 introduce and welcome each other and and then right now and then also later this evening at the closing party will be reflecting back some of what they have heard and observed and synthesized from the conversations taking place during the Confest so please welcome Andrea ASAP who will explain more. Good morning y'all how you doing today? Are you awake yet? Oh okay so hopefully we'll wake you up so we're gonna share a reflection that we made in yesterday's workshop and we made it by talking about some conversations and themes and things that we've been hearing and then identifying those themes and then connecting a little bit of personal stories and personal relationships to those themes and then we made some material and we shared it and we did this super super fast this is like devised theater on speed okay y'all so you will see me conducting because we haven't really had rehearsal time we have instead a structure and some bits of stories and reflections we want to share and we're just gonna roll with it if y'all are cool with that yeah all right so please welcome the devised theater workshop I've premiered my play to accolades great reviews sold out crowds but I could not afford a place to live What is the day off? Is it going to a Saturday morning protest for a free Palestine? Is it scheduling a rehearsal visit on my honeymoon? What is the day off? That calls them sell-outs. Another reminder is not to demonize. Another starts your own theater company, not begrudgingly because of my tenacity and my community. They said success is knowing your voice and knowing how to use it. Don't ever turn it off that's our lives um uh Leilani Leilani and somebody else who's the somebody else Randy Randy my brother no no my son sorry my son Randy and Leilani please come on up because they have a little announcement I have a lot of sons here I hate to say this about you Where is Leilani? She left me um that's this is trickery trickery hi everybody I'm Randy Reyes uh artistic director of Mu Perforing Art also board member of Cata and uh we're here to um last night at the open mic we started we passed around um uh I don't know what it was a big bowl that had handles on it um that's not important uh but the important part is that we were uh acknowledging that this cost money to do and it's actually amazing what um what Gail has been able to do on the budget that that yeah exactly it was a dental floss budget and to create this amazing um event around that was as unbelievable so we want to get into the practice of giving um giving money and uh the idea that we're not afraid to ask for money and that that that there's a reality of that and philanthropy is great um so we're and Leilani still not here which is awesome but we're gonna have a bag and I think it's gonna be a kung fu zombie bag um and uh if you put money in there you can actually have another bag there's a lot of kung fu zombie bags I guess so uh and so if you see us hanging out with a bag just put money in it um and then we'll be able to do this again in two years bigger and better yeah if I was a bag the future thank you thank you very much and um yes Randy was a bag man from the his drug days but but uh okay so I'd like to start our panel so if we can um have our plenary panelists come on up and have a seat um I just want to uh make sure you know where you're at this is the plenary on casting a representation and I know uh we've had issues and events and things around the country and I feel like uh these panelists are people who have been involved intimately with all those uh events and and situations and I'd like them to be speaking to some of them so to give us a sense of the larger picture and maybe some ideas for how to deal with issues and how to move forward so um I'm just gonna start with having them sort of do a one minute self introduction um so that we can you can have a sense of who's here hi there I'm pun bandu I'm an actor I've been a professional actor now for 13 years I graduated from the Yale school drama I got to my training there and um since then I've uh been on Broadway two seasons ago in wit I've I've done off Broadway theater I work with all of the Asian American theater companies in New York um and uh I've done regional work I'm actually going out of town to do a show in Baltimore in two weeks and um TV and film I actually have it was a great scene that's been slashed down to one line in The Judge which is opening this this weekend and I guess I should also say that I I'm a founding member of the Asian American Performers Action Coalition in New York APAC um and what oh thank you you guys have heard about us we've been we've been quoted in the uh the comments blogs that were that started out this this conference um as well as you know our statistics are out there um and has really made a huge difference in terms of raising awareness uh in terms of the inequities that exist in the casting process out there I'm still Randy and uh I actually uh just as my second year as artistic director of Mu after 21 years of a leadership and a founding leadership by Rick Shiyomi so uh I'm here today because of Rick and uh in his legacy um I actually I trained at the Juilliard school and started as an actor after I when I graduated from Juilliard I was a white actor um I did uh and I quickly realized that I was not um as I started to audition and uh and I didn't get to my I didn't come to my Asian American part of my artistry until I came to Minneapolis ironically um just because I went from New York which has a lot of more Asians than in Minneapolis but actually that's the place where I I found my identity um through the work that I've done with Mu um so that's where I am today I came out white now I'm yellow and uh and I'm proud of it and I'm so excited to so I came through this whole identity or Asian being Asian American later in my life um and I don't have the amazing um the the language the the way that Leslie is able to talk about about the the systems and liberating ourselves and colonization um but I I care a lot about it caring matters at first that's great hi I'm Leslie Ishii uh stage director actor and arts educator I've been affiliated probably a little over 20 years now with East West players uh most recently with artists at play in Los Angeles primarily um I'm a teaching artist with East West players now for a little over 20 years and also uh the past six seasons with center theater group I've implemented uh a new works program the api two by two new works program at Oregon Shakespeare festival just this last august so you can look for more there and to up our representation there and visibility and have also uh supported in the co-facilitation and launch of the diversity and inclusion institute with theater communications group um I trained at the American conservatory theater and actually that's when I started knowing Rick Shioomi back in the day in the bay area and before he was in Minneapolis and uh like Randy I was probably one of the only agents that graduated from a major program that year so uh it was a very lonely time but uh and and a very whitewashed kind of training uh but I've been in recovery ever since probably probably so thank you um hi I'm Sarah middle door um I am also I am sort of in the midst of figuring out my Asian American identity and and beginning to grapple with it I self identified as white until probably about a year and a half ago um and I appreciate you sort of opening that conversation because it was something that I felt like I wanted to mention before going into my talk that I feel like I'm really learning and I'm really in a process right now and I really appreciate all the people that have been going through that with me um I am a Philadelphia based director that's why I'm here um but I majored in linguistics so there we go great thank you so um we can see this tremendous range and and talent pool that we have here uh an experience um so I wanted to start with uh Pon because um because of his work with APAC and and uh hopefully he will give a kind of larger picture of of the some of the situations in regards to casting a representation so sure so um APAC started as a result of uh my Facebook feed actually I um I I had always wanted to work with Playwrights Horizons and um you know I finally got my first audition there and I happened to post you know like I'm excited I've got my first audition at Playwrights Horizons I'm just surprised that it took me 10 years to get that first audition um and then that caused this like like over 230 comments came flooding in from you know not just the Asian American acting community but but primarily like they were saying like yeah I've never auditioned there either and I've never auditioned at the roundabout I've never auditioned at the center you know and this was coming from people who had been acting like way long before I had and some of them were obi award-winning actors people that I respected so much and it became clear that there was that this was endemic it wasn't just about you know one theater um this was uh systemic of uh certainly the the New York uh theater audition and um and so you know about 10 other ragtag rebellious you know ragamuffins and I got together uh mostly because the Mayi theater actually um gave us gave it hosted uh some of us and brought us together and out of that came this group and we realized that we didn't have the statistics to back up what we were feeling about the fact that you know opportunities seemed to be getting worse for Asian actors not better and um you know publicly available statistics that track stack uh the casting was not available and so we initiated the bad back-breaking work of actually crunching all those numbers using publicly available resources and um and what we found was really staggering you know these statistics have we didn't realize at the time but these statistics sort of help to create so much awareness not only in New York but in actions literally all around the world um and and it really showed that you know Asians were so invisible in the New York theater scene and so um I guess just to get the conversation started I'll tell you our latest statistics with that we have which is actually from a season and a half ago the 2012 to 2013 season um actually there's a lot of good news in the four years that we've been working those numbers have risen consistently and um in 2012-2013 25% of all available roles went to actors of color and that is a seven-year high in all the seven years that we have statistics um that's that's been the high and that's really something to celebrate within that 16% went to African-Americans um 4% went to Latinos and in this year 5% actually went to Asian-Americans which is huge that's also a seven-year high um a large part of that came about because this was the season when the Signature Theater did a whole season dedicated to David Henry Hong's plays this was a theater that the public this was a season that the public theater did here lies loved for the first time also at the new group there was a production called Bunty Berman a South Asian musical and um so those numbers largely are a result of three theater companies so I just wanted to sort of frame that context um and in fact um the bad news is that the numbers on Broadway actually decreased in that year so Asians are only represented at about 2% on Broadway um however you know there is some there is a lot of good news in that um we had been tracking non-traditional casting numbers as well through the seven years and they have for 60 years in a row they had historically been state stagnant um and it's it's actually shocking how few roles in New York City are cast without regard to race and um and they usually hover at sort of the um the nine to ten percent mark and that is just to put it in context that nine or ten percent is actually the percentage of the 20 20 to 25 percent of actors of color so 10 percent of the 20 percent um so we're really talking about a handful of actors who were who were cast in roles that were not defined by their race and of that um Asian Americans were the group that were least likely to be able to transcend their race um so that's that's that's it within context in terms of the statistics the other thing that I would like to say is that you know another thing that APAC does a lot is that we actually engage with a lot of the theaters um that we run numbers with and it's sort of a challenging place to be because you know we're challenging and holding accountable theaters where we want to work at you know and um so it is it is sort of being in in the middle of a rock and a hard place of being able to speak our truth um while seeing their perspective at the same time and the the amazing thing the most eye-opening thing for me going through this this process is how many people are on our side you know like these are allies these are you know even the theater who had the worst numbers you know we we sat and talked with them and work I was shocked when they said oh we really believe in non-traditional casting and I was like really then why aren't your numbers reflecting that you know um and um and and and it's been sort of eye-opening to me to see sort of what progress means within within that that there is a lot of the bias that I feel is out there occurs as a result of you know it's a very subtle bias that that reflects sort of what it is like to be part of a minority you know to be a member of minority in that you know there is just a belief that you know Caucasian actors are are the standard you know that if if it's a story where race has nothing to do with the story then by default you're going to cast it you know if it's a non-racially specific role you're going to think of white actors first and you know and it's a it's really interesting you know even when I was we were talking with the Casting Society of America you know everyone was on board with the idea that the best actor should get the role regardless of race you know that was a concept that they were like yeah yeah absolutely we agree with that but when when when we pushed it further and and when I said you know for instance you know Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf there's no reason why you know her race is not part of the story being told there's no reason why she couldn't be an Asian woman and at that point there was like a silence in the room you know and then there was like well you know would Edward Albee be okay with that you know and like you know doesn't that change the story being told because you know so it really is interesting where people think you know it's still interesting to me that race is still so primary as to change the story being told and it's also interesting when and where roles are allowed to quote go a different way and I say that in quotes because I really do think that the larger issue here is that it really is this othering process right of like okay once we have this cast of you know 12 people and they're they primarily been cast as white at that point we can think of you know maybe opening it up to go a different way you know or you know it's so rare that the lead roles are open for minorities to to to audition for much less get cast in and so you know what a pack really stands behind is that the best actor should get the role regardless of race that is the ideal that we hold true because you know it's not a reality yet and that's what we're working towards but that really is at the root of of our right to have access to equal opportunities great thank you oh great yeah thank you put in he was I'll go west coast at just this last June was the TCG conference where I produced with some other cohorts from the west coast specifically California and Mia was on the panel Tim dang Randy was on our panel and we had some other artists guests and it was called establishing Asian Pacific Islanders in the American theater based on the fact that I feel that we're not established that's partly why we have an epidemic of misrepresentation and misappropriation I was just sharing with poon if we were you know this whole oh we transcend we go to non-traditional casting we can do it with Shakespeare I go but Shakespeare's been established for 400 years so we can begin to depart and experiment but we're not even established so that was the whole theory behind the reasoning behind creating this breakout session we handed out I think nearly a hundred whistles so that API's could symbolically wear them as whistleblowers regarding racism so I want you to know we made quite an impact at that national conference and it was a game changer because some of our breakouts were actually hardly attended and in the fight what I'm learning because I produced and had to attend a different conference what I'm learning is that in the very last plenary when numerous mission statements were written or excuse me I think recited by various representatives there was no native theater represented and there was no API theater represented and that created a huge kind of firestorm in some of the deep brief sessions and I would say can folks who were at TCG raise their hands excellent for those who weren't weren't there please seek them out and learn about what was happening at our largest national conference you know TCG's are our largest advocacy group so please seek them out and and ask them about the dynamic that happened it was it's been a game changer I want to just offer you some statistics from Southern California consistent with the APAC New York study really five Southern California Repertory theaters now only represent 4% API on their stages and I'm going to name the theaters that's the center theater group and this is actually actors directors playwrights composers lyricists scenic designers so center theater group the old globe south coast rep La Jolla playhouse Pasadena playhouse and again 4% while the U.S. census of API population is 15% in Los Angeles County 12% in San Diego County and 20% in Orange County so you can see how disparaging it is that while we are now majority people of color in California we're hardly represented and one of the great things that also began to be launched at the TCG conference was Tim Danes 51% preparedness plan and the 51% let me go back the preparedness plan is that you know we're in California we're always prepared for an earthquake you have your bottle of water you have your kit right so and Tim Tim can speak to this further too when we get to opening this up the idea that we're preparing for 2042 when our nation is predicted to be majority people of color so basically we can't wait till 2042 and we're already majority in California so we started to launch a 51% in five years plan and there's certain tenants about knowing that certain areas are maybe not POC demographically heavy but maybe you could use you could employ more women or young people 35 and under so there's a number of ways you can become diverse in five years so and again I'll refer to Tim on the details of that so this is a document that I will share with Cata with moon with APAC Asian Arts Initiative and any other theater that wants to sign up with me afterward it's a tool that we put out at the conference it basically gives some of those stats and we have a huge questionnaire about how you can be season planning the questions you might ask yourself play production and on a personal level what you can be doing to become an ally and to forward the all the tenants of diversity inclusion and equity yeah to be challenging your own bias and I'll leave you with one last thing I heard a radio program on NPR and it was about innovation and one of the things that was really interesting was it was a woman working for I believe it was Google and she was talking about how she was sitting around a table and all the men in this creative think tank were proud of themselves for creating this idea for an app where where you would basically in your pocket have your your cell phone and if you have this app it would automatically bump everybody else's cell phone and you would immediately have their information you'd have their information so you could instantly network and gather information for further contact and she piped up and said wait a minute I'm a woman and women actually are the majority on the planet you have an innovation blind spot you're missing an entire market we don't carry our cell phones in our pockets we carry them in our purses we carry them in our computer satchels do you know so you really have to look at your innovation blind spots and in this handout in this document there's some questions to ask about diversity blind spots and how we're perpetuating the lack of diversity inclusion and equity so again I'll share this document because it's wonderful to have these tools so that you can be challenging with these questions challenge the normative and thank you it's an honor to be on this panel Rick told you she talks really good and now me all right no so I have a I just have to say I feel very lucky to be working with an Asian-American theater company that aren't affected by other we can do our own work and we can tell the stories we want to tell it the way that we want to tell it and we don't have to answer to anybody we don't have to wait for anyone's approval we don't have to and I just feel very lucky like your story started I was in New York for ten years and my stomach started to get that feeling of just waiting for people to give me an opportunity you know and that's such a helpless feeling and I felt that and I'm just like I want to produce everyone's play here you know and I think that I just feel so lucky that I have that that said we have we still have our issues in the Twin Cities in May 2010 CTC was producing Mulan the musical sorry yeah the children's theater it's we call it CTC are you guys are not okay yeah the children's theater company in the which is one of the largest children's company in the country has a budget annual budget of 13 million was doing a Disney Mulan and and one of our actors who works with Mulan came and said during during the rehearsal process audition process realizing that they were going to cast a couple of the main characters as white and wanted wanted some guidance of how to go forward with being part of a of a play that where white people were going to be playing Asian characters and and so this was when Rick was their artistic director we decided to have a conversation with the artistic director of the children's theater Peter Brochus and say what's going on why why are you doing this why don't you cast it all Asian you have an opportunity here more importantly your children's theater and and children are going to see this a play about an Asian story and the lead male character is going to be white what is that going to say about this about our culture that even our men look white so we thought that there was a there was a responsibility there and and he talked about oh we auditioned and not enough people came and people there's also the time there's other Asian plays it was a weird year it was an anomaly other theaters were doing Asian plays so the pool was really there wasn't enough in the pool to to cast everything and this is the children's theater which has a 13 million dollar budget when they bring directors and they my E was there they you know they last year with their show they have resources to go to New York to find actors there are actors out there so that those were the reasons that they did but and the craziest thing is that the the white person that they ended up casting as the male lead they got from New York so they haven't done anything like that since but we also had a forum then we had a talk for the community to come and have a conversation about this and why that's happening okay another fun story in 2013 it was a Jan actually we Rick was also the artistic director at this time but I was going to take I was already going to take over the following year but the Ordway which is a 17 million dollar organization in St. Paul we found out like you know in December or when they announced their season that they were gonna be doing Miss Saigon and and when we saw that season announcement Rick and I looked at each other and said oh crap you know and it was gonna it was going to open September which is when I started my tenure as artistic director so Rick was laughing it's like good luck with that here are the keys I'm out and so we didn't hear anything from from the Ordway they made the decision it was on there it was already on their season and then we get a call in January saying from their development person saying we think that we have Miss Saigon on we'd love to talk to you and have get your consultation on what we should do around the community engagement around this back story 22 years earlier the Ordway produced Miss Saigon and to a huge protest from the Asian-American activist in the Twin Cities artist activist it was during the Asian-American Renaissance that that Rick was part of and then so they had a huge protest then they brought it back two years later to another huge protest this is the third time they brought this this play to to us and so and we're wondering how they're gonna avoid the protests and asking us what they should do well we said well can you not do it that's a really easy way to avoid protest just don't do it no we're very you know Cameron Mack there's a lot of money there's money no we can't do it we've committed it so I go can you can you can you cast it all Asian or something changed can we get there the the playwright is alive can you change it and make it maybe she doesn't kill herself you know maybe there's maybe there's not there's not all prostitutes in that there's other something the playwright still alive oh no we can't so what are you here what are you asking us for how to how to save face you know it's it's damage control and so that we put our face out there and saying oh you got the stamp of approval from moon what do you want from us so we didn't do anything and we said we don't want to be associated with anything and we actually created our own conversations that we led around that three thanks to a council from David Henry Wong and Ralph Pena at my who who found that those conversations were very effective and in fact they were and from that a coalition started color don't miss I don't buy Miss Saigon coalition which is an activist group that's still very strong today and the third at this is a happier story this next one Rick was approached by a Skylark an opera place to produce the micado or to partner to do the micado and that was our reaction to I see some faces out there and I was like Rick this is it is a bad I was an associate at mood doing out doing a community liaison is it yeah I almost fell out of my seat when the guy asked me because but then I had to explain to him you know there's this kind of triumvirate of evil productions the king and I the micado you know and and Miss Saigon and and but it's a reflection of something how it is not even on the radar because when I asked him why did you ask us to collaborate with you he said you have the costumes and you have the you know and I said oh okay but but I've learned to hold my fire in a lot of ways and so I said can I talk to you tomorrow or something let me think about that and then things happen I'm actually just talking for Rick I'm his but but Rick Rick said I think there's a way we can do this and I was like oh I'm so interested in what that might be and he proposed to change the script and he said it in Victorian England and and changed the he changed the mention of micado to his majesty he he changed lyrics to the songs changed it to England changed the names of the characters instead of yum-yum which is a horrible name he changed he changed it to tum-tum because she makes her hearts go tum-tum so we took it out of of Japan completely and said it all the costumes were Victorian costumes and the play was and then on top of that he cast lead actors and he didn't even need to do this but he cast the lead parts with Asian actors so I played Coco or the is that his name oh Coleman Koya and so that that to me and it didn't have to do that but now we could do this play and it was really funny at work it was great and no one was offended and we were empowered and everything happened you're just willing to to do that and say okay change it if you're if you're worried about that it's racist it probably is racist so either don't do it or change it and so that to me is a story that that they everyone learned everyone in that collaboration learned and the community they're happy they have a micado they can do now with or without us so there are ways of dealing with this you just have to I don't know care I guess so Rick asked me to talk about something that happened in Philadelphia since we're all in Philadelphia last spring a production of Julius Caesar directed actually by my mentor Charles McMahon opened at the Lantern Theater some background I have AD at the Lantern several times I have ASM at the Lantern when I came back to Philadelphia saying hi mom I want to do art can I move back in Charles and his associate director went out to lunch with me and their people who have really been part of my journey into theater in his director's note Charles explained that he felt that the play could reflect any place and any period of time he loved the universality of this play but that he kept being drawn to the world of feudal Japan the sort of oopsie daisies moment in the story is that the Lantern ended up producing a feudal Japan inspired Caesar with no Asians in the cast on the design team or represented in general which was a painful experience so I actually heard about this when an email went out saying hey some people including some people from the Lantern would like to have a discussion about this do you have any interest in helping create a discussion and I was like I love every single person who's involved in this discussion my mentor is part of this discussion and people who have been really influential with me questioning and discovering my identity are part of this discussion I also just want to say that Melody from Asian Arts Initiative was also incredibly important to bringing about this conversation and I really appreciate her work and I really let a lot of this even though I'm the one sitting here right now so we set up two conversations the first was a bunch of performing artists in the area just we could kind of suss out what were we feeling and what did we want to say and then we had a second conversation with Charles oh wow this sounds really different when I actually hear the microphone sorry can you still hear me okay so we we did have so during during this Makoto who you guys saw perform yesterday wrote an open letter to the Lantern that I think the best way to phrase it is made the internet go haywire so we're having this conversation and the internet is sort of doing what the internet does in various comment threads and we don't have a huge amount of time so instead of going into as much of what happened in the meeting I actually want to talk about some of the comment threads that came out of that were sort of happening at the same time as these meetings Philadelphia Magazine because all you need to do is write the word racist into a title and you get readership wrote an article called Japanese actor calls Lantern theaters Julius Caesar racist and the comment threads exploded and one of the ones that caught my eye which I think really sums up so much of why we had this meeting and a lot of the feelings is that a critic who was commenting stated that Asian actors simply don't exist here he may not have actually used the word simply I may have just added that according to my notes and I do want to say that this was in a in a larger context the comment thread is 26 pages long so you're welcome to go read it I actually found it a fascinating read if troubling he does acknowledge in the in the in the comment threads that there are two Asian American performers I believe he was referring to Justin and B but he does not name them by name he goes on to say that he sees as a as a critic he has seen many productions in Philadelphia every year and that he doesn't see Asian American actors and doesn't really see them in college productions either and I think what really hurt about this was that inevitably that left a lot of people out for example Makoto whose letter he was responding to was left out of his assessment who you saw perform yesterday he also left out many of the actors that you guys have seen at this conference and all these people that I've gotten to meet and work with in the last year so what this really was saying to me is that when we let ourselves when we don't when we let ourselves there's this sort of self perpetuating cycle that we let ourselves believe that these people don't exist that these actors do not exist and so we do not cast them and then we say well we don't see them so therefore they do not exist so then we and it creates invisibility and I think that part of the reason that this and this is this is me this is how what I'm learning and part of what I feel like I learned from this experience that part of what makes that hurt so much in theater is that theater what I love about theater is that it helps us process the world it helps us reflect the world it gives us a chance to question the world or see ourselves reflected or experience things maybe that we haven't experienced or find connection with things that we don't recognize and so to have entire groups of people missing from that dynamic missing from that dialogue it isn't just to me that we are missing seeing faces to me it's that we're missing experiences that we're missing stories and that and that a group of people that I'm still struggling to understand my identity with that our stories then begin to not exist and this is something that I also saw in the comments thread that I didn't put in my notes but very kindly said oh I hope that makes it into what you say one of the one of the things that we talk about a lot in these comment threads especially which are just a fascinating just a fascinating greed is this idea of offense and and one of the people in the comment threads was saying you know people have the right to be offended by whatever and I actually was just looking through looking for that and there's another line about oh people are so offended by this and that and I I think that we forget sometimes that offenses about hurt that it's not necessarily just about having the right to be offended and it's something that I've really been grappling with and I my assumption is that I am still learning and that there are a lot of thoughts about all of this and there are so many people who have spent so much more time thinking about these issues who probably have more wonderful things to say so I really hope that you know please talk to me about it and talk to each other about it but I think that for me what's been so important in learning about these conversations and being part of these conversations is that it is it is part of a larger conversation about how do we how are we good to each other and kind to each other and how do we acknowledge the hurt that we are always capable of rendering on each other and how do we make decisions about how to reduce our probability of hurting each other that made me think of a couple of things thank thank you so much I just wanted to add that I think one of the reasons why we are seeing this outcry against things like the Mikado and Miss Saigon and and all of that stuff you know thoroughly modern Millie a couple of high school productions were canceled as well very recently is that people are tired of seeing the same images of Asians again and again you know and it's what you were saying about our invisibility actually reinforces those negative stereotypes and when you don't you know I was having a conversation with the casting director at the roundabout actually and and and he was saying well you know you know I'm from the south and southern guys are you know are stereotyped all the time as well you know like we're always you know the southern accent is sort of the Hick accent and the uneducated accent and what I wanted to impress upon him was that that's true absolutely you know white people have their diversity issues as well you know and that's why they're part of this conversation and and why we need to get them as allies in order to make change however you know you might see those stereotypes but then you go see a Tennessee Williams play you know and you're like oh wow southerners are so poetic and they're so elegant and the way they speak is so great or you see an episode of Dallas on TV or you know like there are there are lots of different you know and representations of different manifestations of white people and for many reasons Asians are only allowed to be seen one way and you know for instance you know the Coolies and anything goes and thoroughly modern Millie there actually were real you know Chinese people that came over and spoke with an accent and had pigtails and and there's nothing wrong per se with a saying them in a three-dimensional way and that story could be worth telling but I think people are just sick and tired of seeing you know those same images of Asians as the only images that are out there and and along those same lines I think it's really important to note that there was a New York Times article actually when our when our when the APAC stats were last released and if you had read that article you would have thought you know the problems of Asian actors were solved you know because this because the King and I was coming back to Broadway and Miss Saigon was going to come to back to Broadway and and and while it's true that the numbers are rising and and there are those those productions do allow for more opportunities for us to perform and thrive and sustain a career it's really interesting that there are so few Asian American stories that are being produced in mainstream theater you know I know so many fantastic Asian writers and the Mayi writers lab you know is the largest you know writers lab of its kind for Asian actor for Asian writers in the country so many fantastic playwrights who are not able to get produced and so there's a link here between you know playwrights and writers as well as all artists you know directors behind the table as well that that that in many ways the stories that are being told even here lies love it's a story that takes place in the Philippines or you know MTC is going to be producing a fantastic play by Francis Calhigg but it's about Chinese people in China you know and so constantly Asian actors are being asked to perpetuate in many ways the image of us as the perpetual foreigner and and that reinforces this othering process that I was talking about and in many ways I don't think things are going going to change until we're able to be seen as you know the fully three-dimensional complicated you know beings that we are Americans that we are as part and as part of the the fabric and landscape of the American of American society we're nearing the end but I just want to say a couple things I just have a few points that I wanted to mention one is I do want to give credit to the skylock artistic director because even after eight told me about the costumes when I countered with the proposal that we we do it a different way they were open to that and once we got rolling on that they were completely on board and so what I realized is not that the person this person is a racist that's sitting across from me it's that the idea of Asian-American is not even on their radar yet and so then that they're not against us they just don't know we exist in that sense except in their concept of how we exist and so I was he was very open to to work together and it was a great work of relationship I do want to mention that it was skylock opera which is an opera company rather than a GNS Gilbert Sullivan group which who are in a sense not even thinking about us and so what happened in Seattle our good friends in Seattle with the Mikado recently where it was on and the NBC news and all the stuff because it was a GNS company and they're basically in their own world and so they have their own idea of who Asians are in the Mikado and they simply don't even think about asking Asian-Americans about that the other thing is I do want to mention and this is again one of those good stories is that Charles McMahon who is the artistic director of the Lantern Theater that Sarah was talking about is actually now a part of an initiative to support and develop Asian-American theater in Philadelphia and that blew my mind so there's that kind of opportunity for people who don't necessarily think about us or it at the time but are willing to then make an adjustment willing then to discover something that is just not here and in that sense I feel like there's opportunity and then a third thing is just that B. Noe and Justin who are the two Asian-American actors in Philadelphia but actually no longer just those two or those three have started a group called Papa my dad no Papa Philadelphia Asian performing artists and that's hugely exciting because that's going to be the beginning of something very big here but so just with that I just want to open it up we only have a few minutes left but yes you need to be recorded. Even though the Mikado and Seattle was what got the national attention because it's a really really small tiny company that does one show here in Seattle I want to just highlight what I want to encourage people to do building on what Rick just said is that one of the things that we've long done in Seattle with a lot of other companies where originally they call us up and they're saying you know we're thinking of casting this lead actor in this show that's about like a Korean folk tale and this is like the sixth largest theater in Washington State and but we're going to cast them white what do you think about that and we have these conversations with them and they ended up casting all Asian and it was great giving opportunity and other shows where there's like 20 some Asian American actors working with them long in advance in the casting process sometimes a year in advance to make sure that there's actors ready for the roles working with artistic directors of leading theaters where they're willing to actually offer acting classes even for actors if they need a large pool of actors and there's some actors who just need a little bit more experience working with training studios to offer diversity scholarships and how to help select that but one of the things that I really want to encourage is these leaders in each of our communities rather than waiting for these theaters to come to us with these questions and using those opportunities it's great when we do that and rather than waiting until something blows up in our faces the Mikado was something that was just weird because they're such a small company that they're not even on most people's radar in Seattle to be honest but is what one of the things that Roger and I do over the years is we look at what companies when they're about to announce their seasons or especially when they're just thinking about their seasons and even in advance of them deciding what their seasons are actually setting up meetings with different artistic directors going have you looked at this play and figuring out strategizing with them well in advance of that so it's making those meetings like Randy was saying and what Rick was saying where you make the meetings ahead of time before they even announce seasons before they even started casting and working with them to try to educate and create awareness about the opportunities of non-traditional casting and then the other thing I just want to say is a lot of playwrights in Seattle we have a lot of writers groups and a lot of them who are non-people of color they have started writing in their character persona list this world should reflect the real world therefore all the characters should not be white or they should reflect age and diversity of ethnicity and race and we're encouraging more and more playwrights to kind of put that out there and that's actually gotten more directors think oh I never even thought about that but that's what's opening up the non-traditional casting in Seattle can I just have one comment on that that work I mean if you have the energy and the time to look at what everyone else is doing and to go and to talk to them about it God bless you I don't have that time I shouldn't be their educator I shouldn't be the police that's not why I came into the arts that's not why I'm in the arts so if there are people who want to do that that's awesome but as a producer of a theater company I'm concerned about the community and making sure that the Asian American community and where I live is represented well and I can't be the police I don't think I should be they should figure out that in the meantime I'm going to focus on telling stories untold stories that need to be seen and heard just a footnote to Kathy actually and on the importance of being vigilant and I know it's weary sometimes to constantly protest or to constantly be the police sometimes I think again in this ecosystem some of us want to take on that role and others we all have to find our place in it and so do what you do best right but in terms of a footnote to the Seattle situation while that company is yes a small company at the same time there is a convention of Gilbert and Sullivan companies who then have said listen this has gotten national press it's gotten on NBC we have to stand up and pay attention and so it then is partly on us yes to be vigilant because there is this attention and to constantly say if there are more of these productions wait a minute you guys saw what happened in Seattle I thought you were all talking to each other so I think we all have to continue to do our part but people are paying attention I'm just going to add is that I think in Seattle there is somebody in the community said yes when they go to her for helping casting a show they'll say yes I'll help you but I want to make sure that you keep on thinking about this particular role that's for a black person but thinking about casting black actors and your other shows that don't specifically call for actors and I think that could apply to us just as well for Asian actors I actually had that follow-up conversation with the Gilbert and Sullivan Society when they came okay we want help if we never do the Mikado again and so I had an honest conversation because they honestly thought we cast the best actors so no Asian-American actors came and they said well if you're going to do outreach in terms of Asian-American actors have you thought about you need to do it for all of your Gilbert and Sullivan shows it should not just be for the Mikado and we should have a separate conversation about the Mikado specifically and they are actually open and they're doing that with the protest group Hi I'm Francesca and I'm based in New Orleans and so I just feel like I want to put a little bit into the conversation for everyone about Asian-Americans in the south where there isn't a flourishing Asian-American you know community and I think often times I find myself in this hard rock what is that I don't know you know hard place where it's like I don't want to be the only person educating people that this is incorrect and I also recognize that I have a responsibility as someone in the community to say something if no one else is and you know having we just had a production of Cuckoo's Nest in New Orleans where the Native American chief was played by a white man and no one seemed to have a problem with it and I was the only one crying you know in the hallway and it makes me think what if there's an Asian character in these spaces and what does that mean and I have allies within the community but they're not Asian-American right so it doesn't feel the same so what do you do in those I'm curious about what people do in those communities you know we actually have had a couple of instances where people have written us at APEC about these things that are happening on a national level and what we have is a do better letter that we send to these theaters and it really does help one to have another group that that is showing them that what they're doing is actually getting you know it's being flagged by other organizations that are outside of the New Orleans area for instance that it could result in brand reputational damage or reputational damage to their brand you know that there's this larger organizations out there that it's not just a bunch of actors who are complaining or just you who sees this because it's certainly it's one of those things where I think people don't pay attention until it seems like there's a ground swell of support behind you know behind that just briefly too we haven't really talked about dramaturgy or included scenic designers much or all of our designers around diversity and inclusion we want to make sure that behind the scenes in the production of the plays we're also advocating for them as well one other thing that came up in a conversation around diversity and inclusion recently with that I had with a major consultant in the field is critics the critics that come to see and critique our plays are usually through the lens very much a white lens and so we were recently reviewed at ours at play and the person honestly did not understand the dynamic of the immigrant experience the Korean immigrant experience it was very clear in the way they articulated their critique and it's not to say that they have their point of view and we learned from it but then we I've seen it where all of our patrons come and they absolutely relate so I'm challenging us to also encourage our writers in the API community to think about going in to being reviewers so that we start to get points of view in the critiques out to the greater public as well through our lens and POC critics in general I didn't want Randy to get it because he has a whole dissertation on critics but anyways so if you want to learn more about that but the last question because we're running out of time please or last comment yes it's both really my name is Jonathan and I'm from London and I just want to say a big thank you so it's more this ecosystem that you mentioned it's not just national it's also international with the orphanage out what happens which in a nutshell one of China's greatest plays cast all whites with two Chinese actors working on a dog puppet and a half Japanese actress who looks white playing the maid it was in our national press and conversations the fact that Asian Americans did write in did support a really big difference that people their eyes were looking at really and so I think that so that's very helpful and I have to really thank Qatar and Jeff and Juliet and Asian Arts Initiative and Gale for facilitating myself to be able to come and be at Qatar this year and I would say there's a word of caution there's all these diversity training initiatives you can get caught in the training trap the RSC and the National Theatre in the UK who have millions and millions of pounds off from the government and have hundreds of people in their acting company they've ran all these workshops to meet lots of actors of the past year and yet no one's been employed they've had all these meetings with the directors and promising this that and the other and no one's been employed you know and all these meetings happen before the end of March which is the potential year so then they can say they've met us sign off the love you know write into the funder and they get the money for talking to people instead of getting money for actually employing people so I'd be cautious to put in employment quotas not just training quotas it's one thought the second thought is that you know choose your battles around is really right you know we've got to choose the battles we've got to fight obviously communicate with our allies so I myself this year have just got onto the Western producer training course so I've now had an emerging Western producer or new producer and I don't know whether I can pursue that or not but that allows me to have that's probably the battle I'm choosing to allow me to have the conversations with those people and the counterparts and broader which I'm hoping to do in about four weeks time and to have that product available it's funny you mentioned who's afraid of Virginia Woolf I think an Asian American version of that I've been touting for quite a long time and various Shakespeare's etc that are you know a much more Asian or Asian American based I have a I have a track record of doing that and it's you got but you've got to partner that most actors I know in Asian descent want to work with I hate to say this with white directors and I've had conversations with people here quite a few you know and so you should you know I don't want to fuck your Asian um who's afraid of Virginia Woolf I'd rather be you know the spear carrier in you know whatever you know against that background I you know maybe everyone has to choose their battles I'll leave it there thank you very much thank you so much to the panel please give them thank you all and I'm going to hand it over to Gail again take you just yeah thank you so much the panel and to all of you for being part of this discussion just a couple of other additional opportunities to continue the conversation I know some of you are aware that the third floor of this building is set up as a cafe style hangout space and so for those of you who aren't already sort of scheduled to go to too many panels or readings if you want a chance to be able to you know sort of catch up with other individuals and or in small groups we invite you to use that space however you however you need um