 Two, one, and we are live now. Welcome everybody today for our third edition of the Segal talks here from New York from the Graduate Center CUNY. My name is Frank Henschger, I'm the artistic director of the Segal Center and with us today we have the great Thomas Ostermayer from the Schaub-Bühne Berlin. The Segal talks are aimed to really give a space in this time where we are so overwhelmed with everything to also think and to talk and listen in how the global theater community is trying to make sense out of it, what's on their minds but also how they're dealing with everyday life and struggles and in the time of Corona we do live in. The Segal Center if I understand right in all of big city of New York is the only center or theater center that is open and producing daily. Everything is closed, the streets are empty, the hospitals are full, devastating numbers and we are all affected by it. So it's for us a great opportunity and really I'm so thankful for Thomas to take the time to hear from the leaders in our field. What does it mean for the theater? What does it mean for making art? What does it mean for our daily lives? What will change and how is the situation? So Thomas, first off, where are you? I'm at my home in Berlin. So you're in Charlottenburg or in Kreuzberg, where are you? In Schöneberg, between Charlottenburg and Kreuzberg. In Schöneberg, on the Roteinsel, the Red Island. Yes, close to the Red Island. The Red Island in Berlin. So what's the situation? The Schalbin in Berlin, one of the great ships on the ocean of theater, what's happening? The situation is that we shut down like two and a half weeks ago and since we are online, for 12 days now, every night, 6.30, we are streaming great productions of the last 60 years of Schalbin in Berlin. Tonight, at 6.30 p.m., you can see Hamlet, which we were supposed to bring to New York in the fall to BAM. We never brought this production to New York. I doubt that we make it, but I do still hope to be in New York with this production in autumn. And we're doing video conferences and we are providing our audiences with this streaming, but also at 6 o'clock, before the streaming goes online, we have every day another actor of the ensemble talking to the audience, and reading a text, improvising, singing, making music, something to tell the audiences out there that we are still existing and that we are hoping to find them again soon in 3D dimensional theater. And that's what's happening. We started another campaign today. I've been asking a lot of important writers to make a contribution to our daily online event between 6.30 p.m. And I can tell you that we have great writers like Didier Eribon, but also Edouard Louis that we have people from United Kingdom, from Germany, from all over the world writing a special text. Some of them are going to perform them. Milo Gao is also participating, a famous Swiss political director. And some of them will read their text in front of a camera. And others who are a bit shy like Didier Eribon will be read by Nina Haas. And this is going to start something like in 2 weeks. Until then, we will have the contribution of our ensemble of actors. Yeah, that's the situation. That's a first small answer to your question. I can also talk about the situation in Berlin, the overall social situation, political situation, whatever you're interested in. Well, first of all, thank you. I think that is a great idea. Much easier, I think, because of recording and union rights to stream existing productions, but it's a wonderful look back to the work the show has done over a decade since it's very, very beginning with the idea to invite artists and writers to react and maybe we get the text translated and we do it again at the Segal with Hull round and have an international context. The idea also is to see how is the global community doing. We had Taylor Mack and Kristen Martin from the Art Center at the very beginning and they created something that's called trickle up. It was the idea like a Netflix for artists like you could pay $10 a month and you will have access to 50 artists who produce something, but the money that is generated goes directly to the artist encourages them and perhaps there's also a model it's a trickle up in New York NYC.org. I think it's a great, great thing. We yesterday spoke with Mok Shi Yu from Hong Kong and who said, you know, we are under lockdown. Nothing really happens to hear there are rehearsals, but he says the real fight is for us rating, you know, for independence and for democracy. This is a pause in the terrible pause, but this is not even the big thing on our minds whenever you guys think you go back to normal for us will be others. We had Shu Yi Liao, she's a great choreographer from China and she said she uses her time to to observe her body and the stillness. He says it's all I have. I have a body and two organs and thinking and going on from that and Hanshah and Feng director on drama talk with said he's realizing that cypress space is actually real. We all think it's not a real, but now it's part of our reality and it is real and this is a game, a game changer. So, yeah, tell me a little bit about your conversations with your fellow artists. I'm a very creative person. The showbunner is so known that one of the few theaters that actually thinks internationally globally productions are thought of made the fit in the content they can be done you have different sets. Remember from your talk at the Segal here. And last time you came how important it is for you to be globally connected. So how do you feel now how do you as an artist feel in this moment. There are a lot of different levels as a private person there's the artist but there's also the political aspect of it all I was thinking of that when you were mentioning the colleague from Hong Kong who is saying the real fight is happening after corona crisis, fighting for the citizens. And I think also in the other parts of the world, the real fight is to come after corona crisis because there is the danger that extreme right powers are profiting of this situation that people are asking for security that the citizens are going to be rebuilt that nationalism has an even bigger comeback as it already had before a corona crisis. And what's happening in Europe is that borders are closed again. The nation in Europe is putting up other different standards of security. France has has incredible severe restrictions to the to the freedom of the people living in France are only allowed for one hour a day to go out. One kilometer around the house. Sweden is doing the opposite there's still cafes restaurant everything is open. All these countries are part of European Union and it's very depressing to see that in this moment of crisis that the notion of nation is coming back and then borders are being put up again and what's happening in Hungary with Victor Orban is even more depressing that he is taking this as a chance to install terrorism in his so called democratic country which is part of European Union. So this is this these are my my concerns as a political thinker that we are already in the middle of the fight against extreme right and against violence of the extreme mind we had terrible attacks as you know in the last months on a synagogue in Hala we had an attack on Turkish bars and restaurants in Hanau where a lot of people were killed and so we have we have terrible violence from the extreme right and and I'm I'm a bit afraid that that this is getting even worse because the mentality of people might look for more stability for conservative answers to modern questions or to questions of modern time because for sure this crisis is also a global crisis or a crisis of globalization or the crisis which is linked to the reality of globalization because it can travel the whole world in a very fast speed. I'm very careful of giving any sense to what's happening here there's a lot of talk going on of people saying are now we can concentrate on ourselves again. We can take it as a break where we can maybe invent new ways of thinking about the world new ways of being as human human beings in this globalized world. I'm very careful with this because first of all I don't think there's any sense to it. It's just an epidemic. It's a catastrophe and there's no interpretation to this and then nobody is guilty for what's happening and a lot of people amongst them Bill Gates as just been reading two days ago where already for years warning that this will happen a pandemic worldwide pandemic and that we are not well prepared and and as far as we can see now we are not well prepared and we do again face something which is part of our social reality that the poorest are suffering the most under this situation under this situation up in Germany for example there are a lot of what we call tough and where people homeless people or people living in precarity can go and get food for free. And this food is coming from supermarkets at the end of the day food they cannot sell anymore. And I do believe as far as I've heard more than half of these institutions had to shut down because they don't get enough food anymore from the supermarket because people are buying as crazy. As it can be food in the supermarket so there's nothing left for the really for the for the poor ones and the people who are homeless and living in the street. So, yeah, it is it is a test for our democracy for our societies but I'm afraid that some of our societies are undergoing a much more severe test than others I'm thinking of families of people in precarity who do have to spend 24 seven at home. In a tiny little apartment was I don't know, three kids four kids five kids. And of course there is the danger of domestic violence under these circumstances or psychological violence. So, I think I do believe again, we are not sharing all at the same degree, the results of this epidemic. Some can deal I know a lot a lot of people who left New York, for example, who are lucky enough to have a little house close by and live outside New York. But this is also true for other parts of the world I do have friends in Paris, who are lucky enough to have a beautiful house in Britannia and can go there. So, this is another reality, then, then being somebody, what they call in France, son papier, which are immigrants who don't have any passport or any ID card. And they live without any, without any social welfare industry under the bridge of the motorway in in in Paris, and nobody can really take care of these people and we do have a comeback of family. All of a sudden, we are talking as if everybody of us has a family at home, and can go home and spend their time with the family, and with children, people in Paris, for example, who are not allowed to spend time with other people, only if they do share an apartment. But what is happening if you're living in a partnership, is it a homosexual heterosexual partnership and your partner is not living with you and your partner cannot meet and not allowed to meet. I'm thinking about the devastating results for people working in sex industry, who don't have any welfare, who don't have any possibility to survive under these given circumstances. And of course, because my brother is a doctor and is running a hospital in the south of Germany, my biggest concern is of course with these people working in the health sector and working, I don't know, some of them do have shifts of 48 hours, nervous breakdown and trying to help, yeah, the people to survive and putting their own life at risk because they might get infected because there's not enough masks, there's not enough protection. But all I'm saying here, I think as far as I heard, it's much more severe in New York when it comes to hospitals and health services. Here in Germany, my brother is always talking about, my brother, the doctor, he's talking about that they are all in the hospitals, they are waiting for the tsunami. So in Germany, specialists, medical experts do not think that we are already undergoing the tsunami, which means we are not there where the peak of the epidemic will happen and people are expecting the peak. Some do say in three weeks, others say in June. So this is also a kind of perspective on the future, which is very frustrating and very depressing because there's still a long, long way to go before we really know what are the results of this terrible situation. At the same time, already people I knew did even die of Corona. Who did you know? Well, I can tell you because it was in the newspaper, but the partner of Klaus Wolverine, who was our mayor and very famous mayor in Berlin for years, his partner just died on the last weekend as a result of the virus. So it's getting close and threatening. How is the feeling on the street? Do you go out? Do you wear a mask? Do you go out? What do you see? You are such an observer and what do you pick up? Well, I do go out. I do go jogging. I do go to the supermarket with my mask on. Berlin is a strange place. There was, in the first few days of this situation, there were a lot of people in the street. There were a lot of people on the playgrounds. There were a lot of people kind of, let's say, deliberately ignoring the threat of the virus. There were even what they called Corona parties. So people were gathering party because they didn't take it for serious. That has changed now, fortunately. Which means now people do take much more, do spend much more awareness when they go out. Still, I'm surprised how many people you can find in the street when you go out. And I'm always wondering if it's really only the two who are allowed. Because in Germany, you're only allowed to go out with the people you share a flat with. So your partner or your children or grandparents, if they live with you, but you're not allowed to be outside in a group or together and have a coffee. But this is still happening. Every now and then you can observe it. Every now and then you can observe people doing this. And I'm always wondering why they're doing it and how they perceive this situation. Because it is obvious that we all have to be careful and to flatten the curve. Everybody knows it and it's so obvious. So it should be different. But still, Berlin is a city which survived the air bridge, the isolation of the Russians when the Americans brought food to the city. Berlin people always have this spirit of resistance, of very, very dark humor, very witty and cynical at times, and always with this belief, well, we survived the First World War. We survived Second World War. We survived the years of the Berlin Wall. We survived, as I already mentioned, this blocking by the Soviets. So we are not to harm. And this is still a little bit the situation. Some of the people when you go to the supermarket are very hysterical and you really can see the fear in their eyes whilst other people are becoming softer and nicer and taking care of others. People taking care of older elderly people living alone, doing the shopping. I've been doing shopping in my house for an older woman. I've been doing shopping for somebody who was infected by the coronavirus and was not allowed to go out. So it's times where you need solidarity, but also times where you can find solidarity, which is a beautiful thing to see that there are people taking care of others. But for you, like to talk now, as Thomas, the artist, I mean, Hannah Arendt, she always talked about the private, the political, but the inside voice, which she felt was lost, you know, or was ignored. That's what Germany, the dark side, well, your inner voice, what does it tell you? What do you think about life and death and in your house, possibly? What are your thoughts at the moment? What do you really, what goes through your mind? Well, part of what goes through my mind I've been already mentioning. The first and most important thing for me is there is a lot of conspiracy theory out there, which you can find in social media. There's a lot of disbelief out there. There's a lot of theories saying this is because economy was going down and now they spread this virus and things like that. But also what's happening is that people give to this event a strange esoteric touch. And this is for me so important in this situation to stay sober and to clearly separate between this catastrophe of an epidemic and social reality and political reality and not link these things in a stupid way and stay sober in the sense of, yeah, this is a catastrophe, but we cannot give it more sense than there is because there isn't any sense to this. There is no sense to this. You know, there are people that are friends of mine saying, ah, yeah, okay, we need to show solidarity by social or physical distance. Maybe the virus wants to remind us of something that we have to digest it on our own, that we have to show solidarity by cleaning something inside of ourselves. I don't believe in this. I don't think we should go into this trap of giving a biological reality more sense than it has. It does not have more sense than, okay, we have to make sure that it doesn't hit us that hard the way it can hit us. We have to make everything that it doesn't hit us. When you ask for me being confronted with deaths and more existential questions about life, at the moment I'm feeling numb. I'm really feeling like something hit me. Like as if you were walking in the street and then, I don't know, a cannonball hit you or a hammer hit you and you fall down and when you try to get up and get back to your consciousness you feel numb. And this is how I feel. So I cannot say really what it means or what it means to me or how I'm dealing with it in the moment or does it have any results on me thinking about art or on me thinking about human existence. I can only tell you what I'm missing but what I'm missing is probably everybody else missing. I'm missing to go out with friends and have a drink. I'm missing the sound of a bar with a lot of people. I'm missing the sound of a restaurant. I'm missing the social life. I'm missing the vibe which is in the air when you go to a concert. I'm missing the feeling in our foyer, in our entrance hall of our theater before show when people desperately tried to get the last tickets and rushing in and I'm missing this feeling. We had the day before we had to shut down our theater. We had a premiere of Marius van Mijnburg. So I do still have very present this feeling of a premiere where everybody's excited, not only the people on stage and behind the decoration but also the people in the foyer, the people coming to see the premiere. Everybody is excited. So these social events where you by the pure feeling, you don't even have to talk to somebody. You feel the vibe in the air of the social community of people coming together celebrating something. In the end theater is, even though it is very often dealing with death and questions of power and the evil and terrible tragedies. In the end theater is a celebration of life. And the celebration of, we are celebrating the death, the people who are dead but left behind the beautiful place and the beautiful thoughts. So not being able to celebrate this anymore, this coexistence of life and death. I miss a lot. So I'm numb and I'm missing a lot of things. I'm missing also to meet people and take them in my arms and to say hello. And I'm missing this. Yeah, a lot of things which which makes it worse to be on this planet. Yeah. Yes, thank you and really for sharing and this society perhaps as you said has not prepared Trump famously canceled Obama's council for such epidemics in the United States they're most probably the richest country one of the most ingenious countries in the world cannot produce 50 cents face masks. And a lot of news come out that even tubes that go in for the, in case if you even have the respirator machines they are running out of tubes. And that was known four or six, eight weeks ago that this might be more now so Hawaii can be produced the hospitals have been starved and a lot of infections do happen because of catastrophic hygienic procedures and also of clearly the politicians and I'll say you stay inside you didn't take care of the basics, especially in America is in Germany still is a good example of how perhaps it will be in a better way we all will see but the numbers still are encouraging but still has theater. I want to add something here because before we went online you've been telling me about the disastrous situation of artists in in New York, who I will send my solidarity here. Even if it's only spiritual, but I'm with with these people in my mind. I also wanted to add. There is in Germany. Similar situation for the independent artists. So artists who are not under a permanent contract. The people working in our theater 220 are under permanent contracts. And we are now on a term which is called in German codes by which means that we are officially asking our employees to work so they are on zero percent of working hours, and they get 60% of their wages they get and salaries they get from the state, and we are adding another 30%. So everybody working as a permanent employee in Chaubühne gets 90% of their monthly salary and this is for the moment. Very good solution for us and for the people working with us. This will stay or this is possible to stay for the next few months. Maybe even for half a year without us as a company being too much in danger because Chaubühne is a private which is which is special as a German theater institution it's a private theater we are not owned by the city or by the state we are private theater. Even though we get subsidies by subsidies by by the city, but we are as a team who are running the Chaubühne. We are ourselves responsible for this for this company. But there are of course a lot of independent actors independent directors independent costume designers and so on and they are finding themselves in precarity, like from one day to another. Because they don't have a job because their show is not taking place, because the performance is canceled and so on and I have to say and I have to admit that Germany is really trying to find good solutions for these people. And the city of Berlin has been putting up kind of what they call Schutzschild so it's a safety protection shield for people who are independent artists. And I've, I heard a lot of my friends who are independent artists did get money on their account today. So they've been applying online on Saturday. And already today on Wednesday, they got 5000 euro to pay their rent to have something to eat and and to survive the next, I don't know, two, three months. So here I really have to praise the city of Berlin and the responsible politicians in this city for being very effective and non bureaucratic. Very unusual for German institutions. This immediate help without any bureaucracy. So there are some good news in this situation. But again, I mean, I'm talking probably mostly to an American audience here. Big, big difference to the United States. Yeah, amazing. Maybe you could sign up for trickle up NYC.org for Taylor and others, you know, they would mean a lot to them to have your name on their others. But the question is, have we as the theater makers been prepared in a way also for times like this? Are we thinking about all the people you talked about earlier? Homeless, the sex workers, people who don't have the permanent jobs. Has our theater been reaching them or can we now do something or will we do something that maybe also it looks as them for an audience, the healthcare workers who are now working over times like your brother. Is there something that theater can offer? Or is this? Yeah, well, there of course there's something theater can offer. But first of all, what we are already offering and we do get incredible feedback is the streaming of 60 years of show. And we are putting these streams online for free, which is which is incredible because it's only possible because the artists on stage agreed because the teams for set design costume design music directors, they all agreed that it is for free. And we even found an agreement with publishing houses, because a lot of the writers are still alive from the place. Or it is a translator or somebody who did the adaptation. But even there we found an agreement. A lot of the people did tell us that they don't want to be paid like matters for mind book who did all the Shakespeare translations for me. And we found an agreement with a lot of publishing houses. And so that they they get a tiny little amount of money, which hopefully they do give to their writers because writers as always in theater are the last in line and the ones who are very bad badly paid in the in the theater system. If you ask if we were prepared. I think, and we probably been talking about this when we had our artists talk in the Segal Center when I was in New York the last time. My theater was always trying to talk about social realities trying to talk about the rich and the poor trying to talk about a society of class. And one of the last shows I brought to sand and warehouse in Brooklyn was returning to reams by didier a ribbon, which is a book about the failure of the social democratic parties in the Western world, which is about the triumph of neoliberalism, which is about how this poison of neoliberalism, even in fact that social democratic parties who who do have a historical mission to take care of the poor, and the people working hard and not earning a lot of money. I was trying to attack these issues these questions. And we're dealing with a lot of effects of this neoliberalistic ideas you're dealing with it in the corona crisis in your hospitals. Great Britain is dealing with it was your national health service. France is dealing with it. I've been talking to didier a ribbon was going to write a text for us about this issue and he says that they have been disastrous cuts in the health system in the past. And now they do have even if even though they don't have as many people infected like in Germany, they have a lot of a lot more people dying. And maybe this is linked to the fact that their health care system is not at the best state of the art. Have we been prepared. I mean, I think if you if you look on on on the reality of theater makers in Berlin, but also in London or in New York or in Paris. Let's face it, our audience is a bourgeois audience 90% of it is a bourgeois audience and the bourgeoisie the class of bourgeoisie are the ones who are paying to be entertained. What I'm saying here is not need is no news because this is Bertolt Recht talking when he wrote his famous text, Rieder an die Schauspieler, where he where he said, the actor do be aware that you are hired by the entertainment industry of the bourgeoisie. And yes, they want to be entertained. Yes, they want to be put into question they want to be more or less mirrored with our work, but they don't want to be existentially put into question or their reality of living in a class system where some do have more and a lot of people do have nothing. They don't want this to be put into question. So, if you're asking me, have we been prepared to this, maybe I'm going to sit here so there's a corona of the sun now and you're here. By the way, this is the enemy of the people right the city sign in front in the backup you for. Yes, that's a beautiful painting. Paying tribute of course everybody can see to Jean basquiat famous New York painter, but it is paying tribute and it was done by Katarina time for the set of enemy of the people. I don't know where I stopped so maybe we go on. Yeah, you mentioned brecht and we also. Yeah, I mentioned that yes and I mentioned the fact, which, which audience we're talking to. So, to answer your question, have we been prepared is isn't your question is not only an artistic question. My question is a political question. So, if you're asking me, have we been prepared to find ourselves in a globalized neoliberal world. No. No, we did probably not fight enough against it. So as political people. We haven't been. We are not prepared as artists. I'm doubting that we with our art can bring change here as a colleague from Hong Kong has been mentioning I do believe that he is bringing change by being in the street. Of course, with our theater with our literature with our movies we can accompany these movements, we can bring thoughts we can bring reflection, we can. We can bring new voices on stage, so that they are heard, we can bring people on stage who usually do not have a stage to talk about their situation to talk about the misery, and so on. It's important to have a stage where you are heard, but change will only come from street and not from stage stages is a place. I mean, there are people who do tell us that Greek theater has been invented after the person was so theater maybe needs peaceful times to develop their beauty. So going back to Brecht and we mentioned that also yesterday Brecht said his theater is a theater for the children of the technological age. We moved into the digital age and we do theater entertainment or performances for the children of the technological age. Do you think theaters like a showbühne will now develop something like in Germany we have the Spaten theater like the three like ballet opera drama will show being also we will have an online army will have a digital and this is over where we have a presence is theater will you do theater theater. I'm doing theater, because it is not two dimensional. In a lot of my writing on theater, I've been always stressing the point. What is the power of theater why is theater an important art form. I believe theater is an important art form because people are sharing a space and what's happening is only happening in front of their eyes in this very moment. It's a beautiful representation of life because life is happening in one moment and then it's gone when you're dead it's gone and theater is born and is dying every night when the curtain goes down in the end it's over. You cannot bring it back, even if you do television versions or you install like we did for all of our shows which we are showing online now they're all produced with something between three or eight cameras. But even if you put eight cameras you cannot capture the atmosphere you cannot capture the electricity which is in the air and difference to the movies in the movies the director was editing is the sign where you're watching. It's a very dictatorial way of putting something into performance art because always the director now you're looking to the shoe of the actor now you're looking to the knee. Now you're looking into her eyes the next moment you're looking into his eyes. I'm deciding for you. In theater this is not the case you're always deciding yourself where you are watching and I do believe in these times where most of what we are breathing or communicating with world is happening via a screen. And if it is produced and not live people are photoshopping people are editing people are doing post production so the everything which what you see like let's say you see a scene between two actors. They had on the set they had 30 takes for it and then the director decided which one was the best. And this is the one news which is going online and even worse when we talk about fake news when we talk about how videos how photos can be faked today. So my view on on theater is this is the power of theater that what's happening in front of your eyes what the actor is doing in this very moment is happening now and there and if he's failing or or not. He cannot fake it. It's happening. So, for me it's it's the most beautiful representation of life. A painting you take you take some of my painter friends, they take month to do a painting and then it's finished and they're always correcting and here they always work on it. I mean, in theater it's not possible. I am witnessing the moment of creativity of the actor. So I'm witnessing the, the life moment and and the life of art being produced in front of my eyes. The power of theater so I that's why I don't believe in digital versions, or I mean I do believe in digital versions because I'm streaming every night another show of our theater. But I don't believe that there is a future where the digital can replace. So shall we will not have online content. This will be with the witness of the world's and the Hamburger Bahnhofs and others. Yeah, we have, we have an online existence. We have, we have our website on our website, you can follow all our panels we're doing we have a lot of political panels we had the, the, the greatest thinkers, philosophers, social arts. The last two decades have been to show Boone have been given talks, all this you can still see online and video versions. And we do have trailers on how we produce, we do have cameras in our rehearsal room and we do put little trailers of three minutes or sometimes 15 minutes, where we're giving interviews where we're talking about our work. So this we do have a digital existence, but, but all this is for the event of the evening. Thomas what are you reading at the moment what are you listening to are you discovering something. You know what, I, I, I've been piling books on my, on my desk. Okay, now I'm going to read all these books. And one of the book is now please help me because otherwise I go to my desk for lives, this book by this American writer. You will have to go to your desk but I will. Yes. You have to entertain the people. So here we see a moment in Thomas Ostermeyer's apartment in Schöneberg. And getting his book from his bookstand, what he is reading now at the moment and I think these are great, great comments from him on, on theater we also will continue tomorrow we will have Armando and Marco from Teatro delle Albe in Italy and Ravenna by Dante town by Dante wrote a part of the media they finished I've been working on and on Friday, we will have Toshiki Okada with a specific great selfish company who actually moved his family out of Tokyo after the Fukushima disaster so stay tuned and now Thomas is back and what he's reading. This is not prepared. Of course not. Yes, people will not believe that that this is not prepared so the guy is called Hania Yanagihara. And it is and I'm reading it in German, even though I could read it in English. I have a new book of Katja Kipping Katja Kipping is the leader of the D-Lincoln leftist movement. Yes, and sitting the Bundestag. And in this book she's writing about new left majorities. Here I have a writer but I didn't, I did not even open it now. Leifrand Allegro Pastel. This is all, this is very interesting about Ronald Chanikau. Do you know, did you ever hear about Ronald Chanikau? No. He wrote a beautiful book which is called Kleinstadt Novelle. And this is a biography about him, which is called the leftist communist because this guy, the last communist here. Yes, this guy moved to East Berlin from, he came from West Germany. He moved to East Berlin in the summer of 89 before the war came down because he was a convinced communist. Only to mention another great thinker living in the States, Stephen Greenblatt, always a good choice. Yes, when it comes to theater, he's writing about something else. By the way, Stephen Greenblatt is also going to write a short text for our online existence. Last but not least, this is the book I'm working on. Oh yeah. When Corona Crisis happened, this is what I've been working on because I'm doing a stage version of Virginie de Ponte-Bernard Subutex. Great. And all three are fantastic. Yeah, and in the middle of rehearsals, we had to stop and we are probably postponing our premiere because premiere was scheduled on the 8th of May. I don't believe we can do it at this moment. So we will not hear the special music of the DJ and the last lost tapes, which everybody was hunting in the three things. We got a question from one of our listeners, Marlon Tanoff, going baby back to your Breitschen idea and a question. You know, she said the coronavirus. Marlon Tanoff is a friend of mine. Oh, he's a friend of mine. The coronavirus shows how the free market can solve all the problems. How do you see the change of the state organizing the whole economy? It's a big question for the end, I know. Too big question. Again, I can only recommend some people writing at the moment and asking these questions. There's one guy, another book in front of me, which is holding my iPad while I'm talking to you. So I'm recommending to reach off Wadi Lagannri because he is thinking about this question. How to change and he's also going to write a text so be prepared to listen to these guys. He's very critical of what's happening in France and the measurements happening installed by Macron. Because he does believe it's close to authoritarian state. And it's true. I think you're warning also about the rise that already is there of the right. Revolutions only happen when same things has already happened. They are the end result and we are all concerned. Hitler combined the great idea of nationalism and that idea of socialism of the folk of the people and combined it and that's you know, national socialism. We all know where it ended. I think hopefully we in Germany have vaccinations in our system still from that and we are protected. I hope I truly hope so, but it is concerning everywhere in the world. I think this is why we do need representation on stage at least as of you said as a mirror or as a reinforcement and to make you make you think again Thomas really. Thank you for taking time. Your work on the stage is so extraordinary and and as you said you have always wrestled with his issues as also the Italian night the Horvath piece that also shows the beginning of what happens the little changes that suddenly you know I'm a light green and the brown you know it's a great restart painting showed so and thank you and maybe we check in again we who knows how long that takes let us also know that people we should talk to maybe we can collaborate with the writers who react in Europe and the people you called and and I hope this all will will be hopefully over soon if there's one that why is you might give to young artists a young actor or young director young writer right now at the moment what would you tell to them there's often no space no money now there is no space and no money for the arts especially in New York but what would you tell an artist a young artist. Well I can I can. I'm teaching young artists. Now I'm giving online seminars for my directing students. I can see that there's big fear and that they are really. Asking themselves in what kind of reality. All of a sudden they are starting their careers in. Theater and the only stupid advice I can give them. Take it easy you are. Nevertheless the future generation and even though you have to start your your career and your work. And your life in the art. And in a terrible moment in a very difficult moment. It'll be over in one or two years and you can you can take the chance of reading more of looking more at this that's not only our presence online with theater there are other German theaters who are online there's a beautiful website which I recommend here which is called who has an incredible stock of avant-garde performances of the 20th century. So you can do study your studies might be a bit longer because we are all in this situation where we cannot meet and where we cannot perform in front of an audience. But it it it'll it'll be we will overcome this and. One thing is for sure the moment where we have for example vaccination for it. And where we all know this is over it will be an incredible party and it will be a celebration of life for for weeks maybe and we will have a beautiful. Resurrection of the performing arts and we will have a lot of people in the theaters we will have a lot of audience because we are all craving to be again in a theater space and sharing the theater experience with other audience members. Great so Thomas says prepare prepare well also for us as audience members for us as the theater makers Thomas thank you so much. Thank you to all our listeners thank you to howl round at Emerson College for hosting us I know it's a big thing for them to do it every day, but it is important that we hear a global voices the Segal Center always which is academia and professionals and American theater international and American theater at the Graduate Center CUNY in New York. So this is a, at least for us a small contribution to stay together share the loneliness, also our thoughts and also celebrate that some way we are connected thank you Thomas and tomorrow to add to that Alba from Italy Ravenna. And it was interesting to hear what our Italian colleagues and friends will say. Thank you so much.