 Hi, I'm Ryan Hedad, for those of you who saw the last panel on Half Hour Girl, you watched me introduce myself and introduce you to Gay. I'm a writer and performer, I was most notably in the Under the Radar Festival at the Public Theatre with a piece called Hi, Are You Single, which I wrote and performed about experiences in gay, horny, individualist cerebral palsy. And that's why Andrew Kircher asked me to moderate these panels because he thought that I was funny and charming and I hoped that he would depend too. And I'm here with Jefflin Beckins, playwright and co-founder of Fresh Grand Hebron. I'm here with Scott Sheppard and Jennifer Kigwell of Liking Rod Special, which is a theater Philadelphia-based theater company. And they were most recently in a big splash in New York for the Under Radar Railroad game and Jefflin made a big splash with my nine brothers as a playwright. So we're going to talk about how they made their works, how they make work in general. And it's going to be a lot of questions from you guys. So I'm going to stop talking after a while and moderate those questions. But let's start with each of you telling us a little bit about yourselves as artists and the companies that you have formed with each other to make your own work. So let's start with Jefflin since you're closest to me. Hi, my name's Jefflin. I am a playwright, first and foremost I would say. A couple of plays that have happened in New York that you might have heard of as Men on Boats, which happened last year and the year before that. And then some of my work with Theater Reconstruction Ensemble, which is a small downtown company that focuses on reconstructing classics and new works. I also run a company called Fresh Ground Pepper, which is an incubating home for facilitating and celebrating the artistic process. We're not a producing company, we just do events and have developmental groups for people making new work. And I am also a mom, so I have a kid, which is like the fun life project for me. Yeah, I guess that's me in a little nutshell, yeah. Amazing. Hey, what's up? I'm Scott Shepard and I guess I identify as a creator, performer. Also I love to write, but I often write on my feet and sometimes that means that I continue to perform that role and sometimes it means I don't. I'm a co-director of a company in Philadelphia called Lighting On Special. We make original, devised theater performance pieces. We try to sometimes tackle lightning rod issues and make work that is a little bit scary. And I made some other pieces with a Pigeon Theater Company where I went to school and met Jen Kidwell. Jen for Kidwell. Yeah, that's a good start. We keep digging in as we go. My name is Jen Kidwell and like Scott said, I went to Pig Iron School in Philly and I live in Philly now and I make work. I'm a company member of Lighting On Special and associated with Wilma Theater in Philly and a Pig Iron Company member and make things on my own and then perform in other people's things sometimes. Amazing. Wonderful. I, as a writer and performer, am fascinated by what your company says. It's an actor-driven company that the work comes out of the actor. Why did you feel the need to move in that direction? Was there an absence of something that you thought was missing that led you to say, hey, I need to make space for this kind of work or for myself to be a performer in this kind of work? That's to both of you. I'm going to just ask Jen for the area between the two of you and I'm going to let Scott feel the light in on special questions because I'm a company member and there's like a strange timeline history with the company, so I think you're far better. Okay, I'll jump in. So, I think what's... I started out as a person who wanted to be a writer and kind of sit down at a table and write or sit down at a table and type kind of person and I still do that and write short stories and things like that. I also had a very difficult time with that very solitary practice of writing and I had trouble kind of finding my way into theater and I went to the Pig Island School because I saw that they were making work in a different way that I did nothing about. It was sometimes called devised theater. So, I started to learn this practice of writing on my feet and so now the company that I'm a co-director of, we are kind of continuing in that tradition. So, we believe for, you know, one of the things we talk about a lot is that theater shouldn't start with a prioritization of words and instead it should start with space and bodies and kind of making statements not necessarily with words. Maybe those words later on need to become emphasized for the sake of that piece but when you start with a new project, its genetics are unique to that project and they might not require a playwright or a playwriting sensibility to make that particular piece of theater. So, we start from that place and then I also am obsessed with language. So, oftentimes language finds its way back into the piece and, you know, we always joke about how playwrights really need more devising help and devising people need more playwriting and I think that's something that really is true with our company, right? That we will often make something really scrambled and exciting in the space and then it takes a long time for the playwriting to be as smart as the instantaneous moment of inspiration that we found some day a month ago that we're trying to recreate. So, it's that long process of figuring out how things need to be structured together so that both of those, both the like kind of raw feeling of having made something in the space matches with the, I don't know, the intelligence or the craft of the writing. So, that's kind of what we are trying to do, devise theater but then stepping in with a playwright's mind and seeing if we can't make something that is exciting in both areas. Jennifer, would you like to be a performer in that process as a member of the company? I was just talking about how, like for me to be a performer who is like used to working in this way and so it's tricky to know, like stepping into somebody else's framework to know what is exactly being asked of you as an artist but I think that some people really want to take a performer up on many different facets of what you could bring to the table and some people don't, like some people would prefer to say like I'd like for you to stand there and I'd like for you to do this this way and I'm a kind of person who thrives more on the former situation and so I find there's a negotiation that needs to happen that there are questions that I might have about the subject matter and for me like research is really, really big so I have all these questions about, you know, like what are we doing and why are we doing it and then there are these questions about like what exactly is being asked of me in this particular production in this particular system. Yeah, so I think it's figuring out what it is we're all building towards it's just as much a part of my process as it is figuring out what exactly my role is, like not role like on the little sheet that's like so and so plays such and such but just like what is my role in the room like what is being asked of me in the room and so lead to like say the words of somebody else or do the movement of somebody else or is it like a little bit more drama church or colonel so like more directorial, more writing, that's fun. gentlemen you say you identify first and foremost as a playwright and I see you have a wonderful notebook here in which you argue and take notes so talk to us are you the type of playwright that sits behind your desk and just sits behind your desk and types things or do you tell us about your process when you're starting to think of a new piece where it takes you and do you start in the notebook do you start on your feet do you start talking to your child like what happens? Yeah, no, that's a great question. I mean I was like I was totally nodding on with Bochum you guys as he spoke because I feel like as a writer words are my text is the language I speak that being said, that's my strongest asset in any kind of process but I truly believe that that asset is one part of an entire ecology of what a play can be and so it's always, I mean I love I also have some devising background I used to be a performer but writing is one of my favorite things to do so that's where my mind lives but I love, I'm really drawn to processes where I can use writing as a blueprint to build off of with the help and the minds of collaborators whether they're designers, directors movers, actors and being able to let the piece inform me of the people who I'm working with so it's, yeah, in that way I mean I think that playwriting is like the best thing I can offer to a theatrical process like I'm a really bad dancer I could draw some things like find a pretty costume I don't know how to do it so my language of actualizing the other parts of a theatrical process is definitely lesser than so I always like to, you know if someone's like, oh I'm, you know if I can be involved in any way I know that writing is probably the way for me to contribute the most and you also did co-founded the organization which is no small thing you know what I mean so what was that impetus why Freshman Pepper and what is it like to be in administrative side as well yeah well I mean the reason the way that Freshman Pepper started was it was definitely born out of coming out of my schooling which was at NYU I did undergrad at Playwrights Horizon Theatre School and I, you know in that program we were taught a lot about how to be a good collaborator like that's sort of the main main thing I took out of that schooling and we started Freshman Pepper because we realized there was not there was not like a good place that we could find to be able to share with each other like the processes of work that we were doing in a way that didn't feel incredibly like encumbered by like financial needs like, you know, the financial burden of a production or be the pressure that comes with like showcasing work that isn't ready for something, for feedback that isn't delighted, you know so it's all about, you know in those early days it was a lot of like open mic style presentation but we've been doing it for about nine years now and we have over those the course of those nine years we've been able to sort of like listen to artists we know who are like, oh I would love an opportunity to work in this way and we as a as a facilitating company try as to honor that and fulfill that need in some way we now have a retreat that we run every summer that lasts for about a month we bring in new artists every week we do a writers group that's not just for playwrights and directors, it's also for we had like novelists in the group we had like short story writers so it's sort of, it's like that's like a nice set of deadlines and checkpoints for writers we have a devising group a producer's lab and we're going to be premiering a festival our first ever festival next spring which is a showcase of a culmination of all of that work but all centered around the idea of work in process and what it means to bring together a group of people to delight in and delight in and celebrate work that will go on to larger life give it like a nice sort of send off as those artists continue to make their work and continue to hone in and refine and the biggest joy for me in doing it even though I used to use fresh ground pepper the opportunities we provided for my own artistry and I don't do that as much anymore but the biggest it's always such a gift for me to be able to like engage with other artists who are working be inspired by them and to like it keeps you, I don't know engaged in the artistic world even if you're kind of like if I'm having a bad day about my own ideas well, you know, at least I can like sit in the room with someone else's good ideas and like, and you know she loved them for a while and be inspired and so it's a for me it's a it's just, it's a good way for me to re-engage in like how hard it is to create work and to be able to I don't know it feels like a nice way to give to the community of art makers in the city wonderful now let's talk about your two major pieces the two most recent major pieces that you've done individually starting with men on boats for those who didn't see it they were just assumed that nobody saw it you know, many of you some of you probably did just a little snippet of that piece and what it means to you and what it is about yeah, men on boats so I started writing that play in like 2013 it is a play that I it started I was really hungry to write something that had like a really large physical physical vocabulary on stage something that felt very adventurous and felt very you know like it's based in survival tactics I wasn't sure what the story was going to be at I was just like, oh good like I write a bunch of like people who are like starving like fighting for their lives but like in an adventure way not in like a you know like the stakes were sort of on their own terms kind of way and so I stumbled upon the journals of John Wesley Powell who is who is this guy who he ran an expedition to run and chart the Colorado River and the Green River and the Grand Canyon eventually as we know it now in 1869 and so and I've known about him since I was a kid he's like sort of an Arizona folk hero in a way or folk maybe not hero just a guy a folk guy one of those guys on boats yeah so he so I read his journals and I was like oh yeah this guy like this he this you know reading his journals the characters or so they just jumped off the page it was such like a rag tag ensemble of people so I started writing a play I was like this honestly would be a great sort of true source adaptation great adventure piece so much fun writing it and then as I started to write it I got a little bit into the like the like why I was writing what is what is getting me about like why is this so fun for me to write what is the what is what is propelling me keeping me writing this piece and it had something to do with the fact that it was the kind of role that someone like me would never get to play and that someone like you know like my ability to inhabit is sort of rugged explorer it's pretty limited in the mind in the mindset of like you know naturalism or society yeah society especially at that time you know so I just sort of like well let's see what happens if that's just not true and then around that time I started working with Will Davis the director who eventually went on to direct the piece and we were able to sort of unpack that idea further and that kind of made its way into the revisions of the piece and what ended up happening we had a really amazing cast of you know female identifying trans identifying gender nonconforming actors across a wide spectrum of performative styles and everyone you know it was like they all played these historical figures and it was we all had a blast doing it and yeah it was like it was fun it happened last year it was last year it happened at playwrights horizons but it was a co-production with club found who had initially produced it oh cool in summer works but yeah now let's move on to underbarbara tell us about that I I listened to you under my seat and you said that the collaboration we began with like a very late night conversation that just happened out of nowhere that made gents laugh so hard thinking that you played in middle school but like once you had that once you did that and that night together oh how hysterical is this when did you realize okay let's make something bigger out of of a game that I played when I was a child so we had that conversation but we also we were in school together and we got assigned to create a dance and I wasn't able to carry out the assignment and so I asked Scott if he wouldn't mind doing makeup work to like but for this assignment because our dance teacher was like really disappointed she was like oh you guys are the only duet I'm making like at the time we had worked together very much and everybody was kind of mystified about what she thought she saw she was like I just see so much of you guys working together and that's just what you see we were like working in two very difficult cabinets so I was like if you're not going to be there that's really too bad and I was like I hope that Scott will help me make it up Nicole and so we tried to make this dance career out of this dance and it was really bad I mean it was I think it's worse everybody's going to be telling this story though it was it was really bad it was not to a term we're going to be doing a dance component at the end Lucas we were in the background doing some like abstract movement like I'm trying to keep this conversation in mind by me too so we tried to make this dance that didn't work out and then Scott had this plan to make a one person show about this thing that he had done in middle school and as we were failing at the choreography he suggested that we try to succeed at theater so it was true you were like this is so well but perhaps you should try to make a show out of this thing that I was like I didn't find that very crazy so then we started we applied to a program at what is now Fringe Arts in Philly that was called jumpstart and we got into jumpstart and there was like a 15 minute piece and then we did a lot of research and I think of really research that kind of led to the seed of the piece like the sort of core of the piece going to see a talk about the Underground Railroad in Philly had a federally funded site history site where the gentleman who was talking about the Underground Railroad did not know how to describe enslaved people stumbling over Afro-American African-American slave so that became like the core of the piece and then we had this 15 minute thing and that like felt good we were still interested in the material and then we drew that out through like a lot of play and improvisation and like working with Sarah Sanford who was our teacher and also went on to direct the first iteration so then we took it to New Orleans we met Brad who saw the piece there in like a 47 bit or something like that and then like then we applied to like NACL and had a residency there and developed it there what you can tell us about that is just for those who don't know NACL national it is like something North American cultural laboratory that's bad but they have a residence called Deep Space and it's an opportunity to like continue to work on material and so we did that and we ant-fest and like each iteration of the work it was kind of like a snowball effect and we were learning more about the piece and this is something that's really important to me like making work is that generally speaking with the first iteration of anything that I might present you is probably going to not be very good and I think it's important to put something in front of people to learn reflectively it's not so much about people's opinions like I don't like what you're doing or I don't think that this is a like why are you asking these questions but it's more like what did that do to you to sit and watch that happen to me like that's as much a part of research as like going to see a talk or reading a book or reading a Mendezine article so being able to put work up in front of people and have conversation around it and to grow the community around like Brad's a part of the community of Underground Railroad Game it's like really what allowed it to breathe and grow and that piece is a lot of clown you know what I mean but totally you just learn everything about how it works in front of people because there's so much direct address and just reacting to the way the people like I don't know they're in the room so you have to figure out all the amazing ways to incorporate them for that piece you know so now I mean what happened to you guys artistically with these pieces is like a dream for any artist that they start you know a fringe festival and then they go to Anfest and then they get a major run or some of them or they start at the summer series and then you suddenly so I'm going to ask you all I mean it's basically the same question how do you go from an incubation series like that or sort of a lower risk situation and then entice presenters or producers to say hey I think this could go even further to make that leap and then get the wider audience that obviously these pieces both deserve I guess I'll talk okay I mean it's a lot of luck and it's a lot of like working on the piece really hard and making it as exciting as possible I mean Ars Nova who eventually ended up producing the final version of the show and gave us a lot of resources to do a dream design on the piece and continue working on some of the parts that were continuing to elude us I mean the first time we talked to him about it we were like so what if Ars Nova produced an underground railroad game and they were like no okay great and that's how it was we're like and then we did we just kept working on the show and would you just invite them to presentations we invited them to presentations he stayed in touch in a lot of ways I met Andrew because they were like we do this workshop and I was in there building to the workshop and I was like yeah so I'm also like still have that show still have that show I think in working on it it's not just that we were rehearsing but we were rehearsing in order to put it in front of people and to talk about it and put it in front like inviting people like presenters to say like hey this is where we are with this thing we still have a lot of questions but perhaps you see some potential and being ready and like hearing a lot of times we're not like we're not the people for that we're not interested in that and at this point after that run and being able to work with somebody like Tommy to produce a tour still getting notes from people I think I think the thing that I'm really able to do in a situation like this is just hear no and just not let it deter me I'm going to keep working on this over here because you get told that as often as you get told yes like if you really want to do it then you do it can't wait for somebody to tell you yes I mean literally the major presentation of the fringe they first said no everybody said no before they said yes Brad did not say no let it be known on the record that's I mean I'm sitting here hearing no all the time as in order to smart self how do you I guess then when a place if you know in your hey I'm on our server to produce this and they say no how do you know not to move on or move or to go try to go elsewhere well I guess we should we should also say that there no was like we don't want to produce your show right we don't think we're right to produce your show we're going to put you in conversation with people who we think are right and so that's it that's like no it's not right for us but we see merit in this we believe in you like we want to stay in conversation and I think that the ability to continue a relationship like that allows our like we're growing at the same time as the relationship is going right but the work is growing at the same time so hearing a yes in some respect I think is important and staying diligent about like what it is we're after and knowing like we knew that the piece wasn't done I'll probably tell you over in glass and whiskey like I still think so but you know like we're still like digging and working and working and that what we're asking people to believe in is not something that's finished or something like we're not going to say like you're going to be able to sell everything out this is going to be a hit everybody's going to like it everybody's going to like you these are not things we can say we can say is like we continue to be interested in this and like we hope that there's a way that you are too look how how are you interested in it if it's not the work for your stage then like is it an incubation opportunity like in your summer time that can we ask you for rehearsal space which actually is I feel like asking institutions for rehearsal space is tantamount to asking business people for informational interviews and what you're like I would like to go in and talk to you about what it is that you do and like I'm going to engage with you you're going to meet me and like think you're going to fall in love with me but I'm also here under the auspices of carrying out my own mission which is to let you know that I have one and I'm busy with this thing but we got a lot of free rehearsal space from Fringe Arts when they had said that they didn't want to do our things and we also would ask people for rehearsal space and it's like we're here working you hear us having a great time and like working really hard on this thing which you mind stopping in and seeing what we're up to and just staying at it and part of it is like Arzno's mission is to incubate and launch develop and launch new artists and so part of it was it wasn't that they were like we don't believe in the show literally they did they actually were like we'll incubate the next and you do and we're going to advocate for the show to go to X, Y, Z and with X, Y, Z said no they were like let's just do it ourselves I mean that's kind of what I mean Jason he always believed in the show he believed in that's making it it was just a matter of like well it already has had this light so maybe I should make the next thing I mean yeah I don't know what he would say if you were here in this room but that's kind of the narrative it was like we couldn't get it to any of these other places it was just like I'm going to do it and I think too we had done so we kept at Friends Arts in Philly and then we finally got they sent to our faces we are taking a huge chance on you by producing your show in our festival we're going to take this chance and so they did and then that went well and so then they were like hey we'd like for you to come back and do it again and in that period of time we worked on it some more like there were shifts in the team and the community around the piece but we were still working working working and so it was different when we did it in the spring and then we invited Ars Nova to come down and see how they saw both and they saw that we continued working on it and they were like okay we're going to take a chance and like put you in our season all of this knowing like it was still in motion like things weren't delighted with huge questions about the piece that weren't answered and like everybody was taking huge leaps of faith us included and Jaclyn what did you know all I wanted to be in and Prasina I wanted to be at Playwrights Horizons or did you just like were you was that a mission of yours to go bigger or did it just sort of happen that way it's well it's funny it wasn't a mission when I was initially writing the piece but I started writing the piece actually in Club Thumbs early career writers group which I didn't know Club Thumbs I didn't know Maria very well until like a month beforehand I met her she actually had read a piece of mine and didn't really like that piece she was like I don't like those pieces right across but the writer seems intriguing so I like walked with her and her dog Otto like while she had a meeting in the streets and she you know talked about like writing process and stuff and then she was like she emailed me like a month later was like I'm putting together this writers group we've never done it before it's all early career writers and so I was like totally I've never been able to do one of these before like I run a group like this but I've never been one so I was like yeah and then and so I started writing mental books in that group and my Club Thumbs also does they do a super which is like a 29 hour workshop essentially for a new play that is partnered with Playwrights Horizons so they invited me to do one it was her and Adam Greenfield at Playwrights and so that was the first time when I was like oh like Club Thumbs who I think clearly like they have shown interest in this piece they are like part of the reason I have like that this piece exists you know they they could produce it but they also I didn't realize the connection between the two companies until I heard about that and then at that point I was sort of like oh I think that this play could have a life you know at that point I was like they hadn't even asked me to do a production yet but I was starting to think in that manner I was because the play as it stands on the pages it's intriguing but it's sort of it's there's a lot of blanks to be filled in that are filled in with like the movement vocabulary existing in the play the design questions in the play like there was it's sort of is begging to be produced and so in my mind at least I don't know who's on the other side like I'm begging to do it too like I don't know that that exists but but in my mind I was like oh I think this play could do really well in like a sort of small scenario like summer works I think it could also probably like fill out a scene in stage so I was at that point I was sort of I could see the possibility for it and I didn't you know I didn't want to like account on anything because like that it seems like almost too good to be true that people were having such a good time making it and so I was just sort of like well I'm just going to like hope that that's what happens and then that's what it did but it really took you know like playwrights you know that at the super lab at the final reading of the piece where like the staff of playwrights and staff of Club Thumbs book present like it was very clear you know I'm like friends and family and stuff it was very clear that they were all like super pumped by the show so at that point I knew I had a ton of work to do so it was like if I do the work that I know I need to if I make sure that my you know the collaborative team is also is like pushing me to answer big questions then like it could have a long life so yeah it was sort of it was like I don't think I didn't actually think what happened until it was happening but then you do see you did it at Club Thumbs in the summer works and then there was a gap of time and in that gap of time are you are you knocking on the doors and saying hey do you want to do this or did they just organically come to you and say I'm interested they sort of told me they kind of made it clear that they wanted that to be the thing I think that at that time too Club Thumb and Playwrights formalized a partnership between their two companies so Playwrights has they have that sort of resident company program Club Thumb was named their first resident company like the same year that all this happened so they were like what a great way to show it was sort of like an opportunity for them to showcase some partnership in a way that was like it sort of it was very much luck in timing in that way but yeah like they were like well I was I also was like I found out I was pregnant around that same time so I was like if you guys want to do this great I'm like I'm going to do just about for a second and like so you guys have to figure out if it's happening or not and then they were like yeah totally so I'm glad they did that work on their own because I was not present to be able to take part in some of this conversation that's true okay we're open to questions now and Jose is going to run around with the microphone so if you have a question raise your hand all the way in the back yeah I hear it's really interesting to hear all this my question is when and how did you know how to make it happen and I'm asking this through the lens of when we look around the room and where are the college kids that need to know this you know you need to know that who you know and knowing who to know and knowing how to approach them and knowing if you can approach them and knowing what to say when you get to be on the dog walk with them so it's interesting to be especially to the live stream to know when you knew how to make this happen when did you go oh I can just email the people at ours and expect that they will even engage me as a person it was when I I decided that I decided to quit my like really horrible day job that was kind of sucking my soul out and I knew that I had to like fulfill my life with side jobs and little sort of piecemeal gigs and I was like I was like I can either go into the foray of like finding a full-time job that really fulfills me or I can like really run hard at freelancing and just make that my path so I was like managing a really dumpy bar in the East Village and I had to I got like I kept getting yelled at because like drunk men were trying to like steal things and they were like that's your problem and I was like these are horrible drunk people and so I was like I guess I'm not cut out for the bar life so I quit and I but I was around then that I decided that I was able to sort of unburden myself from a particular kind of stresses and then engage in like the stress of making creating work and that kind of that shift in focus was really big for me and it kind of allowed me to reprioritize my art and then subsequently like prioritize the scary conversations because I think that I wouldn't have had anything to say to them to these scary conversations I wouldn't have had anything to contribute to the conversation if I wasn't if the work wasn't my priority and so yeah I was like I was definitely eating ramen for a solid amount of time but but yeah that was kind of my that was my turning point I think I made work for many years and no one paid attention and I think that was actually really good for me and I was in Philadelphia which isn't even where I feel like you can fail gloriously in early stages of your career which I did and after a while there was a piece that I made collaboratively with some people that I was going to school with that was that kind of hit the scene and had more buzz about it and then some presenting so people started to take a little bit of notice but you know the artistic director of Fringe Arts which is like the leading presenter of experimental work in Philadelphia arguably did not go see that show but probably started to hear about it and then the next year started to collaborate with people who were a little bit more well known because they had started to notice and were more interested in our work so collaborated with people who carried a little bit more weight artistically and from a producerial point of view just drew more attention and that kind of had a little mini buzz around it too and so gradually there was just finally when we were making Underground Railroad Game we were in a place where we still put on a piece in a church for more money than we should have just for two people to see it after we had made it and taken it and worked on it for a year and a half we put up and self-produced our own like presented version of the show for two people to see it and finally they saw it and then they said no and then they finally were convinced that they could maybe start to say yes we had a meeting with them I mean I remember being like please I remember being like I don't know it's just like kind of being yes it's just like these being yes and I was like well we've done everything on our own and maybe if you help support us we could make it better and then finally then we could communicate with them and then we got into Antfest and once we got into Antfest Jason even introduced himself to us that night and wanted to have a meeting you know in like a year of just meetings where we were talking about things before finally a conversation about the production at Arznova officially happened so we yeah so that's kind of a long winded answer to your question but for the person in Philadelphia we kind of finally put this show on the map a little bit it was years of doing work that he only heard about peripherally until finally we could convince him by kind of collaborating up and getting a show that people were really even more excited about finally we were able to get him in the room by self presenting our show just for him really to pack the house and then things started to kind of snowball but we always you know we never like emailed Jason Egan out of the blue like we did Antfest or we did some other platform and then through the work got to know those people and then we were able to kind of calibrate what kinds of emails or kinds of asks we could make and oftentimes fly I think just to like tie both these things in and to say directly to like college students is like all of these things have to do with applying for people who want to put on emerging work like Jumpstart is for emerging work DeepSpace is to incubate work Antfest is for new work and all of these things have like a gatekeeper of you need to know somebody it's like we're trying to find and help new things and so to not be afraid of applying for things and to apply for everything and also know that you think that's what you're doing you're incubating taking organization yeah first ground corporate we do that we actually work with a lot of like college like just out of college artists and people who are just starting because there's a low pressure at the beginning like engaging in prompts or something that is like all about trying to uncover like really new ideas like you don't have to be you'll be a very seasoned artist and have like a baby idea that sounds really shitty you know but yeah it's like it's a good place to feel safe in in your in your art and game yeah jumping in yeah like applying for those things is yeah I agree it's like super I applied to so many things you know it's forever like I still do I still do that I still apply and get those you know some yeses which is great but you know that's the life okay and feel bad because only one person got to ask a question but we talked for a really long time and I think we got some really valuable information out of these ones in the post so thank you to Jennifer and Scott and Jacqueline for for engaging with us today and thank you to all of you for listening and I hope that you learn something because I certainly did and I'm going to go home and write in my journal thank you all very much thank you all so so much we have another new drama church presentation right now at five you want to hang in the house while we set up for that by all means hi I'm Jose