gonna get feedback. You'll get feedback and I'm not talking about this like, let's send you a survey kind of feedback. I'm talking about the feedback you get when you see a kid who didn't wanna show up or who's sitting in the corner who starts showing up, right? What is that conversation that you have with them? Hey, maybe it's even just offering them a bit of encouragement. Like the work that you did today. You know, it's your family coming to whatever it is, whatever it is. What's going on with them? So feedback becomes really important to kids. Not just kind of let me give you a form to fill out the form, tell me what's on your heart and be honest, it's anonymous, right? Again, that's one particular way of gathering data. But it's proven that people of color come from communities where informal ways of gathering data can be very useful, right? Sharing a meal, okay? Just rather someone sitting down and rapping with them about their day, okay? These types of things can have more impact from a piece of paper in a survey about your teacher and the institution. And then adjust, right? There's no end point to this work. So you have to keep adjusting because your community is gonna keep adjusting, right? Again, I said I live in Washington, D.C. Eight years that I've been in D.C., it has changed a lot. So one must adjust. And it will continue to change. I'm sure of that. With children mixing and so on and so forth, right? So keep adjusting what you're offering for the people who are in front of you. And not even imaginary people you theorize, okay? All right, so I don't know where my time is. Do I have a timekeeper warning for your teacher? Are you keeping time for me? Yeah. How much time do I have? I'm looking for you. 45. But we're over and I'm looking for you. 45? Perfect, okay. So, Greg was very kind. And what Greg did was he hung up. We can turn the lights, we can turn the lights off. We're gonna pause this right here. He hung up these eight questions. Now, I think these questions are brilliant, but they're not for me, so right? I'm gonna source on the next slide. I'll tell you where I got them from. But I want you to know I just adapted them for conscientious theater training. So I would ask that it be no more than eight people at a question, okay? And I would love for you to just write your responses out to that. They don't have to be education folks. They don't have to be in full sentences. They can be a feeling in response to what you read. Right? Like tightening. I read something and I thought myself tightening it. I might write that on the paper, tightening. I might have an answer, right? So I might write an answer. I might just see stars and draw some stars on a piece of paper, right? Okay, so all I'm asking is that you put your imprint, your impression, or an answer to the question on the paper. Would you like to read the answer on the paper? We're gonna get up and go to them. Yeah. Oh, give me a power round for you all. Yeah. I've written it down for you all, okay? I'm ready. All right, so these lovely people are getting up and they're getting ready to go do this activity. And so the questions that I have for them are how do small large theater institutions reproduce white coteries, exclusion, and racism? Okay, two, what does the discourse of intersectionality enable and delimit in discussions around EDI, or IDEA, in theater institutions? How have critics and activists utilized the term intersectionality as a form of abstract theorizing and value signaling, including the specificities of race and racism in relation to class, ableism, sexism, transphobia, and homophobia, rather than serving to illuminate those specificities? Breathe in. Yeah? How do ameliorating and tokenizing diversity practices often hold us up from rethinking traditional education standards and practices, right? Let's not get it twisted. Just because you put in a little EDI program doesn't mean the foundation of white supremacy has been disrupted, it's still there. It's completely intact, right? So we're talking about how we create auxiliary programs and pat ourselves on the back if we've done something and we continue to be complicit in the oppression of others. I love this brother, okay, laughing at me. All right, okay, all right, all right, all right. How to talk backs continue to serve colonias ideals, okay? We'll unpack that one later when you come back. What are the possibilities of decolonized and or anti-colonial theater programming? How might theater makers of color be centered in education programs rather than serving as the ethnographic check box decoration? Why are translation and multi-legal plays for playwrights considered of a certain level of education culture and worldliness and then some others serve as markers of difference, segregation and exoticism, okay? What is educational programming's role in social justice and the movements against racism and imperialism and white supremacy to finish? All right, I hope it isn't scary now you won't get out of your seats. Okay, so go ahead, there should be markers and if not, it'll come around. Should be no more than eight people. Add a question. I'm gonna add some things. Will we vote? Yes. I think that's right, yeah. So, okay, we'll just pick one. Oh, you pick one. Yeah. Oh, man. That's fine. Can I speak, can I do? Oh my gosh, thank you. I know, you're so lucky. Thank you. What is this? What is this called? I know it's not called a festival. Why do they, what is wrong with the English language? Eight participants, so if you see some young people around you, we have some students who are part of the team council from Berkeley Repertory Theater in the room. Woo! Hi. These are, thanks for the question. Well, yeah, exactly. Right, so in my mind, we have question and answer but there was such great dialogues happening. This might just become our question and answer time so let's just see how it happens. Organically, if that's okay with you all. Okay, great. And so, again, this is a fantastic space but it's seeming to eat the sound this way. So, however you feel comfortable, if it's standing so your projection can be clear, that's fine. If it's just breathing a little bit deeper, tighten your stomach muscles and enunciate, that's fine too, right? But we just wanna make sure that everybody can hear what you have said, especially when we're talking about these types of issues because if I think that you said something, I can be all of my feelings for no reason, right? Versus if you just said it clearly or with more volume, okay? I would have time to reflect to this. Even though it's not a such agreement, I would add to our dialogue and our conversation today about this, listening to what's being said versus I'm gonna listen to respond, right? You're done talking, my turn, my turn? You guys, oh my God, I have to, right? Let's try to not do that, okay? So, let's get right into the event. Like twice in like 45 days. So, I think it was March, it was March. I presented on Decolonizing Theater Education at Goldsmiths University. That's a fantastic experience, by the way. Some incredible things happening with the Brits that absolutely parallel is going on here. And there was another call for a poetry conference. And they put out this, like, he's a paper with all of these questions. And so, words as theater, just imagine it said like, poetry. And so, they were asking these questions, right? And that's a conference that I believe is happening in October and I have the link on that slide that I'm not showing you, so I'll make sure to show you. So that I am giving those brilliant people who sat down and came up with these questions, their credit, yeah, okay. All right, so, why are translation and multi-lingual plays associated with a desirable level of education, culture, and worldliness within the theater education? And others are seen as a marker of different segregation and exoticism. Do we know what that question is asking? Okay, let me be clear. Uh, Chetville, why is that? And the translations of such appear. But other plays, or other playwrights who want to write in their native language who are being told what the audience, they won't understand, okay? These kinds of things, yeah? So in that educational realm, this is what we're talking about, how your white, your censured translations are okay, as a matter of fact, they're excellent. And up here, even if this is the unconscious, and anything else is relegated to auxiliary or other. And we pretend we can't say names, we can't get our tongue where it needs to be, and yet we all run around here talking about get a sauce, eat it, maybe just get a sauce, eat it. Right? So some of the things that people said, old masters versus young emerging artists, yeah? Thank you. People with power are reinforcing their own narratives, really, assumptions, love this question, assumptions, classism, elitism. And so, I'm gonna go to this one. One is that story that white English only speakers create to make them feel like they did this great job. Let me read the first one too, okay? One is an outlet of assimilation to make white English only speakers feel good. Right? And so, I won't get to everything on all of the papers because of time, I really want this point we want to do for your answering time. Come on. Okay, I really want you to be able to hear other people's thoughts about this question. Look, I don't know if you're still on the show, like a little baby or something. Okay, so I want you to assume that white English is the common text. Right? I mean, I think it's still true that the United States doesn't actually have an official language, right? Unless it's out of fevering. So, to be honest, maybe we are in the middle of change, we're absolutely not in the middle of change. We are far past that, right? And we have to understand that they cannot be business as usual. Languages, other, this person's handwriting is beautiful, by the way, so please don't associate my struggle with you in any way. Languages other than English are seen as sexy when used in particular spaces on stage, but not always a benefit. I don't know if this one says seen as maybe a benefit in other spaces, classrooms, materials, et cetera. Okay, great. So, let's move on. Are any comments on this that you guys want to add? Next, is that what I'm letting up again? You know how much that is embedded in the consciousness, but it's rooted in the economy. So, we talk about things, we use the word colonizer and colonization, but that had an economic bet. So, the question then is to question the economy and how do we shift, how do we enter, how do we grow? Because that's actually what letting people in does, it brings more money. And especially if you know how to do it right, it brings a windfall, theaters that do it right do make more money. So, I think the question is, we have to question the economic structure and where language fits in, where the narratives, where the myths, because all the plays that we name are pulled from a particular myth that's rooted in a particular economy. You know, so I'd be interested in hearing more about that as well. I would also suggest that if we define what theater is, then we'll have an interesting examination of this question. Great, does anybody want to define what theater is? Yeah. Chela, I'm writing down by the way what you're saying. Theater is, I mean it's a reflection of the human experience, right? And they could look in so many different ways, but I think that what we often miss is the interpretation of all those different ways that a story could be told. That's what I would say that is for me. I don't mean I won't speak for anyone else, but I'm sure, sure, for myself. I feel like we're dialoguing all the time. Don't even want to give any unconscious level of security here, so I'm gonna cop a squad. Anybody else? What is theater? I mean we are quick to define theater. It's in your mission statements, right? Your educational programming says this is what you were trying to accomplish. I hope, right? So you have to find it in some way for you, okay? I mean, I know what it is for me. It's not necessarily in a textbook, right? Yeah, go ahead, Mr. Owen. Yes, after I'm studying the theater in college, after I'm working in the field, I realize there is no meaning of theater. I'm only concentrating performance, more than the way it's theater. Try to translate it into my language, the art of language. It's theater, the empty place to eat. Yeah, it's an outfit. But when I start my performance, my theater, it's a commercial theater, it's a political comic theater. I have 1,300 audience every day for eight years, the same people. You know the other people, they came to the same, because we talk about political issues in the country where there's no freedom, you know? I'm not talking about politics. Suddenly, I like, this is nonsense. People coming, paying a lot of money. When they go, they forget what I'm saying. I start working, I take my performance to the people. I'm not asking the people to come to the theater. I go to them, in their places, in their buildings, in their desert, in a very difficult situation. They leave me, and I came in for two days. It's difficult for me the two days. So how come they leave all their life? So that's performance, not the theater, not the Italian box. Huh? This is how I understand it, sorry. Don't feel sorry, no apologies, yeah. All the theater came to us from abroad. I mean, the theater is like what I'm staying here, acting, and you are so happy, and you go after two hours, paying a ticket, maybe you can go and have a drink and come back, whatever it is. In that place where we're doing our performance, you know the performance can continue in one hour, four hours, if you want, and the audience, they'll stay. I always keep saying, my audience, I'm part of it. Yeah, I'm part of it, so I hope that another explanation. That's why I said there's more heads up here than mine. I mean, I like it. So let's go on, we're good? Okay. So it's utilized, yes, yes, yes for all of this. How have critics and activists utilized the term intersectionality as a form of abstract theorizing and value signaling? Hey, I'm down with it, yeah, okay. Including the specifics like race, racism in relation to class, ableism, sexism, transphobia, and homophobia, rather than serving to illuminate those specificities, right, and some of your responses to this. Tokenizing minority voices, mushing together at poverty and age is an absolute thing. Catch all, doesn't live specificity, right? This is more answers to this, let's go over here. Visible versus invisible, easy to see becomes the first, what is the goal of the PR department? What are talking points? What is media training? Who is leading it and why? So guilty of it, and how do the actively change and repair, right? Being visitors in our community and not becoming part of or advocating for the community, right? So how do we change and repair? Again, I'm not gonna pretend that I have all the answers to that, but I have suggestions. It's doing the work, right? It's being uncomfortable, I mean, and I'm just sorry, like you have to be uncomfortable, you have to be willing to pay for, let me underline that, and look right into the camera and I say, pay for people who have a speciality to come to your place and work with you. Notice I didn't say teach you, I said work with you, okay? So people reach out to me, then I say how much I value my time for and then I don't hear anything from them, okay? You want me, I guess, I'm assuming, I'm not talking about the people in this room speaking very generally, so please allow it. But it feels to me when I speak from the eye that because I'm black and I'm female, this experience that I had didn't require education, didn't require me to study, didn't require me to prepare for this, I just woke up this way and gave you this knowledge, right? But that's not true. I have lots of degrees and I own my student loans, okay? So reach out to these organizations and these people, how can come collaborate with you, okay? If you cannot, like you're out in the middle of nowhere and you don't have a budget for someone to come and ask somebody if they would be going to Skype or whatever other, you know, platform you want to use to talk to you, I mean, you still got to have some money to pay them, I'm not saying it's free but I'm saying it's a solution, now you don't have to pay for travel, okay? And you can have these like in-house training sessions, okay? So how do we stop just talking about the thing and then value signaling is really important, you know what I'm saying? Do you want to ask that? No, just a riff, just because I would, so what you're saying, looking back at this statement, abstract theorizing of it versus what you're talking about which is concrete, I would just add, have self-knowledge about your theater and your mission and who you are and don't invite them unless you're really going to do something about it. You know, like feeling better about ourselves because we're enlightened doesn't change anything. And so you might be a small theater that's really focused on Shakespeare, whatever, which of these maybe is all. We, time is also money. So prioritize and say that it's a community that I think we have to work with or it's in our community, we need to bring them in, so I just wanted to add that because we have to try to theorize it more. Beautifully noted. The value signaling thing, and then I'll move on really quick, I also had conversations with people who are not of my particular race that's not me assuming, they identify from themselves as they are. And they tell me all the time when they identify themselves as white, as a white person, it's my time to step back and let others come in. As a white person, I know that these things are going on, but you have to understand that my department is all white, cis, and in. What can I do? I can only say so much, right? And in the beginning, I would just be quiet because these kind of conversations are for me, you value signaling, that you want me to give you a high five for that, right? But you're not listening. And the people who have these, I've had these times when they're not listening, okay? We are human beings. We are put somebody on the fucking moon. I mean, like not to sound blue, you know what I mean? You're obstacle of your department and this person who doesn't want to hear you for the umpteenth time, how do we get kids to eat booze? They don't like me, keep giving it to them, right? And then, you know, you have to show the value. Sometimes you have to be willing to be uncomfortable. You gotta be willing to get out there. That place that you're working at, this little fight zone that you were like so dug into may not be the place for you. That may not be the organization that you need to be tithing your time, your talent, or your artistry into. So if you look around, right, I'm gonna look to my left, I'm gonna look to my right, and none of these people are embodying the mission statement of the organization. And I've been trying my hardest. Maybe it's time for me to step back, go out on trust or faith or whatever it is you believe and find a place or create the space that will do the work that you wanna do. Okay? And stop going up to people with color to complain about it. All right, do we do all these? Okay, good, let's go on. How do small and large theater institutions reproduce white co-create exclusion and racism? Granting which, I hadn't even thought about that. Wow, yes. Hiring white male teachers. Assuming a community, okay? So this is huge, right? Again, if this is an assumption that you're coming in to offer this underprivileged community a taste of the arts, because it changed your life, I think you should reevaluate that. I mean, seriously, that community has arts. It's just arts you don't know about, okay? It's art that hasn't been appropriated yet. So, you wanna make sure that you're not doing that and that just takes humility, right? Just a practice of humility. What do I know and what don't I know? And again, the value of money. What am I willing to use our dollars to get the education and the knowledge that I don't know? Okay, save your complex, yes. Nobody needs me to unpack that. Being reactive instead of proactive, okay? Yeah, but you got this, Charlie. Oh, it's another question. How to talk back serve colonial ideals, right? So again, let me be clear when I'm talking about colonial ideals. We're talking about those who colonize the United States, right, which would be who? I love you, whites. They weren't whites then, right? Okay, so the British came over here and they brought all their ideals with them, right? So, how to talk back serve that? Now, when I say ideals, I talk about how do you take in information, right? What's the standard of taking in information? How do you share information? I'm going to generalize to please allow it. Generally, communities of color, when in a mixed company or it's majority white people, one or two persons of color, are not going to unpack whatever it is they watched when they feel like it's the potential for them to be attacked or when they feel like they're going to have to represent the whole of whatever category they're in, okay? Five minutes, ooh, thank you, Lord. So, thinking about the talk-backs. Mr. Ali, I love what you said about taking performance to the people, right? Rethinking about talk-backs. Do they have to happen after a show? You know? Do they have to happen in that setting? Are you creating affinity groups? Are you creating different ways for people to unpack what they saw? And again, if what they saw was trauma, lady, how at the end of that talk-back, are you putting people back together before you kick them the hell out of your theater but not before asking for more of their money? Yes? So, that becomes important. And again, this isn't necessarily like Kumbaya, okay? Which I recently just found was a song from the villain. Love it. Okay, but. What was that? Hmm? Sorry. Okay, I'll tell you later. But again, it could be burning incense, it could be having offerings, it could be bringing in pictures of people who may have gone through this thing. It's just, I'm not an expert in self-care, right? But I do know that different cultures value different ways of caring for one another and that we need to begin to take in a more broader sense about a talk-back and what purpose it is. I also am really choking down, telling you all this talk-heavy talk-backs about racial things and nobody on the panel is in any of those categories, right? That's not okay. I don't care if they're an expert, it's not okay. Optics, it's optics. There's no way you could tell me in this country you could not find someone to have that dialogue actually identified in whatever category that was. All right, let's just take maybe one more and then we'll move on. Do I have like two minutes left? Social justice and movements against racism, pluralism, and white supremacy of any. Listen, you may say my theater is not into social justice whatsoever. And I'm gonna throw bullshit on that, okay? Theater is a revolutionary act every single time. Even if you're putting up dead artists that don't nobody really wanna see anymore, it's still a revolutionary act. So, social justice is absolutely something that you are engaging in because you don't have the power to control the person who sits in the audience while out of there changed. I'm in theater today because a fan of the opera. I bet if you had to pull yourself, you wouldn't have guessed it, yeah? Okay, so, I need to be saying what's my role in that? How am I protecting or advocating for the communities that I'm asking to come into my space? Yeah, that's important. Sometimes you're gonna have to do, Raymond, I'm coming back to you. Sometimes you're gonna have to do uncomfortable things like challenge people who don't know what the fuck they're talking about. Sorry, young people, about touch and the power to create in relationships that are strong, right? Sometimes we have to stand up to the, or again, don't move along. I don't know y'all financial situations where don't nobody quit, and I started yelling at y'all or anything like that, right? But that's part of it too. Coming back, like clapping back to these organizations that don't understand the community that you're saying, who's money for, okay? Black Lives Matter, and I have seen these signs in so many theatrical situations and institutions. And yet, when I look at the payroll, I don't see Black Lives Mattering in money coming from that institution, right? So, if you are onto a movement in some way, shape, or form, it isn't about taking my people and moving them off the chest, okay? We're not trying to dump them in a dish somewhere and replace them with people of color. It is really, literally, about making space. And as this young lady in the back was talking about, the more space we make, the better we are, right? So, we wanna be thinking about those things too. I think I'm probably at my two minutes. Don't wanna approach on anybody's lunchtime. Hey, Greg, can we just do last two slides so I don't, somebody says I plagiarize their work, finding relationships to me. Because our relationships in the theater are broken with our communities, many of them are. And collect, and poetry, and UK, legacies of colonialism, and that's the website. If any of you are interested for more information, next one. And this is probably a state-connected, right? Yes, I am in DC, but I'm not afraid to travel. So, I'm at gmail.com, my website, NicoleMGroor.com, I gotta be honest. I'm not really a tech person. I don't have Instagram. I rarely check my Facebook. And I don't really update my website. Can I just be that honest? I feel like we can. So, if you need me, my point is email me. In the gmail, you will get a response. I want to thank you all for your time, your talent, and your artistry. Have a great lunch, or wherever we're going. Oh, we're not going next, okay. Oh, I have to take questions. Stand up. For the following. I like the black lives matter, but we don't see them in the leadership structures. And the pushback is, well, we can't find black people or people of color who have the expertise or who can do the work of leadership. And it's interesting, because so black lives matter, but they can't lead. And I just want to throw that up, and we can engage it or not. Yeah. I appreciate you bringing everything that you've said to the fore. Chiefly, because what it makes our whole beautiful field have to do is reevaluate how we do everything, right? And that's hard when we're talking about culture, tradition, storytelling in a particular way, especially when it connects to culture and people. To integrate that construct and make it broader and to be aware about what that then means makes folk have to open their lens to your point. The aperture becomes even more open. Yeah. And I want to say to all of my colleagues, because you could feel become I, because I do the same thing you do in that group agreement, I can feel when that space gets, you know, touched upon. And I do want to say colleagues lean into it, because Shakespeare is one great world writer, right? But there are tons of storytelling traditions that predate that great writer. So why not bring it all in? So thank you. I didn't feel how many minutes you speak, because I'm very excited to hear. And the natural, this is a good performance. You never mentioned my word, the culture nervous, but I feel within the whole response also from our colleagues. So I feel very much, yes, I hope like wondering how come we have here in the United States, Shakespeare, after four years, 400 years or whatever it is, still a gentleman called Shakespeare having this exceptional sense in here. And you talk about how the British are doing to people, we are, and we do it in there, whatever. How come we let the people came to the performance, want to see it in there? Touching the airport, I don't think that some people can do something in the Karabra, in India, but the same character, the human, everywhere. How good result from the performance. Will she take the launch of it? That means not nationality, that means more international. So I believe that the national art can be international when she see it in the national. So I like the question, some of them. And I'm so happy with the answer, especially for the real generation for the other thing they are. I hope they're not afraid of your future. What you're talking about in the future. You have to share the future with this very strong question and very clear answer to our discussion in the second. Absolutely. Please join me in thanking the conversation, not necessarily finished. I'm gonna suggest that we're gonna have a 15 minute break. But before that, I want you all to know that there will be breakout opportunities later this afternoon. We want everyone to be able to use those breakouts as an opportunity to respond to various sessions through the day. This may be where everybody wants to spend your time, but there will be four topics. If you've had additional questions of speakers or thoughts that you wanna share with each other in smaller groups, that's the opportunity. Greg and I have already posted four topics around the room. We didn't do it as big as these, but the idea is later we will gather around those four topics and maybe we'll bring chairs with us. The four topics are structuring meaningful school programs and I think that one's over here. Collaborating with a school district or a network of schools, responding to our keynote from Karen Hall. Cultural competency for teaching artists and education staff. Community engagement over there and internal advocacy over here. We haven't gotten to some of those sessions yet, but I wanted if you have things that are percolating and you haven't had a chance yet, that will be your opportunity. For now, we're gonna have a 15 minute break. We're gonna start it on our break a little bit later, 15 minutes and about 20 minutes of dwell. We're gonna gather back here. We have so much to fit in today. So please take care of yourselves. There are restaurants, there's more coffee and we'll see you back shortly. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. This was so worth it. It was really good fun. Before I was like, that's it, that's it. It's not muskiness. I was like, they're worth it. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.