 Elia Cornelia Jones, I'm not gonna stop bragging on her. She, she, I first was introduced to her because she's the first recipient of our PAL Mother of Color Child Care Grant for her work with Blackboard plays who you should also look up, incredible. Here in New York City, those are some of the new playwrights that we all need to get behind supporting. And she has also recently come on board as the New York City PAL Chief Rep for the whole city. So we're so excited to like, yeah, just hear where her heart goes is going to be a wonderful opportunity for us to see what the vision can be for this city. So thank you all so much. I know that right now my wonderful event producers are like here, they can talk about these women all the time, but it is my absolute pleasure if my friends can go and join their seats and join their little mini pod communities, which you'll see what those are for in a little bit. Plot twist. And now I would like to introduce someone who I, I have also grown to admire. This is someone who has made such a wonderful impact in the conversation of gender parity when it comes to composition and music direction. And that's, I would like to start introducing, you can come up whenever you're ready, but Georgia Stitt is with us tonight. It is such a pleasure to have her. She is a composer, lyricist, music director, and pianist. She has written several musicals, including Snow Child and Big Red Sun and Samantha Spade, Ace Detective, and has produced several albums of her songs. She's the founder and president of Maestra Music, an organization that was created to provide support, visibility, and community to the women who make the music in the musical theater industry. Incredible, more musicals by women, please. And I have invited her to speak for two minutes just on Maestra and the importance of that before we move into the next piece. So, Georgia, thank you so much for being here. Is this on? Yeah, is this thing on? Thank you. Thank you, Rachel, for having me. I have worked for a long time in this industry in New York City as a music director, a pianist, a composer, and a ranger, orchestrator, all of the things under the umbrella of Jack of all trades, Jill of all trades, musical theater person, and many, many, many, many times over the years, I've been the only woman on the team. In parallel, I also had a girlfriend who was doing the same thing, my friend, Mary Mitchell Campbell, who's a music supervisor of Mean Girls, and The Prom, and basically everything. She's one of the most working women in the music industry in Broadway. And she and I are roughly the same age, and we sort of came up the industry together, and we said to each other, I can't do this job, but I'm gonna recommend you whenever I can't do it. So if they can't get me, they can get you. And so we just watched for two decades now. We've watched our careers grow like this. And I thought, who would I be, and what would I be if I didn't have a girlfriend having my back? And similarly, and our paths diverged, I became more of a composer, she became more of a conductor, but we still meet for lunch once a month of breakfast, usually, because that's the 9 a.m. time, is when we have available. And so I thought the thing that's missing when you're the only woman on the music team is that sense of girlfriend, that sense of partnership, and the woman who has your back. And so I thought, what is this community? Who are the women who are doing this? And I realized that I didn't really know who they are. I had a few pivotal moments. I performed a concert of my own music, and I had a female composer come up to me at the end of it and say that she was overwhelmed watching that because she'd realized she'd never seen a woman at the center of the conducting, playing the piano, my piece being performed, she had never seen that, and she thought, how can I do this for a career if I can't even imagine it? I can't even see what it would look like. And so watching you do it, I thought it's the first time I've seen that. And then I had another young woman and a female composer reach out to me and say she was starting grad school to write musical theater, and she got the syllabus and realized there were only men on the curriculum, only male composers. And so she went to the professor and said, why are there no women on the syllabus? And he said, who do you think should be on the syllabus? And she said, I don't know, that's why I'm in grad school. And he said, you should call Georgia Stitt. And I think he said that because he didn't know either. He didn't know the answer. So I got those two women together and they met each other and we're both like, oh thank God, someone else who does this. And I thought, okay, this is what's missing is the sense of community. So I started basically a cocktail party and invited the women that I knew who were composers and prominent music directors. And we met a few times and then I started bringing in guest speakers to speak to us about things musical. We brought in orchestrators and we brought in arrangers and producers and every conductors. And a cap scouring, like who's winning the awards? Who's graduating from the programs? Who's getting a show produced? Who do I not know? And then those women started inviting other women. The group has grown, we have about 140 women on the mailing list now. And we meet every month and there's usually about 40 women that come every month. It's a rotating group depending on who's available. And an offshoot of that is that we now, we have, we built a directory. So if you're trying to hire more women on your creative team, you can go to maestromusic.org and you can say, I'm looking for an arranger in the city of Washington DC who's a member of the union who works in finale who also plays a piano. And all the search filters will give you names of people who qualify in those categories. So I just don't ever wanna hear, well we wanted to hire a woman but we couldn't find her. We are trying to solve that problem. And then from our community, we have a group called Maestro Moms that we started and you're gonna be lucky enough to hear from Tina DeVara in a few minutes. But Tina is the head of that with her partner Lauren Craiger, the two of them co-chair of that program. And we have been trying to build community among the women musicians who often are trying to figure out how do I have time to make music? How do I have time literally to put my brain on this thing but also to go to the other place where I have to work to make music? How is that even possible? And so we're trying to build the community there too. So anyway, that's me, Maestro Music and we're officially a not-for-profit and we have a number of big initiatives coming up in the next year. So thanks for paying attention and for supporting Moms. And I'm also a mom, how do I leave that out? I have two daughters, they're 10 and 14. Anyway, thanks for having me today, thank you. So definitely look up Maestra and if you know women who want to get involved in musical theater, send them George's way because there's a wonderful community that's building to support them. And then that's a perfect transition into the first part of our performance programming. I'd like to welcome to the stage Tina DeVara and Jennifer Blood. As Georgia mentioned, Tina is one of the co-founders of Maestra Moms and she was one of the first people who reached out to me about Maestra and I learned that she has written numerous songs on the topic of motherhood and that I had heard because of the nature of our business. And so once we connected, I was like, well, this is definitely gonna come into play at some point. And she's joined by Jennifer Blood who is also a mom and a killer singer. And so it is my pleasure that they get to bring their art to us tonight. So please enjoy, please give it up for Tina and Jennifer. What's your life in truly costumes? You dye the eggs. You hang the decorations. You bake the cake. And in between, you work for pay. When you get tired of standing up, sister sit down and say, mom is not my real name. Mom is not my real name. There's somebody else. I used to be with the name walk away. If there's trouble at school or if you have a bad day, but I want you to know it's got room for everything. It's got room for everything. And by the way, mom is there's somebody else. I used to be Avenue and a young woman pushing a stroller comes into view and she's thin and she's blonde and she's beautiful. She looks so rested. And I wonder as she passes me pushing that stroller, when her babies get just a little bit older and she's stirring the oatmeal and she's doing the dishes and then she's wiping noses and washing out lunchboxes and cleaning out voicemails. And she's answering emails and she's answering texts and she's answering messenger and she's answering children, mom, what? She's answering children, mom, what? And she's answering children, mom, what? Thank you so much. You all sounded incredible as well. If I may be so bold, this is wonderful. I mean, just the energy putting into this art that was put into the messaging that connected with all of you. I mean, you don't even need to be a mom. I know some people who are not even parents and we're laughing at this because I think that there's so much connection and opportunity for that incredible piece. If you want to find her, she's on SoundCloud, Tina DeVeron, mom is not my real name and it's from the motherhood song book. So there are many tracks that you can find and also Jennifer Blood is a professional as you could tell from her sound. So find her and go see her anywhere you can. I'm gonna invite Mary Hodges to the stage right now. If you could come up, Mary Hodges. The talent does not quit tonight. You may, you may. Honestly, I needed that song and I'm like jazzed, absolutely. So I was able to connect with Mary through pal, actually. But it was when she was in the middle of, this is like part of the loose introduction, my exposure to Mary, she was in the middle of tech for a little piece that's doing kind of well called Slave Play, maybe you've heard of it. Yeah, you can clap for that. Mary is the assistant director on this incredible piece of work. You can clap again. This isn't school, this is a happy hour and I am very happy to say that I connected with her and she started to tell me her story and the story is that this is a woman whose resume includes TV, film, theater. She's incredibly gifted. When she spoke to me about the passion of what she was working on and what she wanted to engage with and her trajectory that was about her as a single mother taking every opportunity possible to continue her work, I was moved in a way that I'm continually moved by learning these stories but I was also inspired because of what they gather around. No, no, it's fine. This is for you, this is all for you. Where she was able to, in just one phone call, capture, I was able to capture her passion for this entire industry and what she wanted to do and what was so special about that was she was saying, look, this is where I am, this is the opportunity, I know that I'm ready to give it but this institution isn't ready to support me the way that I need and that's the truth. That is that you can clap for that too. So I'm very proud to say that it was from that conversation that we were able to identify Mary as one of our institutional match grant recipients from PAL for our childcare grant but here's why, it's because we knew that she was giving so much to the field. She was giving so much to the institution that we wanted the institution to learn how to support her in return and I think that they got a pretty good end of the deal and this brilliant artist, that was so much promise and so I wanna start off actually the question that's not on the sheet but you seem to be pretty cool with that. When I Google you, I Google all of you. When I looked you up, there was a two line bio that was on Broadway World and I loved it. It said assistant director of Slave Play and then the second line was and proud single mother to her two line bio included two incredible accomplishments. So I wanted to ask you, what is your heart behind that bio? Those two lines say so much. Yeah, injects a position with the art, right? I think it was just ironic how my first credit on Broadway is triple fold in many ways that it was as an assistant director and first not as an actor and then the title of the show and then at this point in my life. So I wanted to make a bold statement by saying this is part of my identity and let the chips fall away where they may because some people would say, you don't need to put that there, right? Just say go off of, you know, you're just assistant director or what have you but it's just big part of who I am and I chose not to hide that. So if that answered your question. Absolutely, I think it does for me. I think for many of us we still feel that it does have to be a choice. Like, am I going to lead with this? Am I gonna let it slip into the conversation naturally or am I gonna choose maybe to not mention it at all? And there are many, many, many, many times where I don't mention him on my bios in the playbook because it's like, okay, it's just professional, professional, professional, professional. Or what is professional, right? To not say that, right, yeah. But for this particular occasion, for my first time, I was like, I'm gonna just put that footprint right there. I think it's beautiful. I think it made quite the impression. It did on me to read that on Broadway World. I wanna start at the beginning. So what is one of your earliest memorable experiences as a parent in the theater? I think she's so prepared. This is part two. Yeah. So I have to really have my way. So what was the question again, Rachel? The one of your earliest memorable experience as a parent in the theater when those two circumstances were juxtaposed? Theater. I have to say, like one of them, I was actually, I went into labor and I didn't know I was into labor. It was like one of those checks where you have to start checking in every week with the gynecologist. And I forgot what week I was, maybe 36 or what have you. And I go in and she said, oh, you're in labor. You need to go right to the check-in at the Children's Hospital. This is Washington Heights, Presbyterian. And I was like, what? She said, you need to go check in. You know, you're in labor. You don't feel anything. I was like, no, I don't feel anything. My water didn't break. I didn't have like, you know, she's like, well, you're in labor and you need to go. And it felt like, you know, monopoly do not go past go. You have to keep going. I was like, you mean I can't go home and get my back? No, you need to go and check in. I really wanted to cry. I'm proud of myself. I didn't, but I was like this close. And so because I was also, there was a show going on. I was, I directed a show for the Downtown Urban Theater Festival. And it was going to go up, I'm gonna say the next night. And so I wanted to cry and I'm like walking with my son's father. We're in the corner. We literally had to walk around the corner. It's like, do you think she really met like not gone? She's like, no. So we go and he checked in and got me situated and then he left to go get the bag. And I just felt really alone at that point. But then I got on the phone and I had to contact the playwright. I was like, Sessy, I'm checking in. I'm going to labor. I won't be there at the show because it's one of those things where it's like, you said all the sound cues, everything was on my computer and I was going to do it. So then what happened was, making a long story short, memorable, was they got me set up, got me a room and then the playwright and then her friend showed up and I was there. Somebody took a picture. There's a picture out there in the world of me and hooked up to tubes and everything. And I'm going through the sound cues and transferring stuff. I literally gave her my MacBook that I had at the time. So she could go run cues for the show the next night. Yeah. So that's one. Make your MacBook show, baby. Yes. In their care. But I had to explain it. It wasn't like just here. You know, you had to go through the script because, you know, I knew it and this was where the sound cues and things, yeah. I would say that's pretty memorable. I know I'm not going to forget it. Thank you. I mean, but also like what you did for that show, how wonderful that you're like, both of these things are existing as an event in my life. Yeah. Right now. We got second runner up for that. Hey. Second runner up for that, yeah. Come on. Yeah. You explained the cues really well. That's great. And so to move into this, like kicking off your motherhood life that way, what about being a mother and an artist? Have you found, has brought you the most joy? Joy. Yeah. I did ask for it. Joy, that's loaded. You can change the question. Yeah. There are no rules. You know, let me see. What did I write down? Oh, hmm. That's weird. You know, it's unique. I think being an artist and being a parent. And I wanna say, because there are men in here, so I don't wanna just say moms, you know, as being a parent. I think you, even though we complain and we mind about like, you know, how tired we are, I think there's something a little jazzy, a little something that's extra that we bring into the space and a sensitivity. And speaking of which, I was working on a show, new perspectives, theater company way over on the west side, actually not too far from here. And we were in rehearsals. And that's why I wanna make clear that we just don't make sure careful about just saying moms, because it was a parent. And he had talked about, we were planning the rehearsal schedule and he had mentioned, you know, he's the caretaker for his child and the rehearsal schedule. I was like, well, I took him aside. I was like, you need to bring him? Bring him? Because I've brought my son to rehearsals. Or let me know, we can stagger your call, whatever you need so we can get you here. So I think there's a different awareness that we come in whatever our hat is. And at that time I was wearing my director hat. And then, so I think that brings in the look on his face by having a director acknowledge that he's a parent. And this was his concern and that he was heard. So he didn't have to feel like he needed to hide that. So I think there's a sensitivity and an awareness when we're in spaces. It also, you know, the word legacy was talked about a lot today in your conversation with Emily. And what I love that sounds like it's an effect of this sensitivity and this awareness that you have is now you're creating a new standard for him. Yes. Of what that empathy and care should be for him in the room. Yes. And then also, you know, the part of also what we talked about earlier is there's another set of the word in the question is joy, right? I make fun. But then there's a joy also of having relief knowing that your child can be welcomed in the space or the joy that your child brings to other people, artists in the space that they weren't expecting to get. So, you know, it can be spread, you know, in many different ways. And then there's also like just conversations because, you know, my son, you know, the director of a show I was just in when I switched and I wore my after hat not too long ago. The Hope Hypothesis is a good example because Omri would come often to rehearsal and, you know, he loved the show, you know, and there was some inappropriate words in there, but he's a theater baby. So you just say, you just say, you can't say those words at school, right? That's what I say. Fair enough. And he'll come into rehearsals and he's the first to memorize. He'll memorize the play and the script. And then sometimes there was one show, we'll have a conversation about the show. And he's often, you know, the first, you know, critic and he'll speak his mind when he thinks about it. And he'll say, you know, you were really good. Thank you. Because he would tell me if I wasn't and be honest about it. And he'll talk about, you know, other, so that's another sense of joy. Absolutely. Yes. I love that you mentioned that because so often when we do try to identify the obstacles of motherhood or parenthood, it comes in that feeling of being divided, that your art exists here and your motherhood exists here, but they all exist in one person. And so how do you amputate that part of yourself to enter a new space? And it sounds like the joy for you is when you can enter as a whole person. Yes. Into the room. Yes. Which also goes back to not hiding it. Yes. And keep trying to keep those things separate. I hear some ums in the audience too. Thank you. I bet I hear some ums through the live streaming as well. So what support, I mean, you talks about, you know, children entering the space and things like that. The question I had was, you know, what support have you received? You kind of already answered that. I would love to know, you know, where can we go from here though? This all sounds like wonderful and simple, but I'm not the type of personality to ever settle. So I don't want to stay here. What happens when we ask the question, that's wonderful, where should we go? If you could vision cast for what you would love support to look like for yourself as you grow, as a mother and as an artist, how can the support for parents grow as well? Well, I see a world. And this is where we'd have the piano go, right? Toot, toot, toot, toot, let's see a world. Where we talked about the word surprise, you know, being thrown out or this is part two to our day for some who weren't able to make it earlier, the conversation that we were having with Emily Mann about not being surprised about the struggles, the ongoing struggle of the parent and not getting support, whether it's monetary or friends or colleagues with our children. Where it's just a norm where if we're offered a job and they'll say, do you need any, do you have any concerns or do you need assistance with anything that we can arrange for you, right? Because we're still in a place where you're not, you know, saying upfront as far as discrimination, whether you have children or you have spouse or you have this or you have that, right? Or you're a caretaker of somebody in your family. So then I would say, as a matter of fact, there is, I'm going to need some assistance with my son. He gets out of school at this such and such a time and I'm going to have somebody pick him up or what have you. Is there room for you to, can we have, is there a space where he can be, where he can sit and do his homework or what have you? And then that person would say, of course, misogynists, we can provide a space for your son to come in. You can clap for that too. You can stand up and dance for that. Of course. Of course. Versus, you know, getting into, you know, Yeah, I mean, the surprise is because, you know, there's limited resources. It's like, oh, I don't know if we can do it. But what we're talking about is when you ask for something like that, like support, and they're like, oh, wait, what, what, what's a room? What, I don't know what walls are. And you're like, oh my gosh. Oh, you're going to have to find a waiver. Yeah. People have been having children since the dawn of time. Like if we haven't figured this out, literally, that's how we came to be. If we haven't figured it out by now, it's because we haven't thought it through, right? So I love this idea where you're like, it's, yes, I'm just going to jump on that and say I would love that to be the vision too. That it's more of a surprise when they don't know how to support you than it is a surprise when they do. Yes. Right? Yeah. You can go over that too. Yeah, and I'll take it a step further. Please? As far as like regional world, right? Because there's theater beyond New York City. And that's where some of us make our living if you're able to go out of state, which is a challenge for me right now. So what I foresee is we get a job offer to go to, pick a state, anyone? Minnesota, all right? So, and they say, you know what? And I'll say, I need to bring my son with me. Can you provide me, he's in this grade. Do you have a short list of schools? And they can go, I'm gonna put you in touch when the company manager, they have a short list of schools because we have a relationship with these schools in our community. And so, here are the schools that parents who have come to work with us have enrolled their kids in. Now that is stepping up. Yes. Versus, oh, you go and do the research. And also it puts the obligation on the institution to have a relationship with the community. Which they should. Which he, hello. These words that you've said. Yeah. Yeah. That's my last question. But like, let's put that out there again. So, they have the resources for you. Yes. Already. Because they have a relationship with the community. Yes, they have a relationship with the community, but they also recognize that they're bringing in artists from all over the country and artists are parents too. They're not just like. Mary Hodges, ladies and gentlemen. Hi, Anne. Brilliant. We're moving into the next section of our programming, but there is time to mingle a bit after grab her, talk to her, talk to her about her, talk to her about her work. She's on fire. We're gonna move into the next portion of our programming, but this is not the last you're gonna hear from Mary if I have anything to do with it. So I just wanna send everyone to the PAL website who's at home, P-A-A-L theater with an R-E dot com. Our hope is that these events become more regular so that you can all find community. You can find Mary, who is awesome. I was supposed to do this at the beginning. It's my mea culpa, but I'm not gonna miss the opportunity to do it because I also find it an imperative to do. So if you will join me in a bit of a deconstructed programming exercise of Angard, where we say, pretend it is the beginning, before we begin today's summit, we would like to acknowledge that we are gathered on the lands of the Lenape people in their ancestral lands, Manahata. We are the guests of the land and we wanna take a moment to acknowledge and honor the indigenous stewards of this place, past, present, and future. Following this acknowledgement and with gratitude to the history of activism and preservation undertaken and led by native and indigenous communities, we'd like to acknowledge today's climate strike. You could be engaging with that vital movement today, but you're here with us. However, climate action and parent inclusion are intrinsically linked. We cannot create a better world for families without actively seeking to preserve that world. We urge you to take a moment to reflect on your relationship to the land today and offer gratitude to those who are leading the movement for climate justice. Thank you so much. And thank you all too. Thank you to Lenape people on their ancestral land, Manahata. You can clap for that too. It is my absolute pleasure to introduce to you the next individual who is going to be taking us into a really exciting, now you know the purpose of your pods, it's great. I would like to introduce Karina Shillenberg, Director of Communications at TCG. She is a playwright and creative partner at Flux Theater Ensemble here in New York. Without further ado, please help me welcome Karina. Hi everybody. Thank you, Rachel. I wanna start by just saying how meaningful it is for me to be here with you all tonight. As I'm not just your facilitator, I am also a parent. I am a mother and as a queer transgender mother, I sometimes experience my motherhood as excluded, sometimes even contested. So for me, the song would go, mama is my real name, right? One of them. And so I don't take it for granted to be in community with you all tonight. The invitation is deeply meaningful to me. I also wanna say that it's deeply meaningful to share this practice with you. And it's important for me to start by naming where the practice comes from. So this story circle practice comes from John O'Neill. Is that name familiar to any folks here? Yes. So John O'Neill was the co-founder of the Free Southern Theater, also Gene Broad productions. And Free Southern Theater was in many ways the cultural arm of the civil rights movement. He founded it in the early 60s. And this story circle practice really comes from the struggle for black liberation. And in John's work with Free Southern Theater and as an artist and as an educator, and later with Gene Broad productions, which is thriving right now in New Orleans, he's been very generous in sharing this practice with others, we're going to use it today. But we're gonna do so understanding the sacred tools that we are using and the reason for which they were created, which was black liberation. So, charged with that sacredness, here's how it works. You are going to break into these little pods, although for reasons that will become clear soon, if you can do a little bit of visual tracking, and notice if your pod is...