 Yeah, let's let's try it and then if it if it creates some noise, I'll just mute it. So now you're now everyone you should be able to hear everyone And of course it starts well before your book about artistic home, you know in the late 80s, but you've really been Somebody who's been asking all of the hard questions and certainly the work that you've done over the course of You know an enormous and long career is one of the many things that led to this residency program So you're very much at the heart and soul of it, your work and your passion And I know you're in the middle of a big huge transition from running Udramatis to now being the executive director of the School of Drama at the University of Washington Did I get that title right? Executive director? Yeah And so and we're so appreciative that you kind of take you take this opportunity to just spend a little bit of time with us at this very busy unpacking moment in your life To set the stage for our two days together so we're going to have the rest of today and all day tomorrow together talking about these playwright residencies And you very graciously have offered to just get us started so with that I'm going to thank you and turn it over to you Thank you Thank you Bolly And hi, but I, Vijay I think it is public, well I have to turn it off because I'm pretty much like that going in It's even prettier than speaking into my computer I just want to say hi to everybody, you look so great to me as I'm from far away and I see you all all these people I know and love And admire and some new people there who I haven't met before But I'm really happy to be talking to you today And I'm coming to you from my new office at the University of Washington in a very sunny and very beautiful Seattle I've never given an address on Skype before so I don't really know how to think about audience online except to address you As my friends and partners in this hopeful experiment that the visionary folks at Mellon and HowlRound Law launched I'm jealous of the great company that you're in and jealous because you're the heart of this experiment And I have to be on the outside looking in through this little hole at the top of my screen I'm grateful to you too because the rest of us in the theater are potentially beneficiaries of your attempts As Polly suggested I have a lot to say on the subject of artistic homes And I worry that there's nothing I can tell you that you don't already know Especially since some of you have been in this conversation with me for so many years Maybe starting when I met Howard Chowell it's 32 years ago Some of you are among my closest friends and some of you own me an email, Louise I've been thinking about history a lot lately Maybe it's an inevitable part of the aging process as you watch huge spans of time collapse And seem smaller and smaller in relation to your own increased number of years For example the non-profit theaters you are all part of which once seemed to me so eternal I now realize of all with the exception of Oregon Shakespeare Festival And depending on how you dated Dallas Theater Center they are all younger than I am And that is really young. I feel myself to be very much in process, very much uncertain If I forgive myself for being unknowing and awkward and occasionally foolish I must forgive theater companies for being the same In other words when I think about the shared history of this non-profit art theater village we live in I remember that it too is a recent experiment And your residencies are an experiment within that experiment Your experiment is part of a fix A fix made necessary by the unintended consequences of good intentions Our theaters brave and optimistic cultivated a playwriting profession A greater range, depth, diversity and imagination than any to have previously existed in this country Then unintentionally unwittingly the same theaters oversaw the near impoverishment An almost total alienation of that same group of professional playwrights Alienation from the very theaters that made them possible In other words we are here or you are there and I am here Because the non-profit theater boom its new play energies and the attendant spread of professional theater training programs Make possible a glorious mess of playwrights with which it had no idea what to do When Theater Development Fund published Our Rageous Fortune The result of years investigating new play production and the lives and livelihoods of playwrights I felt I had helped author a prosaic Greek tragedy In which characters bring about the same fate they acted to avoid Such as the banishment or death of their own children This is a pretty negative assessment some of you will disagree with it I have some research on my side however as well as the pride of knowing this very residency program is designed In some measure to right those inadvertent wrongs Now maybe instead of playing a lesser tragedy you find yourself living in a screwball comedy Like bringing up baby or you can't take it with you Like coconuts in which madcap playwrights run rampant through a house built on a foundation of propriety and order I hope you noticed that before I went all extreme as the melodramatic comparing theaters to ill-fated Greeks I made a wildly upbeat statement The theaters you are all part of For some of us being a part of a theater is nothing new For playwrights though I think we can agree its fresh terrain And there are fourteen of you at the same time Actual, compensated, office, insured, budgeted and titled playwrights With a three year guarantee and hopes of more to come Near strangers in what should have been your land all along And there are fourteen others of you Leaders of theaters of different stripes Dedicated to the proposition that Orc with a non-profit theater made possible this generation of playwrights It's this generation of playwrights that makes possible the future of non-profit theater Fourteen artistic leaders chosen for this project because you have proven that dedication over the years in action as well as words I had a personal hit of how unusual the playwright situation is last month When my wife, the playwright Karen Hartman and I arrived at our new workplace The University of Washington School of Drama Karen is a senior artist in the residence here And though she's been teaching in great universities and privately for nearly twenty years And although she arrived to find a lovely office with gorgeous leaded glass windows Empty shoving for her new books and a new Mac laptop Ordered to her specifications The thing that really wowed her that became her iPad desktop photo Was the plaque with her name on the door A playwright's name on an office door after years of making a professional life From a converted walk-in closet at home I, on the other hand, like the artistic directors in the HowlRound Room Am used to having an office with my name on the door So I hope that all fourteen of you playwrights have actual name plates If you don't, ask the theaters to order one for the rest of your residency If they can't afford it, tell them you know a funder who might help So all this is beautiful I've been asked to HowlRound for a half an hour about creating an artistic home Something I've been thinking about for a long time And something I can't pretend to know how to do How anyone else should do Especially because each of your situations is so different Each of your expectations and hopes are so particular Because the packs you've made, theater and playwright are so various Moreover, the very notion of a home for an artist or a group of artists Is a slippery thing And the ground keeps getting slipperier Again, I've been thinking about history as a way of understanding Where we might find ourselves now What has changed and how we might engage and lead responses to that change So here's what I've got I call it a short personal history of a beautiful slippery phrase It's got an epigraph from Anne Bogart's new book of essays What's the story? This is it What distinguishes the theater from all other forms Is that the theater is the only art form that is always about social systems Every play asks, can we get along? Can we get along as a society? Can we get along in this room? How might we get along better? That's from Anne I don't know the origins of the phrase artistic home But I have tracked it since the mid-80s The expression came to life for me as the object of a gerund A gerund you probably don't remember is the ING form of a verb As in creating an artistic home Or thinking about playwright residencies I was groping for a title to report on the institutional theater And considering a number of verbs in the gerund form Renovating the artistic home Remaking it Rebuilding it Like that You'll notice that each of these verbs assume that an artistic home once existed That it only had to be rediscovered, reinvented, or refurbished Even the article Va suggested a concrete, pre-existing form More, it suggested an agreement that there was such a thing as an artistic home That we knew what it had been That it had a design, or a structure, or a skeleton And that we did not integrity and we will It could be recreated and revitalized That was in 1986 and 87 A very different moment from our moment today It was different because when artistic directors spoke of a theater Nine out of ten of them meant the same thing That is, a company with a building in a city With usually a two-headed leadership structure And a mellison but possibly a board, a generous board of directors They meant an organization of which a resident acting company was no longer possible And whose vision flowed essentially from a principal artist, usually a director Occasionally in the year of national discussions that led to this report There was talk of resident playwrights But mostly that talk came from playwrights themselves People from Richard Nelson who shocked some of us By saying that in all the American theaters he'd ever worked He'd never even had a desk to write at Let alone, I suspect, a plaque that was named on it It was a different time because the discussions that led to the book The Artistic Comb grew out of criticism Leveled by the head of the NEA That there was an artistic deficit in the American theater That the institutional tail was wagging the artistic dog And it was a different time because we had an NEA And few enough theaters of note But there was still a vague hope of something approaching a subsidized theater And maybe, most of all, it was a different time because the theaters At least those who gathered around the theater communications group Tables during the year-long conversations that led to the report Looked so much alike, not just in structure and in tension But also in complexion That was then Now the question of how to reinvigorate the art of an institution Is only one of many Some of our fellow travelers have written off the institutions altogether They've gone their separate ways toward looser structures Smaller organizations, tighter ensembles And more targeted admissions One of the debates that rages under this residency program Is whether a foundation with playwrights on its mind Should support large institutional theaters at all Especially if those theaters haven't previously shown a will To provide living wagers Let alone deep hospitality to playwrights The other side argues that it's the institutions that have the capacity To make these residencies stick To provide salaries and benefits for writers Even after Mellon goes away Mellon, in its infinite wisdom, chose to have it both ways Rewarding will and capacity Searching out large companies with the strongest track records of support And smaller ones willing to grow enough to take playwrights in for the long haul Still, the institutional question pales beside the real question That drives our discussions nearly three decades later Whose home is it? Thirty years ago, this question was bubbling beneath the surface But it hadn't yet broken through It didn't yet dominate what we frequently refer to as field conversations And with the question of whose home is it Come so many other questions Who gets to decide Who is left out Who sees herself on the stages of this so-called home What is a stage? How can we ever be fully inclusive? Can we ever make a home together Or must our companies part company? Who do we serve? It is these questions that have led so many of the playwrights in the room To take leading roles in their theater's community engagement efforts It is these questions that have forced theater administrators Playwrights and other individual artists To diversify their racially and economically homogenous institutions A lot happened to raise these questions And playwright residencies are one attempt to answer them The so-called culture wars happened In a censuring Congress became a censoring one As a direct result, funding for individual artists Notably playwrights stopped And for most of 20 years, states stopped A lot more history inspired to bring you here Our theaters multiplied like gremlins hitting water Our core audiences began to age and drift and die away Funders picking up the slack the government dropped Turned limited resources toward social imperatives other than art And so came to expect more than the mere mounting of shows You are here too because the millennial shit hit the technologically supercharged fan And everything that seemed previously knowable Institutionally containable Suddenly broke into a bajillion bits And you are here because for decades Leaving artists were working under the institutional radar In places we loosely call communities Or among underserved populations Demonstrating another function of art Also known as social justice And you are here because theater administrators Can't build these bridges as well as artists can Finally you are here because in recent history Our steadfast western belief in the power of individual voice Has been called into question Everybody gets into the act Everybody writes the play Only you, shapers of words and makers of theaters Can best test this proposition So here we are, 14 playwrights And 14 theaters, particular and various Trying to figure out how to make home I want to suggest that after all this fast, furious history The task has grown bigger than that The true experiment now is how to make a society Remember my An Bo Gark quote? What distinguishes the theater from all other art forms Is that the theater is the only art form That is always about social systems Every play asks, can we get along? Can we get along as a society? Can we get along in this room? How might we get along better? Anne is talking here about plays But later in the essay Politics She goes on to write about productions Quote, no matter how dysfunctional the characters in the play The community of actors who perform the play Must operate at the height of their abilities The community of artists proposes Within the fabric of every production Nothing less than a model society This is their message Quote, a model society This I suggest is your message too We the witnesses and beneficiaries Of your experiment within an experiment Are waiting to hear it It may be the new definition of an artistic home Moreover, just as the rehearsal process Reveals itself in production So the process we engage to make society Is always reflected in the society we make We are what we do And we are how we do it I deeply believe this If you treat collaborators as employees You will make hierarchical work Within a stratified system If you treat coworkers as true partners You will in ways implicit and explicit Model democracy If you think a door with a name on it Doesn't require you to show up And take responsibility for the success of the theatre You are squandering a gift That is the work of many people over many years If you work with your fullest self Take your place at the table Whatever the organization from charts suggests You model leadership And if you all engage with others Out of the spirit of kindness, respect And the awareness that the answer Is always in someone unexpected You will make a society That transmits cooperation, generosity And connection, even love This is where my personal history Of the phrase has taken me To an abiding sense that our theatrical Experiments are actually social ones That while we make work We are always making the world And of course as artists Or sustainers of the arts We want that world, our home To be more artistic I did when I sat in rooms as a young director Recording the words of artistic directors Feeling that they were more often invested In selling their theatres to each other Than honestly sharing their struggles I did during the 18 years I was trying to make an inspiring Communitarian lab for writers of new dramatists A space for process and inquiry Amidst demands for product and results I do now as I seek bridges Between training and scholarship Confession, root and branch Across disciplines and fields of study I want to live in the creative thrill I felt when a room full of new dramatists Read to each other Or just now listening to Edini And Andrew to share their new work I want to live in the big obsessive Impossible ideas to which the artists Among us give their lives I want to celebrate their willingness To chase those ideas despite the Personal cost And I want to tear the theatre once All away from the boardroom And the business school and the market place It's a logic back in the arts Alongside painting and sculpture Literature and contemporary dance Music both classical and new This is how I think of artistic Home is a different matter Home is a place of freedom and tether Self-determination and connection Home is a place you define for yourself Maybe the only place you can own If you don't feel ownership, it isn't home And maybe that should be the test of a residency Does the playwright truly feel she owns This theatre home? Or is the playwright always a guest here Awaiting the invitation to have a say To play a part to sit at the table? In the end though, it's hard to describe A home from inside without reference To those outside And that's tricky because we can't see The people who aren't in the room We can know what we take for granted About the comfort of our own homes But we can't know what other people Want from it This lack of surety has led me to a Final supposition I'm not really sure about what I'm About to say but I think it's true So quickly accepted in that tentative Spirit My thought is this When we talk about an artistic Home in 2014 We are no longer simply talking about How to welcome artists more fully Into established theatres We are talking about many other things That dominate our national debates When we talk about artistic home We are talking about distribution of wealth We are talking about an economic system That has reduced our human relations To corporate and consumer relations We are talking about a history of Exclusion and bias And even a history of domination And genocide In other words, in a discussion that Should be simple, should be structural How do we create better environment for Artists, in this case playwrights We are grappling with bigger, more Problematic, global, and even Horrific things These things have divided classes And races and genders of people In this culture as institutional Life has grown and capitalism has advanced We can't unearth the uses of power And domination in human history Then close your eyes to them in the present Even in our own relations And while we can't solve these global problems By creating a few genutely Salary positions for playwrights We ignore this context at our own peril Artist relations are connected to Pay scale in theatres Artist relations and the role of These artists in communities Must be addressed as a way of countering Our reduction in collaborators to employees And audiences to consumers Diversity and inclusion are inseparable From what happens in a room between Two people, between playwrights And artistic director, between you And me, we all ride history And we all carry it And Bogart reminds us The community of artists proposes Within the fabric of every production Nothing less than modest society This is their message The daily act of trying to Reincorporate generative artists Or artists of all other than that Long artistic director into the Ongoing life of the theatre Is part of a bigger, naughtier Ongoing project of exploring freedom In creating democracy Writers in their wonderful And willful refusal to ignore the call Of their own parts show us Our capacity for freedom Theaters in their determination To sustain intimacy and liveness In their social context Demonstrate our will to make better society This is what we stand to lose When our artists and theaters Separate themselves from each other This is what you stand to show By bringing them back together The Mellon Residencies are an experiment In your guinea pigs and lab rats You are also pioneers in the middle Of it all, halfway through whatever This residency thing is or is not Or maybe or hopefully will in retrospect Have been The difficulty of being at the forefront Of such an experiment within an experiment Is that while others learn From your mistakes or struggles You have to suffer through them The great thing about it Is you get to share the successes and joys We are watching you, jealously Hopefully Thank you Generously to take some questions From the group that you can either Shout them or walk closer to the Computer screen to ask them So I want to put an end to that We're just soaking it in for the moment, Todd So can I ask you about this? Yeah, please. Should I go? Yeah, it'd be better. Is one of the stranger ways That I've ever asked a question in my life Maybe next year there could be Wolf Blitzer With the 3D modeling of Tom Hi, I'm Rebecca, I'm from Chicago I'm the Chicago Commons producer So my question, and I've asked it In the context of the Commons producers Before, is I'm particularly curious About this experiment happening Inside the context of how playwrights Currently live, so all of these Amazing playwrights are having to Also negotiate the artistic lives That were happening before And I'm going to continue afterwards And how that has to do with a lot of travel And a lot of being outside of the city That's just to be rooted in And coming in and out of these theaters And if you have any thoughts about How we navigate shifting cultures Inside a culture that like, you know TV shows and other kinds of commissions And just the big sort of sprawling mess That pulls a playwright in multiple directions While we also offer them a home And how we should think about navigating that And how, on the various levels Of who's inside the room No, I'm not That was, it's like Sometimes it's a three-question, I think From the theater point of view You know, I think one thing to remember In the experimental context In Jewish audiences is that They are clocked down In the middle of ongoing lives So I suspect that Had they grown more organically Out of our work over time Some of these questions wouldn't be at issue But there are actually many of you If not all of you have chosen To partner with mid-career playwrights Who have ongoing lives And have been struggling for a long time To make a living in a world That doesn't provide one And also in some cases I know you started this residency At the exact moment that a playwright Who might have been waiting I guess I'm thinking of our case, startling Might have been waiting for years For a couple of productions Suddenly has a year with Seven billion productions So these are, you know These are ongoing lives And it's a new experiment In the middle of it So I guess one of the things that I would say Rebecca is that It is a three-year experiment As I understand it And it will take time For some of that stuff to sort out I also think that it is incumbent On the playwright to Really understand The nature of this commitment And that it is, you know Again, I know it's This is all very grandiose But I feel like in some ways The future of the theatre Is one of the things that Stay here and part of that Means the commitment to theatre And it's a hard one Because TV has been much more hospitable To playwrights in some ways Than the theatre has At least in terms of In economic terms And even in some ways In terms of power and privilege So I think it's really important To make demands of your playwrights To remind them of the The full commitment of this project And how many of us I mean this is I guess part of My point is How many of us are watching And hopeful And hopeful that this really Isn't a temporary trial But it's actually a way of Restoring what is really historically The way theatre gets made I mean theatre gets made With playwrights and acting companies Theatre has always been made With playwrights and acting companies The theatres that we are now part of Are a historical aberration Maybe a hundred years old And so we're trying to Find our ways back And we're doing it in the middle Of an ongoing life And an ongoing economic system That has required playwrights To take multiple positions Multiple jobs Work in the MTV Work in film And travel all the time And I think this is also why I hope that this residency program Goes beyond just this pilot period And maybe even you know That the people at Mellon And how around start thinking about Now how you might see The next group of residencies So maybe people can prepare better And over a longer period of time To clear their slaves And clear their lives And really give over Be able to give over Because I don't think it's a matter of will I think it's a matter of simple obligation And scheduling and money Be able to really give up these two years To be in a theatre in a place Or as much as possible And then beyond that I think we just kind of have to all Sit down all the time And figure out how to make the most Of this time that we've got That's my people answer There's something about this A sight you just have to point out Is so un-theatrical Because I can't prove you guys When I'm talking on my The microphone carries off So I don't The opposite here Because you're like talking to people With no reaction And you're just alone by yourself In front of the University of Washington Listening to your own nasality It's true People like to do this when you laugh Or something like that Well, I have many questions I don't know Obviously you're here this weekend To start to raise And answer some of the questions I guess I really My questions have to do with How you, especially the artistic directors And playwrights Are fashioning your conversations And I suspect Maybe from Rebecca's question A little bit That a lot of this is around Scheduling and commitment And about, you know, Will we do your play? Is my play for you? That kind of thing But I guess my question Really has to do with how Deep and honest and collaborative The conversation is around Your partnership as artists And about these issues of ownership And place within the theater I mean, I know some of you I mean, Pearl, we've never met But I've been hearing about you Susan for years and years So I know that you guys Have this ongoing relationship Robert and Howard, likewise Many of you But I guess I'm really curious About how you are articulating The questions yourselves And what the, and this is a big one What do these residencies Really mean other than Can we house a resident playwright And will the Mellon Foundation Continue to fund this? I think that that has been One of the more challenging things To figure out how to keep The same kind of conversation That I began having with Susan In the rehearsal hall Once I became a part of The bigger life of the theater Because in rehearsal We're talking to each other as artists So we talk all the time as artists And that was so exciting to me Wow, now I'm going to be able To talk to her like this every day Because she's having to talk about All the other shows that they're doing She's having to talk about money She's having to talk about the board And resources and renovations And all those things, many of those things About which I have little or no interest She's sitting right there, but I will say this Just to you But I think that one of the things That we discovered recently Which is so obvious that I was surprised That it took us that long Was that when I go to her office And I do have an office Doesn't have a plaque on the door But it's a very nice office But when I go to her office Even though she has a table So she comes out from behind her desk It's the artistic director's office So that I'm conscious of the fact That she has an assistant who is keeping time For how long we talk I'm conscious of the fact that There's a million other things going on And emails coming in and all that So I'm talking fast Which is very different than The conversation that I want to have I asked her maybe A couple of weeks ago, maybe a month Can we have some conversation Outside of your office Outside of my office Can we walk down the street To a nice little bar that we know And have drinks and talk Like we were in college Can we try that And we did that We didn't walk down the street together We met there at the bar And drank wine and talked For what was supposed to be about an hour And ended up being about three Because we were actually talking About two artists as peers Without any of that staff stuff Without any of what that hierarchical Feeling that comes with being In the artistic director's office So I don't know if that's something That we can all adopt But I think going to a bar And drinking wine and talking Is so much more useful in terms of Having a relationship with An artistic director that's real That allows you to question each other That allows you not to have that That press of all the other stuff That you're doing while you're trying To talk as an artist So I recommend bars and wine drinking For conversation as opposed to going To the office That's really brilliant It's interesting I have this great epiphany When I was working at Neutrometis And my role at Neutrometis Was very different than Susan's at The Alliance Because Susan is producing And she's curating And I was really there to Work with the writers and facilitate Community among the writers And I realized that writers would Come to my office often And I would pan it Because I had a schedule And a list of things I had to get done That day Or I knew I had a meeting In ten minutes or whatever And they were showing up in my office When their writing day was done When it was over And it was time to hang And they were in Neutrometis And suddenly I realized That there was a culture We were talking across cultures of time Usage as well And even on the staff It is so hard as you will probably Witness me in a theater To keep focused on the art All the demands of administration And funding And group dynamics Staff dynamics Personnel Policy What was going on My former associate colleague And now my successor at Neutrometis Emily Morris instituted A very similar thing with me Where we would go to the diner And we would just As she would call them jam sessions We would just talk about things That were not in the office That were really talking more And more about things we'd seen Things we'd read And things we were talking about And just to try to do that I feel playing of Having artistic conversations In and out of institutional context So that's a brilliant line Yeah, line and chocolate Wah, wah There's a question or a statement So I'm gonna say it How do playwrights who are so used to Carrying their suitcases How do they make their artistic home In a theater When they're so used to Being itinerant And not making themselves at home And I think that is the question I actually put to the group And you as well Todd Is how do we learn to settle in And how can playwrights take a role In learning how to do that Because I think that's something I struggle with And how can the theaters Maybe learn to help us Like as I would say These guys were feral cats How do we learn How to root ourselves Does that make sense? I know that's a question for you And I could give you a few days To talk about their job And say what I think I think it's a real It calls for a real change From the writers And I will call From my experience at Neutrometis It was We talked a lot at Neutrometis And Dan Cronk is there In the second list We talked a lot about leadership And ownership And playwrights really taking charge Of their lives And reading the theater And even within the context Of a playwright's seven year residency At Neutrometis Really owning the organization And I felt it to be And it was no surprise A secret, an uphill battle Because playwrights are used to Digging in They're used to being guests They're used to blaming others For the situation that they find themselves in sometimes And it's a hard life that demands And requires a kind of freedom And a kind of isolation And a kind of looseness Which is also freedom But I think it also fosters a sense Of like I don't really own this place I am, I'm not really a leader The leaders are the people In the artistic director's office I feel and put it But I think It's a little bit up to you, Julie I mean in a way to Put your suitcase down To unpack it To make demands of the theater To say, and I know it's really hard Because it is a change Of everything you have done And trained yourself to do Over all these years And maybe it's long through And maybe at the end of the three years You'll find out, man I hate this I'm getting my suitcase together And I'm going to go on the road But I don't think I don't think it's simply About the theater's invitation That said, I also think Just hearing that question Must be really powerful For the artistic leaders and directors In the room Because To me so much of this really is That when you live in a space Whether it's an administrative space Or a solo playwriting space You start to think The world is the same as your world And it's not And Susan's world is different Than Pearl's world And your world is different Than Mark's world And so we just Don't have enough Brain space or time To always be empathizing For entering the space of the other And to really understand Oh, here's Julie Mayak She has never sat down in one place For longer than three days What can I do, you know And that's where I mean, there's part of me That's like, take Pearl's idea But instead of having wine Outside of the office Host dinners in the theater You Julie Do what you were doing in your own home You know, Dale Orlander Smith Used to come into new dramas She'd bring a cake that she baked And we knew when Dale was in the house That there was this really big Really delicious cake On the round table in the library So part of it is about you Saying, what would I do in my own home To welcome other people And then cooking I don't even know how to phrase the question Because there's about six of them in my head But maybe speaking as a founder I'm not sure, I'm looking around the room to see There may be other theater founders in the room But I'm certainly one of them You know, it's interesting to me You know this phenomenon that the American regional theaters Many of them had director founders I actually wasn't one of them I was an actor and then I became a director Through founding a theater I mean, nobody said that playwrights couldn't Found theaters or actors couldn't Or designers couldn't I've gotten to know Dmitry Kremov's work In Russia recently he's essentially a designer Who now has become a director And a theater founder And one of the great theater makers in the world So I'm interested, you know Especially now that you're in a research institution I'm interested in what the history You know, that recent history in the United States Of directors taking those leadership roles are Whether that trend may be changing And I think that in a way We shouldn't sort of assume That the conversation is always about A director welcoming in You know, as artistic director Welcoming in playwrights And also providing a home for frankly technicians And actors that, you know All the different people who it takes to make theater I also like to think about the marketing people As artists and the fundraisers As artists as well So it takes a village But I'm just curious how that history has evolved And how it might evolve in the United States And it would be very interesting to document You know, role reversals in that situation I mean, Tim is not a director He's a literary manager Ari Roth at Theater J as a playwright All of those maybe tweaks of the system And the structure might be very fascinating Over the next many decades As we see our very young experiment Continue to play out in new ways I think it's really a fascinating It's also an interesting fact There's something changed in the room Because, you know He's this divided guy You know, as a director of playwrights And artistic directors Well, you know, what does it mean To be multiple selves And what can be contained within the structure An ongoing daily structure of a theater I mean, I think there are I think it's really important to look Beyond the institutional theater To the models there I mean, I think of like Kirk at Rude Max As kind of a co-artistic director And playwright In the same way that Lee Brewer was At Marvel Mines You know, people like Charles Ludlin Who were playwright directors And founded their own theaters More in the tradition of Molière And, you know, the Greeks And pretty much everybody who led to that Were either actors or directors I mean, I would You know, I think it's a really great question For scholarship and for research I also think it's a really great, great question Institutionally and for For the executive search firms To really grapple with the boards Because boards Tend to understand the way directors speak Playwrights have tended To remove themselves from the running Of theaters more and more Because they feel they can't The theaters are too complicated And they can't do their work You know, Emily Mann is a different example But I would ask people like Che And Emily, do you get any writing done? When do you write? How has it changed your writing? And also, what are, you know As boards have populated the leadership Why are they choosing directors More and more? And why are managers Seemingly more comfortable With directors than Maybe with other people? I mean, Tim, I'm curious You used Tim as an example Because I met Tim when he was directing And like me He stopped directing And I don't know was that So then if we run theaters Or do the area It would be a great question For the room We love you all We love you all We can't wait to hear how good Thanks a lot Have a great holiday Thank you Hello Down with me Button down