 We're gonna start in here together for a couple minutes, and then we'll split you up by panels Thank you for being here this morning I keep trying to break Columbia So I lied to yesterday the archive materials are now here. Thanks to Maddie and the team from University of Puget Sound They will be in the faculty room all day So go at your leisure and check out some of the items from our archive at University of Puget Sound Before some of the panels I've been doing a little best Dramaturgy of why this panel and because I wanted to be able to say something about both of this morning's panels It's why I've asked you all together for a minute, and then we'll split up I have an enormous set of things to give to Martha Stuckity and Mark Bly for the design panel this morning Together they brought Fitzpatten into my life and my life has been changed If you are lucky enough to have chosen to sit towards the front You will see some examples of a magazine that fits and Martha and a team of people have created on Design and Dramaturgy Each of you will be mailed a copy of an issue for your very own, but feel free to Flip through it whether you're attending this panel or not Thank you to Fitz and Chance magazine. They're beautiful. They're gonna blow your mind What I know about design would fit in a thimble But my experience in my day job is that most playwrights their knowledge of design would fit in a thimble And all they know is now I've shown up at the theater and I hate the design Which of course at that point it's too late So I hope amongst other fabulous topics they will talk about how we can be better facilitators in people Understanding what Jane Langer said yesterday learning to read blueprints changed her life So I'm super excited that they're all here and Vicki's gonna share some some thoughts as a past president and then guide you through that panel and then LGBTQ stories on stage, you know, I came of age kind of in the era of the gay play Typically written by a man. I came into my profession as an agent With a lot of incredible lesbian playwrights Battling What they felt was an apathy towards their voices and their stories and their work And it was a huge pleasure to be pulled into the world and to be a supporter of those stories I've been equally blessed the last couple of years in having people who are trans or genderqueer or not identifying on the Gender spectrum in what might be thought of as the traditional way and they have been an enormously generous conduit of conversations and questions and Information for me and probably for the first time ever in my life I wrote an email saying do I use male or female pronouns and it was an incredibly hard Awkward email to write and then the answer came back with the answer and the second time I asked it if someone it was easy to ask and the third time I asked it of someone it was even easier to ask And then I saw Shakina solo show and learned I'm supposed to be asking And I have found myself frequently the conduit to people Who want to know how to have a conversation and so I'm really excited to have had this platform to say Let's have that conversation here so you can all be Conduits to your audience's your friends your fellow theater makers in having that conversation So those are just a couple of thoughts between about the two panels We're gonna go ahead anybody who's doing LGBTQ stories on stage go ahead and head into the air conditioned faculty room anybody who is doing Design and dramaturgy maybe move down front partly so you can access Chance magazine But also just so they have the warmth and the love of people right in front of them. Thanks for being here. Have a good day Thank you. Thank you, Beth. This is this thing on this thing on Mike sign Here we are we're live Hi everybody Hello everyone and Welcome to this panel on design and dramaturgy here at LMDA's 30th anniversary conference at Columbia University I want to welcome everyone in the room and also everyone who's watching we're live streaming on howl round as well My name is Vicki storage and I'm the executive director of Alberta theater projects in Calgary, Alberta, Canada I'm also the most recent past president of LMDA and As this is our 30th anniversary I've been asked to take just a moment at the beginning at the beginning of this to Reflect on my experience with LMDA. So I'm just gonna take a moment to do that my first LMDA conference was in Vancouver in 2002 and my first session was a hot topic section session and Anyone who knows who's been in a room with a meeting or a gathering with Brian court knows what this is all about We go around the room. We say who we are Where we're from and we talk about a burning question that we have about the theater our work the world And more often than not how those three things intersect At my turn again, this is my first conference. I stood up. I said my name. I said where I worked I said who my mentors were Bob White and Vanessa porches and then I said I was just so happy and lucky to be here and then I sat down and Bob White my mentor who was sitting right next to me as I sat down Info volume said how long are you gonna hide behind that bullshit? If you know Bob White, you know tough love I'm not sure how many other people actually heard that in the room. Maybe a few were there and you did But I certainly heard that tough love loud and clear And I kept learning by watching the people I met and admired on the LMDA board and executive And all the people involved with the organization over the next few years as they unapologetically claim space Honestly questioned their work gave strong feedback to one another supported one another Listened passionately and spoke up. I was lucky to be there every time we've been in the room and gathered together Yes, but to say that and just sit down did not do justice to my peers in LMDA and it didn't do justice to my role as a dramaturg I Learned from LMDA that a dramaturg as a dramaturg It's my duty to be a passionate advocate a disruptor a constructive critic and when necessary a shit-disturber I've let that guide my time at LMDA that realization It was why I chose when I was chair of the Banff committee Banff conference committee to subvert the hierarchy and erase the questions of representation on panel discussions by making the Banff conference and Unconference Based on an open space model where everyone was a programmer a moderator and a panelist It's why I admired what turned out to be the most popular Topic and session proposed at that Banff conference by Liz Engelman, which was entitled joy It was the most revelatory and valuable thing that we could speak about and I hope we speak about it every time we gather It's also why I admire the ECD panel just yesterday They'd encouraged people who like me back in 2002 are at their first or second conference To speak up to state an opinion and to ask a question LMDA taught me to be grateful for my peers and my mentors. Yes, absolutely It's also taught me not to apologize for owning space Not to apologize for using my voice or questioning the structures. I see around me Including the structures of LMDA and most especially if you're willing to stand up and work to make LMDA even better and even stronger And that's my reflection on this 30th anniversary. Thank you And thank you for joining me that would return to the topic I'm really thrilled to be here with this marvelous panel of people right next to me is mr. Fitzpatten He's a sound designer based here in New York, and he's the editor of Chance magazine Which Beth mentioned a bit earlier and Chance magazine looks at the world through the lens of theater and design. I love that description Next to him is Martha Stuckity. She's a new bass dramaturg the general editor and monograph editor of Chance magazine Next to her Rachel Hauke is a set designer here in New York City who's worked on a lot of new work She worked at playwrights horizons signature worked regionally at the court theater the Guthrie OSF to name just a few She was also the resident designer at the O'Neill Playwrights conference for 10 years And next to her is Louisa Thompson. She's a scenic designer based in New York City whose work has been seen it So her rap playwrights horizons regionally at Berkeley rep La Jolla Playhouse The McCarter theater and again just to name just a few so welcome all of you Can we give them a round of applause? Designers don't always get the applause so we want to make sure we give them a lot here Before first question, I just want to encourage anyone who has we don't have any I mean design is such a visual medium We don't have a projector so anyone who has a laptop a phone Tablet with them as we're talking, please Google Google Google Google Google away And show your friends at the table about some of the things that we're working on and that we're talking about Our introductory question Is how would each of you describe the intersection between dramaturgy and design in the creation process and how How does it intersect in your own work? We're passing back and forth so I Think the first thing That I think we can all you know, we're all aware of is that you know We're all creating in the same kind of social and economic environment, which I frequently refer to as a bubble and I am very curious and I've grown to be progressively more curious about how our Economy and social structure more really acutely The way theater is organized and funded to what degree that affects the way we break down and solve problems within theater How does it affect the way we think? About our subject and then ultimately how does that affect the outcome which is you know the production itself? But the process of making theater is far more the concern of the magazine and It's we're very and have grown to be progressively interested in I call it working across a landscape of vertical Subcultures where you could say not only our professions subcultures architecture theater art Literature playwriting But then even within those subcultures are further smaller cultures that people are making things and they gather around The subject there their work is funded and then they kind of go in a conclave around this thing Eventually they send up the white smoke and they come and see the Production and what the magazine really tries to do is in is it tries to move across all of these very active vertical production structures To excavate deeper trends and ideas that may be operating but also to put These productions and conversation with each other and and I think very importantly The way in which these things are monetized is completely Of no consequence of the magazine. So the fifth issue has a great I mean what I love and and it's important to me we follow a Piece on the living theater which lost their space in New York City and went to the Burning Man Festival to develop a new piece of work Literally the last thing Judith did before she Died and it's followed by an editorial shoot of the chorus girls of on the town And and and it's a that shoot is a very aggressive shoot But what it gets at are placing these subcultures which really would not normally be interested in speaking to each other in direct contact I mean I have a lot more to say because it just continues to radiate out the issues and problems And those of us at chance can talk about our perspectives on chance forever We were just in Prague at the Prague quadrennial talking about chance The public talk and then a workshop and we realized that we can talk for hours without stopping So I come I came at this Collaboration so I'm the non-designer on the table, but a great design enthusiast I knew this before starting working on chance with Fitz and it's become even more I don't know outrageously dramatic for me during the course of working on this on the magazine So I came at it as some came into it by invitation from Fitz To to develop a section that he had a vision for that we now call monograph Which is looking at someone whose career is primarily in a prior generation Dramaturgs, what do we like to do research great? He says How would you like to spend some time in Jane Greenwood's basement? looking at the archives of her ex ex her husband Ben Edwards It's never been written about and I I said stop. I'd hardly know you. Yes. Let's go And that was two and a half years ago three years ago And we've been I've been part of from the side, but from my focus on words And great enthusiasm for the art various design arts building this magazine So I guess I can stop with saying on what dramaturgically I bring to the design Dimension of what we're building here is the constant question about how best to frame the story Sometimes to use the examples Fitz just used the living theater Article has a fairly extensive article. There are a lot of words with the pictures there The photo shoot that follows it in issue five with the on-the-town Chorus girls basically has photo credits a little blurb, but it's primarily a photographic essay and That it kind of establishes the range of the kinds of pieces we do in chance and deciding how much words How many words what kind of context to provide the design to communicate to our audience is part of what I'm involved in I can only really right chance is a real game changer in terms of how people are looking at design and particularly designers themselves are looking at Design which is exciting, but in terms of how design and dramaturgy interface I think they're deeply deeply deeply interwoven. I mean both in the I Always think of drama. Turkey is sort of you know, this great nebulous field But in the in the corners of it that are deep about the pure research part of things we do exactly the same thing and the You know, we have to know the real worlds that the playwrights are talking about but as storytellers We're completely interfaced and I have often have very Tight relationships with the dramaturgs on the projects that I'm working on Because we're both trying to figure out how to tell the story and particularly on new plays We're trying to figure out where the meat is and and if we can't quite get to it You know, what's the root of that question and always going back to the playwright to ask that question? And what's the most important thing about what they're trying to say? And I think so I think in that way we're deeply deeply interwoven as fields I'm just Processing all this and I certainly think it's worthwhile that we all engage this conversation about How we're all named within this field and find our various professions because there's certainly Even within the the world of design There's a lot of breakdown in terms of what we all do together collaboratively that that Sometimes doesn't appear when we see all these titles but I I'm thinking about this question from the lens of as an educator, so I've been teaching at Hunter College for 13 years and I Teach undergrads and undergrads who are not necessarily in a professional track And I feel like this question about dramaturgy really comes up for me as a as an educator because to Ask myself why learn set design? Why learn why be in a costume class if you're not necessarily, you know in the training? Is is really a question of why we make theater? Why why why do we need this play to happen? And I feel like it's a place that I begin and it generally is a place of engaging a text or sometimes developing a text but and to me that's that's a Dramaturgical impulse. I don't know if I have the right definitions, but I do feel like I'm Teaching my students before I teach them to design. I'm teaching them to dramaturge in some way without necessarily that training myself and I often feel like I find myself using the term visual dramaturgy or some somehow looking for language to kind of Activate this dialogue that we as designers have with plays and text especially when we're not with directors So in a in a classroom environment, you're often, you know, there isn't a director there Or a dramaturge. It's you're often doing a project a student's doing a project on their own And so it's this amazing opportunity to kind of say you're everything And I'm going to teach you how to do that as a means to get to this very specific practice and I guess I'm realizing in this conversation that I love that I have that opportunity because It allows me to feel that I don't have to necessarily See all these boundaries You know, I I also just to personally have recently had the experience of kind of initiating a work and trying to ask myself how does a design Kind of become a text in a way or become something that leads to further creation And I think in retrospect, I wish we had had a kind of dramaturge on that project for the design Like I wish I had been collaborating with a dramaturge to say So exactly what are in some ways? What are the kind of rules that you're setting up? And and I think that leads me to think about Where do designers and dramaturges meet when it comes to audience and space and event like what what is that? I often feel like we meet around text, but generally I feel like as a set designer what I'm bringing to the table is a Real real investment in the audience experience, which may or may not be directly related to the text So I know that's a lot but That's great. That's great And yeah, you may want to speak a little bit more about this to Louise and then the with the next question because I wanted to Just ask ask each of you if there's a particular project that comes to mind where that intersection Between dramaturge and design really became very potent for you It might be the first time you really saw the connection or something recently that that was revelatory for you or Even discovering a conflict between the two is something that sometimes happens as well And certainly for me one of the attractions to this topic is as a new play dramaturge working closely with an on a Company called Ghost River Theatre and Calgary who bring the design The design work and they do a lot of new media and projection design Into their creative process as they're building a show and so My conversations in those rooms are very much with the with the designer of the projections the lighting designer And Increasingly with the set and costume designer as we build the visual dramaturgy of the play and try to take away text Where text is not needed because the visual world of the play in the visual dramaturgy the play is expressing it so Is there a particular project that comes to mind where you felt like there's a really potent intersection or you learned something New about that intersection I'm gonna go a little bit sideways on this question go for it and talk a little bit about my work at the O'Neill Which is basically so I spent ten summers at the O'Neill working on new plays that were in development as they always say at the O'Neill the plays not done when it gets there and the plays not done when it leaves The day before they start they have a seven-day rehearsal process with stellar directors and actors and the day before they start The playwright will sit on the farmhouse porch with myself and five other designers The director is there the dramaturge is there But we asked the director not to speak and the dramaturge not to speak and the designers speak directly to the playwright About the visual world of their play And it's always coming from a storytelling basis. So we're asking the designer What do you think your world looks like what how does this play? How do you want this to really look when it when it gets on its feet and the first thing they always say is Oh, that's not my job. I don't know and then we say all right Well, let me let us tell you how we think it looks based on the text and we say I think it looks like this They're like no no no doesn't look like that It looks like and you start to pull out of them this incredible conversation that helps them Visualize the world of their play and this you know, they will say you will get to this point in the text And sometimes you'll say I Can't believe that you think that that is blue. Here's why I think it's red I think it's red because of this and this and this that's in the text So these and then they sort of stop and they think about it It's like taking something that a playwright knows Intimately from this perspective and backing it up and spinning it around and showing them their own Play kind of from the back in the side, which is where designers look at things So it's a it's a sort of huge step back and it's fun It's fascinating also to watch the directors who crawl out of their chairs wanting to speak Being allowed to speak but at the end of that hour, you know, they have They have understates they sort of have taken something away from that conversation that they would never have because that conversation directly between designer and playwrights Without a filter and on something that's not going into production at this time, right? So that's the essential ingredient and why this conversation is possible, but that That conversation is amazing and then we let the directors talk and the whole conversation changes But so so as the week goes on now they go into rehearsals and now now there is a director There is a proper dramaturk and so that Conversation is much freer for me than it has been Before I started doing this job because I feel like I can go to the dramaturk much more easily and say I'm worried about this story point I don't you know It would be completely inappropriate for me to go directly to the playwright as the eighth voice in the room and say You know, but I can plan to see with the director or with the dramaturk and say hey I'm worried that this part doesn't add up and from where I sit. I think it has to do with this seed back here So that whole sort of that project that that ten-year 80 play 80 playwright Project for me. It has completely changed how I how I work on plays and how I Is changed my ability to be articulate about story points and things like that and how they affect things Great Martha you had something Just two points dad. I want so have you completed your arc. Did you end? So I had the privilege last summer of watching Rachel. So first, it's like a compliment to Rachel When I was at the O'Neill as a part of the National Critics Institute, but watching you do one of these exquisite Dream design meetings. It was one of the best dramaturgical conversation. I think I've ever heard it was really beautiful so She kind of embodies a blend As I did that was I was a compliment two points I want to make of that compliment and there was an exquisite thing and I and I hope somehow you're able to build that Into every process you do. Oh, I was somehow And the other it reaches back a little bit But this point in my own personal experience of the the blending and I guess it's a little lesson of how we can do it more I was working on a production of a fellow at Writers Theatre in Chicago in Glencoe and I developed all my Terry I was the production dramaturg on my material separately and it assembled them and shared them with the cast and the and the assembled Other designers with whom I had not been meeting up to that point and the costume designer in particular came up to me afterwards and said This would have been delightful to have Two months ago one before as I was beginning my own Exploration and development of materials, so it just underscored for me very early in my Dramaturgical play and adventures the need for early collaboration amongst all the pieces because who knows what everyone Else will need why replicate effort, but also the conversations can start very early. I did think of an answer to your question Go for it many many many years ago. I worked on a production of Anthony and Cleopatra in Los Angeles My partner Lisa Peterson was directing it. She decided to adapt it to be performed by seven the actors And we couldn't quite figure out how to do it So the amazing Berkeley rep brought back in the day when this was possible everybody to Los Angeles So that we could have a conference and it was Lisa Who was doing the adaptation all four of the designers the dramaturg the voice and text coach And we sat and somebody else and we sat in our living room and read through all the parts I played Caesar. Thank you and in the room was the Very young very brilliant Annie Wiseman who is now a playwright and a screenwriter And Annie as the dramaturg we talked and talked and talked and talked about this play And we and it's somewhere in the middle of the third day of this We were talking about the difference between the Cultures of Egypt and Rome and how they function differently within the course of the play and Annie said this brilliant Brilliant brilliant thing which was that it's like because the because of where they are in their histories It's like Egypt is functioning on an arc of space And Rome is functioning on an arc of time and that concept to find everything in the production It absolutely defined how the world looks it was it was a it was like the moment where all of these ideas just dropped into place And that opportunity is exactly what you're saying it happened before any design It happened before the script was final it happened before any design work had been done. It was an amazing It was a fantastic opportunity Louisa Fitz Well, I guess I would just you know as you know it is possible to design in theater without having that awesome experience the The problem I think for designer becomes if you're not plugged into something as great as that It becomes difficult to sort of age into theater. I don't know how to describe it as you spend more time in theater you need more from it and and since theaters more than willing to allow designers to operate on the periphery as people that plug in very late in the game and sort of You know perform their kind of I do not describe it you you go you know on your 300th production you just go into your thing You rock out your groove you get through it It's great and then you move on part of it's the dynamics of the way we earn money and we survive in all this business But at some point you can really hit a wall where that's not gonna work for you anymore and what I love hearing About what Rachel's talking about It's it that's a great room of people because all of those people have hit that moment where they really can't do theater without deeper conversations and I and I think you know when I was coming here today trying to resolve the question I don't want to get a get ahead, but I do want to say that I think we all know that Designers and dramaturgs are not typically put in really strong conversational process driven environments where they can Kind of unify I guess or come together or go into process together without outcomes being immediately foregrounded and I do think that what the magazine is trying to do almost like the movie Inception It it needs to kind of it actually forces new kinds of processes Into the conversation in theater. I think at some point we were gonna have to talk about the difference how text is sensualized and and why the sensuality of looking at things the process of looking and the excavation of the poetic Center from objects from color and from space Are such an important aspect of design and and how that can relate to text? It's it's very germane to the project of the magazine, but I thought I'd mention it now Yeah, that's great And I do want to come back to the the idea of the process the creation process and where dramaturgs and designers sit in it The reason did you have an example of a project you wanted to talk about? Just kind of thinking in the When I think about the The moments of as a designer where I feel like I'm in it the kind of look a deep dramaturgical kind of search, but you know Beside the kind of wealth of research or getting to know a text it often comes up I'm doing site-specific work, and I'm trying to I'm sitting here trying to figure out why the projects I'm thinking about in the context of this are all site-specific, and I think it's because There's something very game-changing about trying to do a piece of theater outside of a context that's malleable, I mean not that theaters are all completely Fluid but that there's something a site tends to kind of often bring something of its own Character or so often certain kinds of limitations, and I think you end up in this conversation that that often I find really a very dramaturgical place as a designer if that makes sense, and I was thinking about a Production I did with Sahorep of David Ajmi's elective affinities, which is a short piece Monologue really and of a woman in the Upper East Side apartment, and we were able to stage this in an actual townhouse on the Upper East Side and There was a lot of complexities to try to figure out how how we would Find ourselves and how an audience would then find themselves in this room with this woman But in the text and this is I don't know this is what just kind of perked up in here There's a sculpture the woman has just commissioned a sculpture and to this day The question of do we see the sculpture is like I'm I feel like I'm still living that horror But we but we did choose to represent this this Kind of imaginary work that was that was in the in the conversation of this character and I Don't honestly remember all the kind of I mean there was a million conversations about this but for whatever reason it really Perks up for me as a place of like it has a minute with reality Do we do we what it what is real? What is in the imagination? What what? When something is real in a text does it really have to exist on state I mean that that line there for me is like as a it's it goes It's it's we all share it, but it's somehow a very Complex one in terms of some kind of rules or something that I'm always looking to others to kind of and I think fits Is right that the the deeper you get into making this type of work Sometimes you lose that vantage point and that's to me where I feel like I'm most heavily Kind of engaged geometry is this like please What are we doing? I Want to that's I mean she's just said it and and it's it's this whole thing I Mean I started teaching reader response theory and my sound is on class because it It seemed like such a great place where this question of what to what degree is any text is being completed or written in the mind of the viewer and then in the same sense What's where where does design fit in that and it was it was even this was taken to new heights when I designed a stage reading the rose tattoo with pay a lapone and and Bobby Conevale on the set of airline highway and You know 12 hours or whatever and six seven hundred people came in and I sat in the back of the theater and I saw everything I Mean that it was unbelievable. It was an incredible experience. I Saw her bedroom. I saw the coastline. I saw the town. I saw the road I saw I I was really I was unaware that there wasn't a set and And it just took it to even a greater space for me. I just recently designed a And a nightingale singing in Barclay Square and at some point near the end when it's VE day And they're on the porch looking out and they described, you know what they're seeing And I didn't design in things that had sound because it was just very clear to me that in listening to them everyone would hear them anyway and So I don't know if anyone else wants to talk about it because but this truly if you want to know as I was coming over there What is the most you do the most actionable? Thing of asking the question whether relations between a dramaturg in a designer is what not to build what not to make what not to realize and I don't know if anybody else wants to Add to that. Yeah, go for it. Does that does that what does that inspire you? It's it's the I think it's the root of all Design honestly that question of what do you you know when when a I mean it goes right back to Shakespeare, right? He tells you everything because they couldn't show you any of it, right? So that that lesson is everywhere and when you have a text that tells you that tells you where you are Then the the completely unique rules of theater Which don't apply in the other in the other visual storytelling worlds, you know in television and in film I can tell you that a log is a motorcycle. I can tell you that a log is a couch I can tell you that a log is a log, right and you'll come with me We set up the rules and you as an audience member will come with me So that opportunity of what do you show what do you not show what will if I cannot tell you I'm a very abstract thinker I often my designs are pretty abstract. There's a massive user of negative space And and allowing the I'm asking the audience to come with me I'm asking the audience to invest in the space and to do exactly what Fitz is talking about and put Themselves on that stage with it. I cannot tell you how many times people have come up to me and said it is amazing How you planted that subliminal imagery about Christ on stage? I'm like That's you know, it's amazing what people will bring to the story If you give them this the space and ask them to actively step into those worlds And I think that that's that's what you're talking about there. Just great Martha. Well, I just like to add, you know dramaturgs like to quote things but as you're speaking That what came to mind were two quotes from two of the folks we featured as my inner monographs and in chance And the first one Ben Edwards a designer From for most of the 20th century set designer said was quoted in an interview in 1994 I don't believe in reality in the theater. It's the illusion of reality. I believe in I believe in tremendous Elimination, which just kind of resonated over and over for me and in a kind of larger elimination kind of choice Boris Aaronson Reflecting on his own career said they asked me once what's your greatest achievement in the theater and I said the shows I refuse to do so I guess that's a more Selective Because we're using some beautiful words and and and in the magazine and certainly, you know in our work We see some beautiful images and even the images that aren't there In our own minds and I'm curious about the relationship between the imagery The beautiful imagery that you use in the magazine and and the way that you write about the work and and what that relationship is and how How would in how they inform each other? So do you guys want to talk a little bit about that and the relationship between imagery and text and chance? I think the first thing is and I and I know we understand this the photographer is an artist So and we know that that images aren't real the what's inside the image space is not a direct transmission of Of this the proposed subject So I think what we did to break down the question of how you activate photography And the reason photography is so deactivated in a nutshell is that and forgive me Well, you know, I don't want to be too broad about it But there's a process by which photographs are made in theater that by and large Emphasizes the neutrality or of the photographer or to a very great degree deactivates them as a creative artist if you think of say the work of Gregory Kruitz and what he does with space and then What a typical shoot from the show, you know, and you get at it because what you notice is all of the So many of the shoots of the shows if you look at eight or nine in a row, they start looking like they're the same show so The importance of the way it will be what we asked was how can we turn photography on for theater and It had to do with placing artistic agency in the photographer creating ideal conditions under which they could take Undertake a shoot and given the time to execute it But more importantly it was this question of the medium of transmission being paper And it was it's just very clear that you cannot stand in Roger and take a picture of the proscenium frame With stuff in it and have the image Work And the reason important doesn't work is that it's not so much that it doesn't work on its own It doesn't it starts to not work in the context of the flow of not just images within that production But all of the other production images it sort of gets washed into this space so What it comes down to is this and this is you know, it's a little indefinite, but There is resonating Inside the visual space of a production and the objects that are made for the production and the light etc a Kind of poetic center and the question is how can you transmit that in the medium of print so that the viewer has an affected Poetic experience in the way they relate to the images that they're looking at There's a kind of seduction to them There's a sensuality to them and you'll find that the photos that we do of productions are very clearly We strip away a lot of things we take actors out of the environment. We do a lot of things We never shoot shows that are just actually being performed We break it down into smaller pieces create ideal circumstances for the photographers Create a vision to be activated But then what you get in the course of and the shoots went long so they have an immersive quality to them You kind of have to go you'll go through 30 images or whatever to and the idea is not so much Are you seeing a document of the show? But in the arc of this of this editorial do you undergo have some kind of poetic experience? That actually resonates with the production as if you were there So the conceit is not that it's a one-to-one transmission or that the photographer is Documenting and trying to give it to you again. The only way the photographer is going to give you an experience of that show is if he's going to move you aesthetically In the way you experience the immersiveness of the visual space It's the same thing that we do when we make plays and so Theater then becomes the subject of the photographer, but then the photographer undertakes to make something actually totally different out of Subject and then hopefully When the text is when we add the text and other Yeah, then hopefully when all is brought together you somehow get back to the play But the photos on themselves Don't necessarily do that Sometimes I mean you're talking about the the balance of image to text. This is a photography magazine Where sometimes the texts that the words are dominant, but there always has to be a visual interest And here's an example and it's in the most recent and that can sometimes challenge us till we figure it out We've had it. We've had in our in our I don't know lined up ready to roll for about a year and a half a really fascinating Conversation between playwrights Shar White and John Logan and we'd edited it was ready, but we hadn't couldn't quite figure out how to visually Present that so very text. It's a conversation So it's not we're not talking about any one particular production. It'll let the talk about many some of them They're talking about Images in movies the Logan had written But it's just a conversation between two artists talking about their craft So we it took us a while to figure out how to crack how to how to illustrate it And if there are any issue fives around the table, you'll see how we cracked it. It was through a graphic designer illustrator who figured out some caricatures and beautiful imagery and Shar White actually went back in and annotated his own commentary with a commenting on himself In a very humorous ways in the margin a very funny. He's a very funny guy So it's a it's an ongoing conversation where we're trying to figure out What the balance is between text and images and sometimes going to humor and sometimes going to we're trying to figure out whole new strategies So here's again another delay But we haven't had a monograph for a couple of issues and it's not for lack of trying We're actively developing which is all with any publication We have many many things in development when when we look at the time It's time to publish, you know, which ones are ready to roll And we've been working with Alice Regan who's written a beautiful monograph about Maria Irene for Ness Beautiful monograph our challenge being how to illustrate it Yeah, I don't know famously there isn't a huge archive of her stuff We found several sources of folks who work with her quite closely of their own personal photographs and set models and things And we had a set of okay photographs that Fitz took of these ephemera these pieces of ephemera But then we're now waiting for and you can tell like we're still waiting It'll be the next issue before it goes out because of this new source So in the process of doing the monograph and going out and looking for stuff because if the thing is you say well We can't we're not gonna publish this awesome writing, which it's great Unless we can find images that that meet it or exceed it we've we discovered that that the The theater photographer for the Village Voice for about 20 years her name is Sylvia Platchie and she shot Downtown theater for from the 70s to the 90s for them and her entire archive is in the basement of her house in Queens So you can imagine So it is it is it is a thing and we go to John You know we go to Donald Eastman and his original models for Irene are on shelf in this house so We we we called Doug reside while I wrote him and I said this could be amazing and he wrote a letter in support saying that the the library the Billy Rose collection would be willing to invest resources in time in Cleaning preparing and organizing Sylvia's archive to be included in the library. So it's going to be when it's done We're gonna have hundreds of shows and hundreds of images of these shows that have never been seen before Because these shoots undertaking for the voice. They might have run one or two Sylvia shot the whole thing from top to bottom That'll be all of me all of the all of Maria's plays all these other great plays and it's they're just sitting there So talk to Sylvia and she's really not excited about having to do all this work. It's a tedious But the library is they're gonna give her the resources to do it and then when they digitize it is on the web It's gonna be incredible resource So this is the thing that's going on the monograph thing is you find Someone who's still living that was involved and then they lead and they lead to and they lead to and they all have stuff and It's just it's really great. So there's a big excavation and also reclamation Processes coming from it that is incredibly gratifying as you can imagine That's exciting and I think what that brings to mind one of the one of the things that occurs to me, which is it? Because we don't often have a chance to be in dialogue with each other until later in the process Dramaturgs and designers. I'm curious about you know and chance is a wonderful opportunity for Dramaturgs to sort of immerse themselves in design and I know you guys just came back from the Prague quadrennial Which is another great immersive experience. I have a bunch of friends the Canadian Exhibition was created in Calgary. So a bunch of my friend. Oh great. I'm glad you enjoyed it So that's another opportunity for to immerse yourself in in in the design world and the ideas around the world that are happening in design What would your what places what recommendations would you have? And I'm looking to the designers For sources or places or questions to begin with in if a dramaturg wants to learn more about design or the design process What would you recommend? How do we how do we start that conversation the whole world of art and design? I feel like I Don't know. I feel it's kind of sense of that we ghettoize ourselves if we're only looking at theater Or kind of common sources for for inspiration in the theater I mean, I think I think to me this is a conversation that I'm still looking for of there's an incredible world of performative work being made kind of via the art world that that we somehow Theatrically are not always Engaging in the same kind of terms. I think that work is powerful and interesting and and certainly just spending time in museums and I mean we're in a great resource island I mean I had something I wanted to say about the other thing Yeah, okay. Um, I just to going back to what these guys were talking about In a past one of the past issues of chance. There's a there's an article But that you guys did about a display designer and I'm just forgetting his name Okay, so that that article that that Interview was really I found it so interesting because one of the things he says is like he's kind of you know He's he's he's a master of designing display So he did Barney's windows and he did and you know, this is something that all of us I think in the theater kind of teeter on at times like to what degree are we Designing kind of a spectacle or something to be seen, right? And he says this thing about immersive because we've been kind of this word keep coming up immersive He says this thing about you know, I don't get all this immersive everybody's such a narcissist right now Why do we why does everybody need to be in it? Why can't you just sit back and like enjoy the fact that somebody else does something really well like a dancer? And and I just love that was really powerful for me as somebody who's you know been exploring immersive work Um, and I think that's and as you guys were talking about the role of photography and chance and And I think this has something to do with dramaturgy I I think this idea of distance of actually being an audience like an active audience Where you really are outside the work and you look at this amazing thing that somebody I mean That's what's happening to me as a designer in chance is I really feel you know, yes It pulls you in but that's not that to me. That's not immersive. I'm really I am looking at this view or this presentation in a way that somebody else has Created Exquisitely and to appreciate that is some kind of entry point and I really I really as a designer That was that's connecting to that article. It's been really powerful to me of like It's okay to let people kind of have an entry point and be distanced and then be brought in and as Versus like having to necessarily be in the work And not that I'm anti. I mean so intrigued by immersive theater. I love it, but I I thought that was really Some it says something to me Yeah, the concept of entry points. I think is what what is valuable and really quite yeah I mean it goes back to you know all sorts of I guess semiotics on visual things and how visual visuals Speak to us as viewers and the language of that. I think is is Something that we don't often take stock in especially because we're so entrenched in a visual culture that we don't understand That we're we're reading things visually all the time and we're acting on all the time and at what point are we? Where enough of our distance as viewers to them be Proactive about our viewing and I think that that's what I'm interested in in the magazine is somehow the Photographs in the text are putting things a little bit back on you, and I think it's a very empowering Experience I have to add and this is a good but double parenthesis. It's very what she said is is so right on it is What is the difference between looking and seeing you know if you ask yourself and We are we are in a culture right now where we look and we read images and we parse them. We scan them for data But we're not seeing them and seeing is a moment where you establish an interpretive aesthetic experience of a moment of an image and the great impatience that vibrates under this magazine comes directly out of a Culture that has basically received a tidal wave of Images that are compressed so they can be served on the web that is to say the medium of the means of transmission is Actually affecting content by subtracting so much color and so much actual sensual data Then you ask is is a computer screen an ideal transmission medium for photography when it is compressed. It's a very good Question whether or not that screen is actually a great space for doing that and How much do you enjoy reading? You know, it's the screen is another thing but this thing of when a culture undergoes 10 years of of looking and reading images and very little time anymore to see and experience them and Have this one-on-one personal space with them. There's I think a great hollowing out and I think I didn't know about you guys But I have feel this great irritation and and unhappiness with the internet right now It was great for a while and I got it into my muscle memory and I was so I had this thing and then over time less and less and less and less and Less and then and then there was this thing and it came from This feeling of almost like I you know how you drink coffee at a certain point and then it doesn't affect you anymore It was a little bit like that. I couldn't have any more of it and get any more out of it It wouldn't it's not something at the very core of it is not Doesn't is not made to deliver anymore And I don't know I have many thoughts about what it is and this but this thing of what she's talking about The difference between reading and seeing an image is so to the heart of why we've undertaken this this thing but it goes to deeper a deeper hollowing out of our culture and This loss of the frame the ability to stabilize the frame of a conversation around a subject hold the frame hold the attention and to go deeper this thing of clicking through Flipping around and all of this. It's really it infantilizes your ability to my daughter's attention span is on certain days It's longer than mine. That's a very frustrating and humbling position to be in and it's I'm so the magazine is about excavating ourselves as visual people out of this kind of desiccated Flow where images great and images weak ultimately have the same power do you know I mean I Want to talk about two things I want to respond to your question, which is a while ago But I do want to say one thing about chance when went right when they were starting this magazine We were Fitz and I were in tech and we were working on a really unusual project downtown at the Atlantic and he got interested in the design It was the first issue and he wanted to feature the design for Harper Regan and it was he shot a test shot of The set he was trying to figure out how to how to capture the design and then Sandy happened and We were not able to do the actual shoot of the design And so he asked me to write Instead for the magazine, but he ran the one picture that he took and As the designer of that set what he showed me about my own design in that photograph Was remarkable and it was in a sense because he took the design Seriously, and he talked when he would we were just they were just starting to think about As a group of designers what this magazine wanted to be it was about Taking the visual world of the play Seriously and shooting it at the level of fashion photography as opposed to shooting it as the backdrop to the actors Do you understand the difference in the in the and you can see it in the Quality of the prints and the images themselves, but that moment Was amazing and then he said okay. Well, will you write for it instead? Which was amazing experience for me? That aside when you and thank you for that by the way When you know when you're talking about how do you as dramaturg step into the world of design? Which was kind of the root of that question a while ago sort of I would say two things I would ask you to remember something that I tell my students to remember when I'm lucky enough to be teaching Which is when a playwright writes? Even a very specific stage direction or description into a text There are hundreds of ways to honor that description and put that design on stage So when you walk into a theater or when you know in in as many often times happens I don't get time with the dramaturg until first rehearsal So my my choices have been made by then they have to be made and in fact The set is generally half-built by then so you know this thing of oh gosh It would have been so great to have that information You know when we were thinking when we were really thinking about this. That's a real root of this You know and I would say there's a couple of things I could quickly cite to say if you wanted to just You know crack your mind open about the world of design There's a couple of different things you could do and one is to look at the website for the Prague quadrennial because you think how You know how stories are told visually, right? No Look at how the Germans do it. Look at how they do it in Eastern Europe. Look at how they do it in Japan Completely different and these are all the same stories and you can take the plays that have traveled the world and look at the same Designs in different cultures for how these plays have been done And I would cite only because I'm so close to this project But I would say a project called an Iliad which is a one-man adaptation of the storytelling of the Iliad and It it sites. I don't think there's any Description a guy walks into a room the story starts right like that's it And you know this play has tapped into something and it's being done everywhere everywhere everywhere and it is amazing to watch the different ways This has been The way it manifests on stage It's completely completely completely different and there's also a whole other corner of this which is I worked on the original production We now travel with it. We take it three suitcases We go wherever we can we just got back from Cairo, which is amazing And we make up the set when we get there But we carry the sound design and the lighting design because our interpretation of this text and this is Lisa Did the adaptation with Dennis O'Hara and it is their production? So the way that that we interpret it We need very few things but the space itself and so the heart of that storytelling is Then the lighting in the sound and the stuff that I can find when I get there Which PS gets me the plane to get to Cairo which I'm up for But it's amazing to when you go to different cultures and bring this kind of storytelling To watch the people in Cairo who do not have this tradition of storytelling Watch a story that has that sort of design That's the prog quadrangle flipped on its heels for me because it's the opportunity to watch these guys You know the technicians never stick around for the rehearsal or the performances ever The guys who installed that show for us in Cairo watch the dress rehearsal and both performances They were there every night because they were so fascinated by how different it was Then how they would have told the same story So I mean I just think that sense of you know don't just don't accept the design as you know It is that it is the product of a thousand small choices So you know when you see it on that first day as the designer when you bring The design of a world premiere to the playwright and it's this little tiny box and you bring it to them for the first time You've had this initial conversation in a series of research and a whole you know Moments at the very beginning when you start this play with the playwright And then they go away for a while and a couple weeks later You're you have a done thing and you show it to the playwright and there's a really sort of very nervous moment Where you say is this your play? You know and they can say no So it's a very that give-and-take is a really essential essential essential part of the conversation Before we open it up to the audience Martha What would you recommend what what what entry points have you had or would you recommend to people? Into design yeah into design or into the conversation about design You know I think my perspective has been perverted in a delightful way by this experience that I've had over the last three years of swimming constantly daily with this character and the other Primarily designers who are involved other writers that we bring in and some other writers in the core team But primarily designers, so I'm I'm constantly Learning I mean we're we're sharing we're learning to we're building a joint vocabulary continually and how to talk talk about and think about our Excitement about a particular piece So I guess my entry point is every day and it's with this group of people that are primarily designers that I've fallen in Love with the way they think it's great We have about 20 minutes 25 minutes for some questions and Emma's gonna bring around a mic. I see Shelly and then we'll go back there Vicki was saying please do use the mic So thank you so much both for sharing the magazine with us in this way and and the very generous Offer to send it to us. I'm very excited. I'm gonna go home and watch the mailbox And thank you all for your thoughts. I have a very self-interested question that I hope all will be interested in I'm Shelly or I teach at SDSU San Diego State University. We have a very strong design program that is In many ways trying to fashion and refashion itself as a Design for an MFA in design for theater television and film So a very active sort of development of all those areas One of my concerns though is that the wonderful faculty in that school or that part of our school Are looking to in my mind and from my view curtail some of the conversation We're talking about where oftentimes we don't get to speak as dramaturgs and designers in those non-pressure situations except in the classroom Right, those are the conversations and actually one of the things that I have had the opportunity to do is to mentor and chair I'm chair sit on committees for MFA design Thesis just because they've had class with me kind of you know, they know that I'm a person I'm a thinking person. I'm like that second or third person on the committee But unfortunately design sort of curriculum is getting so full. We have to have AutoCAD. We have to have this we have to have that We have to have engineering classes. We have that they want to take away the theater history Component of the MFA which is making me a little scared and nervous And so if you can just give me some talking points so that I can approach my very dear colleagues and say please don't Face that out. Well, it's it just I'll keep this brief, but it's that That is is directly a result of the the early over professionalization of theater and This is in a risk-managed theater economy and we have to remember that theater in America is also a transaction and So this blurry role about who's first in New York is very clear the producer is the star and then we're all Working with or for the producer certainly in Broadway It produces a very strong role in deciding which designers are going to come to the table at center but what I would just say is students in my opinion are professionalized into the established production process of theater so early and Therefore they have to go through all of these things that are essentially outcome driven skill acquisition Things that they're the whole question about whether or not they're gonna have an intellectual Process that gets at the heart of why we do it and I'll tell you the reason I think it is is I think it has to do with Theater is incredibly dangerous when people are actually doing what they want When they're coming from their gut about stuff when they're coming when they're working as problem solvers Theater becomes a much more manageable beast And I think theater has obviously the the power to be incredibly disruptive and transgressive but in a highly professionalized transaction economy, it's a little bit more fluffy and Easy to wrangle and so I think the tragedy or the what's so disturbing about what you're talking about is that in the effort of this program to produce Monetizable outcomes and careers They're teaching very young people very early not Well, they're not let's just say they're not inviting their discomfort They're not inviting their revolutionary spirit They're not inviting any questions maybe about why theater is helping making them more psychologically healthy why they need it You know why theater as a form of transgression is actually a Very healthy replaced for theater to be They must have that training. They must have it. They must have the theater history They must know about storytelling. They must know about the roots of this They must be able to draw on the roots of this if they don't have the skill of storytellers and the intellectual Thinking that comes behind all of that training. What in the world are they going to do with their technical skills? I mean they have to they those skills are also important Don't get me wrong, but they must they must not let go of the theater history You have a question back here, and then look at you my hi my name is just apple down I'm so excited by this panel today And I wanted to offer like one entrance also into dramaturgs working with designers design meeting happens every year And it's like a kidney candy store. I go it was at four of them a few years ago I don't know if it's always house there, but you can go around and you have set designers and you have Costumers and and Sound I think is sound there I mean that's the question that I want to raise today but but you can just go and start conversations, and I've had tremendous relationships from Saying I am interested in your design, and I have collaborators now because I've initiated that dialogue And it's so I just wanted to offer that and for drama tricks also I think John burgers way of the way of seeing is like another great source, but so I don't really Care about award shows But I think that what the Tonys did was offer up an opportunity for us to talk about sound design and and I wanted to raise that as a Question as as dramaturgs and designers How can we work together to kind of illuminate a really important factor in performance? And I just see this as an opportunity for us to again kind of push into what performance is and so Yes sound design. How how can we work with each other to? Have its foundation be understood or recognized by Others, I'll maybe pass this over to the sound designer It's it's ironic now I'm I'll just offer that the medium of transmission of the magazine is paper and it's silent No sound is We know in this room has ever heard a sound that was not commingled with space so Space is is where sound occurs But this thing about how to activate it on the page is something that we're constantly Meditating on I shot an interesting installation project Now in at the PQ it seems that getting it sound in chance gets easier when the space has become less conventional and in part because Some of the sound sources Move from being speakers to being things with microphones in them Objects that can be seen Where the inferential outcome of that object as a sound making thing is just so clear in the image? Yeah so I think it the difficulty of getting it sound in print First immediately is clear in the sense that it can't be seen but It gets easier when the space has become less traditional You know me. I always have something to say. I mean I think you know Again another thing that I find completely outrageous is that a bunch of theater professionals feel like they're not qualified to Determine sound design the level of the gift of sound. I find it unbelievable and you know You know in terms of like how do you facilitate that conversation? We're fighting it every day We're you know, I mean there's a very active active active group online That is trying to get people to understand what sound design is because you can't touch it You can't put it in writing you can't but when you you know There are four essential designers to every play they are equal in their storytelling Essential nature and sound is absolutely on equal terms with that and what how you shape a story through how a room a space You know sounds feels I mean just this room in itself, you know the quality of the sound in this room for example Yes, you know, I mean there's a certain amount of technical skill in just literally making the text audible and controlled But that's not really what we're talking about what we're talking about is the way the environment of sound and the bed of sound Holds and furthers a story and how how do you educate people on that? That is a great question It's beyond me that people whose whose world is telling stories. Don't understand it themselves I'm at a loss I have one more word A couple words to say about the sound design when that Painist decision came down last year fits fits engage in a conversation with woman from 829 Cecilia It was published in how around hello how around that Yes, so In the moment within days of the decision a fairly in-depth conversation about how that could have happened Just the mechanics of the decision, you know who was in the room and what? What was up and this This challenge for chance in particular, but you know This challenge of how to engage with think about represent Annotate, you know document sound design as a co-equal Part of the design landscape is an ongoing Challenge for us, and we're playing with different ideas for how to do it And I'll say about that what Cecilia's conversation. This is not about design, but it's ish Cecilia's conversation revealed that there are fabrics of political Relationships in which the Union and the Broadway League are interwoven and therefore the Union has to be careful because of the following five reasons and so effectively the Union did not respond and And They have not been held accountable yet But it has to do with There all of these professional organizations ultimately are are interconnected, and so there's just been this You know reticence to truly get involved because they're all friends and we're all friends and and But that that word is problematic on so many levels of being a kind of crowdsourced award with no training and no Way to really verify whether or not everyone's seen a reshown all the other issues Martha's was drama dust not you know Nominated for for two years and they have an extremely rigorous process where they find sound not to be challenging in the least so Hi, I'm Mark. Why I'm the dramaturge at the acting company I wanted to follow up on a comment that Fitz made and also a comment that Rachel made Fitz you you talked about the Impatience With the media and one of the one of the great things about this about chance I've read about three or four issues of it and poured over it and I think it's an extraordinary magazine and it's going to be a great training tool for people in universities and at large is That you dare To not worry you don't fret about being current You don't do you don't worry about that I was so surprised to encounter Articles interviews about something that happened ten years ago for God's sakes, you know you didn't worry about that about currency immediacy and and that was refreshing and I got excited about that and and that's grand. That's great and second And something that Rachel was talking about that I think is so much at the heart of Where we live the the strasa we live on as dramaturgs if you will and that's the notion of If we're great if we're meaningful And it's all artists ultimately, you know designers directors everybody We We the the you talked about your experience at the O'Neill a great designer knows something about directing Know something about text knows something about all aspects And I believe great dramaturgs do too. They know something a little bit about directing a little bit about design I hope the hell something about text, you know, but all of that and There was this amazing Evolutionary biologist at Harvard who died a number of years ago Steven J. Gould who talked about the notion that we you know Should celebrate our redundancy that we all should bristle with multiple possibilities And not just being this narrow little professional niche and this magazine You know celebrates that that we should bristle with multiple possibilities There's one Episode, I think it's the Mingqiu Lee one. Oh my god, the man who bristles with multiple possibilities. It's fantastic So great magazine. You should subscribe you should subscribe that was the first monograph where we were able to actually talk to the person Who is the subject? Does it yeah, does anyone want to respond to that before we move on to the next question? I do I want to say that thing that you're saying about everybody Has to have all of these should have all of these fields in them and should feel free to speak about all of them That's the nature of the collaboration It's deeply deeply collaborative field and I can't tell you how many times when I've been in a meeting when the best Visual idea has come from the sound designer. The composer was the guy who was like Because they're all we're all telling the same story and we're telling it together and in the same way that like I I I I have to step into those characters in order to figure out what their world looks like and the costumes designer has to Completely intimately know those characters in order to do their work So, you know, but this stuff is all very very very fluid and I have to be able to understand We all do what what the director is going to need in terms of opportunity and you know know that they will do that job far better than I could ever imagine doing that job, but I Have to have a sense of how it works and What they might need but this thing the give and take of all of these things It's it's equal between all of us and we need you guys So we want your perspective to be a part of it and and don't ever think otherwise I just feel like there's a there's a great argument in all of that's being said right now for the the importance of designers being trained in a program that embraces a real kind of in-depth look at our history because This this idea of repeating ourselves or not being afraid of redundancy I mean really has to do with conventions and traditions that that I Mean, I just recently had to teach like intro to theater and there were ways in which I kind of I personally kind of Bristled at it a little bit of like oh, you know, I'm here to teach designers and Actually, what I got out of it is that I have a conversation with these conventions or these This is the historical foundation of theater all the time and to understand that is actually to kind of empower your Current moment and I think a lot of what's being said here is that if you're going to Move into the world where you're making work. You have to not all you it can't it can't be a Moment of this moment. It's it's built on something else and I'm saying this really poorly But I I guess I really feel like in order for us to talk about sound and further it and help people understand it We need to get people out of this kind of information of the moment kind of thinking and into a kind of deeper Conversation and it's an argument. I know we're having in our department of even around Theater history is when do our students even get to go in deeper and not just kind of have a you know an umbrella Look at this but actually really Get to go deep into a subject area and and the and I'm so shocked at people's fear of You know what happens if you know one thing a lot about one thing well That's actually really valuable because you've gone deep and that you can bring that experience to any conversation really and I don't know how to articulate that better, but I do think it's an argument That yeah, we can go on the internet and find out facts and research about a lot of different things but to actually Write a thesis on something and do a do a real analysis of a particular play right or a moment in theater history It's going to change you and you're gonna bring that to your work and I feel it's really important Yeah, that's great And I think we do have time for the next two questions, so we're gonna go there and then over here go ahead Hi, I'm Jessica Hughes, and I'm still a part of the academic and to institutional theater world with students and professors where the exchange between Learning and still developing your craft and at the same time being a professional is a very nebulous place to be and so I have found as a student dramaturg that sometimes it's really hard to Understand how much to give with designers who aren't familiar with working with dramaturgs and how where do you start the conversation to Help to teach student designers and dramaturgs on how to collaborate together and where are those bridges that Each party can cross so that they can learn Their how to share their voice when they come into the professional world I Think and I'll just be brief on it, but I and I wonder what you guys will think I think and it's right onto what Louisa was saying Which is that every way in which you refine a deep connection to something and activate your mind around it the very process of doing that Becomes itself transmutable to other things going deep with something Means your mind can then begin to move laterally and go deep with lots of things So for example for you as I was listening to you. I was imagining the dramaturg being near conversations that were happening Just being very present and listening all these words are going to drop in and there will be points of entry for you to to flow into that conversation and Nudge it divert it complicate it please complicate it and And that so your point of entry would it be so much about you know, when is my time to come or is there a forum for me to begin? It's more about your role. I think is one because as I think ultimately aesthetics are most affecting when your Relationship to the what's occurring becomes complex in a good way time Time-based complexity of engagement, but also problems that you have to kind of work on So I think your role could literally could just be that of someone who is complicating what seemed to be simple outcomes It's great. That's beautifully said. I mean, I think it's often the case, you know, as people are sort of trying to figure out How to do these things exactly at this place you're talking about, you know, everybody wants to I would say Approach all of those conversations with more questions than answers and and with a spirit of generosity. I mean there's There's a funny there's a funny line in all of this stuff and everybody particularly right where you are is still finding it, right? but it takes it it takes an enormous amount of Ego and and belief in yourself to do any of these jobs and there's a certain point where everybody's still trying to show That they know how to do them and and it's not about it's never about who has the right answer. It's never about You know Proving that you're the smartest guy in the room ever. It's about both being generous enough to Give and take from that conversation. I think what you said is quite beautiful And one last question. Yes Hi, I'm Sarah Freeman and I teach at the University of Puget Sound and for because of the research Project I'm working on I'm interested in maybe particularly Rachel and Louisa, but any of you talking Saying something about what the dramaturgical relationship is like for you as a designer with a long-term or a repeated collaborator whether that's a playwright or A director particularly or a dramaturg or another designer I'm really interested in Some of the notions that you guys have been talking about the question of the poetic Right the question of the shared vocabulary and and the great dilemma of when do we get to start talking to each other? Because that's how we build those things together And I think that those repeated collaborations that the people you get to work with again and again Or you choose to work with again and again Over time are particularly interesting and a place where dramaturgie happens Even if no one who is named to the dramaturg in those relationships So I would love to just have you talk about at least one person who may be that for you in your world Louisa Rachel I mean, I have to say I'm I think I Know I know my work with Sarah Benson. She's a director, but you know, I really think of her Partially because of her role as artistic director as a dramaturg and The project that I just worked on with them, which was a theater for young audiences project, but really all-age audience She kind of she kind of gave us a lot of a lot of space on it After we kind of knew how the project was going to start to form itself and she arrived Kind of towards the end and as you were talking I was thinking about how you know that it seems like a theme here of the When the when does the conversation happen and then I think we all I think this ties back to something else So that fits is saying in terms of like these professional models that we force upon ourselves, you know What is what are these calendars? What is this time that's driving us towards some kind of opening? I mean it often is really purely financial It's like how how many weeks of rehearsal can you have how many you know? We're all in that that constant puzzle and I Actually think sometimes that the voices that come in kind of actually towards the end are incredibly important a Lot of things can happen with Relationships and work that you're in and have been developing that don't often give you the the opportunity to kind of Be the best problem solver at some points. I mean, you know, sometimes you need that outside voice So while I feel like I have an ongoing dialogue with certain people that that is essential in some ways for a kind of trust or confidence In in playing and experimenting. There's this other thing that Become so I've had this I guess I've had this with Sarah Benson on both ends where I feel like we have an intimate Conversation from working together very often But I've also now had her come in on a project that I've been working on and kind of offer up some insight and Both that it's so important. So I guess I'd want to say from a Design place. I would never want someone to feel that coming not having been there at the beginning is somehow Unfortunate because actually it can be incredibly fortunate That that you actually can be the thing that that that provides us An extra energy to kind of further maybe an instinct that was there that hasn't been acted on or in many cases To kind of pull back from something that we just that needs to be pulled back on and I So, I don't know. I'm into the eleventh hour sometimes. I think that it's very very important moment It's really beautifully said. I mean, it's really really really true and that that helpful late perspective can be a game-changer I'm very fortunate in having very many many many very long Relationships with an awful lot of really terrific directors and playwrights actually as well and It's amazing to design, you know, the I'm now designing my sixth play for Naomi Wallace and it's Incredible because I have an intimate relationship with her work over time. That's so rare and extraordinary Of course, my greatest collaborator is my partner of 18 years, which I cannot believe I can say Director and now playwright Lisa Peterson. I know can you believe it Mark? It's like it's Unbelievable so that relationship, right? I mean, that's one of a kind because that that crosses so many You know the conversation crosses every single line and it's so that but that work has a real evolution to it and she you know, I Can't I almost can't even talk about it because that relationship is so completely You know deep in my the way that I think for so many years now But you know much like Louisa was saying there are days where I'm you know Where I'm like will you come in and look at this with me even though you're not directing this play? I need your eye. I need your perspective. I'm lost in the mud on this and I need that help But you know, it's it's an incredible. I mean those the relationships I have I'm not even sure how to talk about this except for to say that this thing that Louisa said is amazing of Bringing in the new the new perspective into that is incredibly valuable It's great. It's great and I know that we're running out of time For the formal conversation, but of course We have a little break here after where everyone's gonna be moving around and I want to encourage everyone to come and speak with The panelists and definitely to take all of the issues of chance magazine that are out on the tables Even though we're all gonna get one in the mail pass it on to Pass it on to a friend pass it on to a trusted collaborator. Yeah. Yeah Yes Help him out carry them along. I want to thank our panelists Fitz Martha Rachel and Louisa. Thank you so much Thank you, Vicki. That was amazing Thank you guys A quick moment of housekeeping although it feels a lot better in here 90 minutes ago It was miserable So I have made arrangements the Bly Grant and the AGM are gonna happen in the faculty room with the air conditioning So just note that for the schedule. So run to the bathroom. You caucus is in here Power is in the faculty room. Thanks guys