 Welcome everybody here to the Segal Talks at the Mopney Segal Theater Center at the Graduate Center CUNY in the big city of New York, which in a way is the heart of the darkness in the moment and is broadcasting to all the metropolises and the cities of the world about that time of Corona we live in and we try to find meaning and we try to listen to artists voices. We hear so much from politicians, economic advisors and biologists by what we really need to hear is also the artists voices. They have been the true voices. If you look back over centuries, they were on the right side of history, on the right side of justice, the right side of progress. And this is a moment, again, a very serious, serious moment where things will change, already have changed, we might not have seen it or we might not know about it, we are way too close. And here we are the, perhaps the only one and I think we are the only theater institution in New York City, perhaps even in the United States doing daily new programming. This is what we do here at the Siegel Center. We feel it is important to keep that up. It's also a global dialogue. Tomorrow we have people from Pakistan and India. We had people from artists from Lebanon, from Egypt, from Germany, from Taiwan, Hong Kong, China. This is very important at work of the Siegel Center to bridge academia and professionals, theater, international Americans and the artists we talked to today also had been long friends, good friends and we admire their work. We think their work is essential in New York City and we have the great Melanie Joseph with us here today, the founder of the Foundry Theater that really early on has pointed to what is important to what a significant celebrate life, but also death. And the problems we have as Moody's say life and art should be a joyful participation in the sorrows of life. And that's what the Foundry did. It was a joyful participation in the sorrows of life and showed us about it and also gave us some signposts where to go. The great Aaron Lansman here is with us. We invented it in the way, also in the way the documentary theater participatory, socially engaged art is an enormous contribution. A unique American one also compared to the European ones of Cruisinger and Milo Rao and others and Orin's Choir and a great playwright, writer also for a film and television, one of who is able to bridge his political mission, artistic mission, social mission, Mrs. Work and also is successful the best we can hope for and that makes us proud that this is actually happening. So I thought of Melanie of course for the Segal talks we are on week three next week we're gonna have Basil Jones from the Great Handspring Company in South Africa Richard Shacknow will talk to us. Milo Rao will be with us. Guillermo Calderon from Chile and possibly from France. Athanoz Lussiere with the Big Avignon Festival has been canceled. The greatest celebration of theater in the world has really never happened. As we mentioned earlier, the mosques are closed for the first time in a thousand years. So this is a moment. So Melanie, I thought I might, and then she wrote an email to her friends and colleagues and I thought now really we should have a Melanie right away. So tell us a little bit. Well, first of all, I'm delighted to be here and I'm especially delighted to be here with these two gentlemen whose work I respect mightily. I was very moved and continued to be very moved by the many things that keep popping up on Facebook of emergency support for artists and theaters. And of course there's not, I mean, there needs to be so much more and may it continue and continue. But it makes you feel like somebody is paying attention. Somebody is, we didn't have to ask, we didn't have to beg like normal. And I have a friend who is an undocumented New Yorker who lost his job and the dead end of his living experience it was really startling to me. There are certainly no funds, emergency funds popping up from wealthy patrons and foundations and even governments for undocumented people in New York City. And I feel such a kinship of course with him, but also with all these freelance folks who've lost their jobs. And as Erin pointed out to me a while back, we've many of us in the theater have worked in restaurants and many of the people who've lost their jobs have lost their restaurant jobs. So we do share a lot. And I thought, how can we as artists, how can our community be reached? Could we actually gather 1,000 people to give $15 a month for six months? Because it's gonna be a long crisis. And I don't even know that six months is, who the hell knows? We don't know anything, do we? But then I was lucky enough to be directed to the New York State Youth Leadership Council, which is the first undocumented youth led organization in New York City. And they are wicked organized and organizers with programs and I think about 200 schools, they're organizing undocumented youth. And as soon as this pandemic began to, everybody began to lose their jobs, the organization posted applications now for an emergency fund and set about raising the emergency fund. In about four hours, they received 1,500 applications. So they had to shut it down because they knew they certainly didn't have enough real money to support 1,500, let alone all the ones that weren't able to exist. So I thought, that's who, let's add to that. Because they're really smart, they're incredibly smart organizers at this organization. It was founded in 2007 by a group of Hunter College students who were all undocumented. And they know that everybody pays attention to youth undocumented youth, to dreamers and DACA and la, la, la. But they also know that they have aunties and parents and grandparents that they have to take care of. So they understand themselves as a source to undocumented families. And so I started this, I put up a GoFundMe campaign. Here is the address. Everybody write this down, $15 a month, until September, it's like a cocktail, right? I mean, we can like toast fellow New Yorkers. So here's the site, it's H-T-T-P-S, B-I-T dot L-Y forward slash paying it sideways. Because I feel like these are, we're paying it sideways. And so far we're doing fairly well, we've, I think we have, I'm just looking it up now just to, oh, wow, more money. We've raised $11,175 for this month for, and we're trying to get $15,000 a month. And we have 164 people have registered for this month. 164 people have participated in eight days. So off we've gone, here we are. And I can't say enough how moving it is to see the performing arts community stepping up in this way to help our fellow New Yorkers who have no access to anything, not to, certainly not to any stimulus packages. I call this a grassroots stimulus package founded by undocumented youth, God bless them. Anyway, that's what I really wanted to talk about. Thank you, thank you, Melanie. We have the also website under your screen image so people can look at it and see that I will sign up too. And I also try to sign up for Taylor Macs, great trick lab NYC.org. Somehow I got rejected. I don't know why my credit card didn't work. I will try again, but who knows. Very different credit card. Yes, because I do everything. So I'm gonna sign up on paying it sideways right away. Please do to everybody, especially who can $15 a month is not asking a lot. And please put your heads in the shoes of our friends and our colleagues of the people who do the artistic work. Someone once said that even so it's an odd image, it's like the rainworms in the grass, you don't really see them, but they are the one who cultivate, put air and they would be dead without. And the same thing is, I think with art and theater and the city, the ones are visible, the ones are bigger and here and stuff, but there are also so many who work, do a work that really makes the city and life really what it is. And they're often it isn't visible, but now we really have to step up in health. It's also, as Melanie said, a long way. Melanie, why did you think Aaron and Orin should join us and maybe you asked them a bit, a question, what does their work stand for? What does their work stand for? I think you'd have to ask the audiences of that. I mean, and the participants, what I can say is that I'm attracted to their politics and the way their politics are expressed and I'm attracted to the fact that they actually are, that I actually feel like I can have a conversation about raising money for undocumented people with these two gentlemen, without it being a strange thing to do as an artist. I just feel, I feel they're brothers of mine in the creative community and I don't have that experience all the time or even as often as I wish I did. So I just feel that both of them are alive, their work is in the world. Their work is in the world. It engages with the world. It interrogates the world. Thank you. Before we come to them, where are you now? Where are you sitting? How does your days look like? How do you experience as a person? How do you experience everything? What street do you live in and how does your day look like? What do you do? Can I hear you? I don't know, yeah. Yeah. I think she can't hear you. Can't hear me. Or maybe then let's go on to you, Orrin. Okay. I just don't, I don't know. I mean, I just wanted somebody else to answer. Yeah. Okay. Okay, Orrin, so let's come to you and Melanie spoke about your work and in which way is it political and what is this new situation we all live in now? What is it adding to it? Well, I started off as a reporter in high school. So I was used to doing budget, which back then was the newspaper term for having your daily meetings and your pitching stories. So a good newspaper story always has, it's either, you know, they say, Bleeds are what Bleeds leads, but really it's something that's provocative and for longer investigative pieces, which is how I consider theater and film and TV, there has to be some gray in it for me to take an interest. So I recall a few years ago, I was working with a tectonics theater company on a project about Converso Crypto Jews. People who fled the Spanish Inquisition and settled in the Southwest of America. And I was looking for the gray area, which is a lot of these people who fled the Inquisition kept their Jewish identity secret and then use their power being under the guise of the Spanish regime to suppress Native Americans and help colonize those areas. So I'm always looking for gray. And when I was finishing that project, one of my collaborators said, hey, would you be interested in working on a Gena 6 project about black high school students and racial discrimination? And I thought about it and I said, to be honest, I don't know what the angle would be because in this case, one side, in my opinion, is clearly right and the other side is clearly wrong. And they're like, so what am I watching besides me reiterating what I already know? Whenever I dive into a drama or working on something, we're always like, what's the gray area? What's the twist? And so that's the way I write my plays. The first two brain was a political side in science fiction and all these things about aliens from outer space invading people's heads and making them really staunch right wing and really staunch left wing during an election year and destroying the country. And this happened in 2016. And we released it in the summer, which was three months too early. But we were examining not just criticizing the right and Fox News, we had to find our own parallel on the other side. And then on the good fight, the same thing at a black law firm, what are the issues that are in the gray area? And then for evil spiritual, what are the issues that are gray? Spirituality that cause us to question ourselves. If I know the answer to something, I generally don't write it. What if I know the answer so solid that it's not even, it's like, no, don't kill, don't rape and kill. It's like, okay, well, that's a tweet. That's not a. So what's the gray area? What is the gray area now? I think the gray area now is that I woke up this morning and I do my daily meditation and I was thinking about what I'm going to do. And I've been giving to pay its sideways. I've been giving to Taylor Mac. I'm happy to do that. There is a part of me thanks to TV writing the last few years that has some extra income. And I have invested money in the stock market. So there's another part of me that clicks on which is the baby capitalist. And it's terrible, but once you invest in the capitalist market system, you immediately think, oh my God, this is going to hurt my investment. And then the second thought on the capitalist side is, maybe I could take advantage of this. So I began looking on my stash account saying, what should I buy? I let pharmaceutical, healthcare, all these things. So I am contributing and paying to this donating to charities. And at the same time, there's a part of my mind that thinks, maybe I should invest in this for testing because that's going to be- But not farmers really, really, or in really. The farmers that are going to be creating the vaccines that we're going to need, they're going to be distributed around the world that billions of people are going to have to take. I'm thinking like, is that an investment? And this is just a tiny thought, a tiny germ that balances it out. And I think that as artists, our general mode is, there's a crisis, let me give, which is good. It's like, let me give, how can I contribute? How can I use my creativity? And then from the capitalist angle, there's a part of things, oh my God, this is a crisis. Are my investments in retirement protected? Number one and number two, because I didn't grow up in a rich family. I didn't grow up with all these things. Is this protect this so I can live? And then a part of me thinks, well, is there some way that I can make money so that I can kick it back into the charity? And I think that that is the icky, great area that we talk about in America because there is a difference in my opinion between giving and charity and philanthropy. And I do all three. Someone asked me, hey, I need $500 to put up a show. That's giving, I'll give that short. I'm not going to see any return on that. That's a one time, or hey, I need $500 to pay the rent. Great. Charity is, hey, we've created this organization to address your needs. And that's important too. These are your needs. And then philanthropy is, how do we create a system that's sustainable that deals with our needs? It deals with your needs, but then my needs too. And it gets rich people and capitalists who have the money to reinvest and become a sustainable system. So I'm always thinking, you know, I'm a Buddhist and I've read the Diamond Cutter Sutra which is about investments in business. They always say in Buddhism, you don't want to be a poor Buddhist. You don't want to be someone who has to rely on your parents for money, rely on this and that. You want to use your skills so that you can create a system that is sustainable because a sustainable system is able to give back to people without having to go around and annoy people. And then people jump on board, like what Melanie's doing, like what other people are doing, Taylor Mack in the arts community, those are sustainable systems because you're dealing with the community, you've invested in the community and the community is more than willing to give back. And so I'm always trying to balance those three levels of giving and charity and philanthropy. So I'm getting supplies from China and I gave away four or 500 masks two weeks ago to different doctors' offices down here. That's just, and I'm giving and all these other things and I'm thinking, okay, what's gonna be the return so that I can get more masks down the road because this is gonna last for 18 months or two years. What's gonna be the thing that are gonna be? The system in a way that you'd also say you kind of help you to sustain yourself or others, but isn't the system also the reason why things are not working? Yeah, I mean, great area. Yeah, I know, it's a great, great that you answered that. That's the great area of now. Yeah, that's right. That's the great area of now. 10 years ago, I was a mystery shopper in New York City when I was an artist and I would go around, pretending to be people who I wasn't, to try to judge how an organization ran and how business ran. And for a few weeks, I went around to investors and investment firms and pretended to be someone who had all this money and then I would solicit their investment tips. And this is several years ago, I was down at Wall Street and this investment firm was like, you should invest in tobacco stocks. And I was like, taking notes, this is me planning like, oh, okay, why tobacco stocks? Like this isn't the stocks for the tobacco company. These are the stocks and the bonds created by the states after they got the settlement for the tobacco company. So rather than give a handout to the cancer victims and families of cancer victims by the tobacco users, a lot of states like Pennsylvania and Michigan created these funds where they took it, they put it on the stock market and then they used the dividend from that to investors. Now it sounds like- It's not about disaster capitalism. It was disaster capitalism. It sounds like a great idea because the returns were 10 to 15%. And in my mind, I go, that's too good to be true. That's Bernie Madoff level returns that you don't get returns like that on a bond. And of course it did turn out too good to be true. So what happened is Wall Street, all that money for cancer patients and got people like the fake me who was the rich investor to pay into these and then the cancer victims ended up with nothing. And then Wall Street created these fake bonds, tricked the state like Pennsylvania and Michigan to put all their settlement money from Philip Morris into these funds and then took it. And so that's the awful side of disaster capitalism. Disaster con capitalism. Aaron, you also your work deals with systems, thinking in systems, how we are forced to work in systems, how we are reacting to structures that were there before us. And meanwhile we asked to create new forms, new structures and to be part of change. How are you experiencing the moment? Well, first of all, I just want to say thanks to you, Frank, but also to Melanie and Aaron who I am so loving being a listener on this conversation that I'm going to try to like not be super awkward when I talk because you've both been incredibly articulate and I like what both of you are saying so much. So I'm thinking in terms of drawing something from what Melanie said, like there's a, I got her email and I thought of all the people that like literally on a very like on the ground level, like in the 10 years that I worked at restaurants, the people who when I went through a long illness and I was working at Angelica Kitchen on 12th Street kept me fed, like they literally kept me fed. So I was like, well, it's my job to keep them fed, like to pay it back or pay it sideways makes total sense on a more macro level. What I like about this campaign and one, I'm also going to pay something into chat. So an equivalent for me is I got asked to be a mentor for something, the Center for Arts Activism is doing a really cool campaign where they're trying to ensure that's when there's an eventual vaccine that that vaccine is free to the end user, affordable to the people who are going to pay for it. So like a government is going to pay for it ideally to give to its citizens for free, right? That's not something that is going to happen automatically at all. And then that it's available to everyone on the planet because that's the only way a vaccine like that is going to be useful. And they're modeling it on Jonah Salk and Jonah Salk had this great quote that's when they asked him whether he was going to patent his vaccine. He was like, why that's like patenting this son. Why would I do that? So I'm working and I'm giving some time to the Center for Arts Activism, but like an hour a week, they asked me to be a mentor because they were like, oh, you're creative. You have these creative strategies addressing politics and kind of the formal aspects of politics. So I was like, cool, that is a world I want to see, right? Like they have people from 27 countries on board and we're learning about like arts activism in Senegal that uses news media and hip hop to create social change. And I'm like really all about that. Like I'm getting more than I'm giving. I'm also not doing that as a full-time job because I can't because I do believe that our jobs as creators, as artists are to think through these systemic changes that are happening like on the street right now, in the world right now, in politics right now, we're in the middle of something we can't see the end of. And then to envision what possible chances we might have. And Melanie and I have talked about this to embody the values we want to reemerge into. So what are you thinking about? You say, you use your time thinking. What do you think about? I'm thinking about, well, just in listening to Aaron and Melanie, I'm thinking about how I want to, I'm thinking that I desire to be a part of aid. And I'm really interested in hearing how other artists are thinking about aid. And like Aaron, I'm thinking about how these two tracks that we're on as makers who are part of a system that has massive inequities and also opportunities exist together, right? So as soon, Aaron, as soon as you spoke, I was like, right, I remember when I had, for two years I had an academic fellowship and I had a couple of other freelance gigs that were really well paid. And all of a sudden I was middle class. I could be like, hon, call a babysitter, let's see a movie. And that's like a middle class thing that I know that middle class people do, but I'd never been able to do it. And it very quickly made it hard for me to empathize with people who were struggling. Like just for that day, it was difficult for me to empathize just for a little bit. And then I became aware of it, right? So then I became aware like, wow, I've gotten a little less sensitive as I've gotten more invested in a system that perpetrates these particular inequities that I've been on the other end of for a long time in different ways, right? Kind of ridden different levels of brokenness and comfort in my life. And so I'm thinking about how do we maintain the awareness of what we want to make when we leave these apartments that we're in or these situations that we're in? How do we understand the system that we're playing in now? How do we, as Oran's talking about, use it? Or at least understand how it is being used and then really start to write down ideas about what we wanna move forward toward. So I'm thinking about like, but honestly, I wanna say too, like some of my work as an artist is about investigating the form of citizenship or forms of citizenship. Who gets asked to be a citizen? How, who gets told they are welcome in the chambers of power? And so I'm interested in making artworks that ask more of us to be engaged as citizens that think of activism as citizenship, not just running for an office. And I'm interested too in this moment politically because I think six months ago, you could not say that universal basic income was a viable issue that any major party candidate could even speak about. And I think you can speak about it now as many of us are homeschooling our kids and recognizing that domestic labor is labor that should be monetized and that universal basic income contributes to that. So like, I don't know what the theater I wanna make is about that. I know that some of the work I've been doing with my perfect city project is about like, the leaders are people who have not been asked to be leaders before. It's very hard to know what art I wanna make and if it's theater, I have to say, like, I think, and I'm trying now as we've been here for a month to think through how we want our field to embrace the values that we embody as individuals because I don't think it's always done that. And I'm curious about that. But I'm thinking more, I'm still thinking of the systems, I guess that's a little bit of a ramble. I think that I watched this really interesting, I told Erin about it. I watched this really interesting town meeting that was hosted by the rising majority featuring Naomi Klein and Angela Davis, which was really a powerful thing to attend. And I think about in particular, and I wrote to these gentlemen saying this myself, like, I wanna look at these times and see what they're asking of us. Because if it's just a matter of once this over, we're just gonna go back to, as long as we can get back to what we were doing, get back to what we were doing, nah, getting back to, I've been radicalizing myself for my whole entire life. And I've been trying to say the status quo, I've been trying to convince people, the status quo is the problem, actually. So now we have this moment, I think, to really stretch our imagination, our radical imagination as artists, and to think about what, how do we kick the door? Somebody said, how do we kick the door? Somebody said, I think it was Naomi, I'm not sure. How do we kick the door of possibility open as wide and for as long as possible? And let's face it, we wouldn't have had a Bernie or an Elizabeth Warren if there hadn't been a huge grassroots movement for them to ride in on. There is so much going on in this country and in this world that is really inspiring. There's alternative economic structures, there's alternative healthcare structures. It's something that the Foundries explored for 25 years and shared with people. And now here we are. And Naomi Klein wrote a really fabulous book a while back about, I think it was called The Shocked Doctrine about disaster capitalism. And she quotes, I'm gonna read you something because it was just so incredible. In her book, in that book she quotes Milton Friedman of all the economists for her to quote. And it's the opening quote. And he said, only a crisis, actual or perceived produces real change. And when the crisis occurs, it depends on what ideas are lying around. And so she went on to discuss in this town meeting that the reason that Friedman was focusing on having an infrastructure for disaster capitalism for the right for corporations is because he understood that when capitalism produces its own crisis, which let's face it, that's partly what's happening here. Okay? Then he understands that the left or the progressives or whatever you wanna call people who are thinking and making alternative structures, it's a huge opportunity for the left. And he actually wrote a letter, I think it was in 74, 75. I haven't looked it up to be sure. He wrote a letter to Pinochet in Chile. And he said, the thing that's wrong with your country and with the thing that went wrong with Chile, like before you became the dictator and what's wrong with my country took place in the thirties. Well, what happened in the thirties? I mean, it's kind of what we want to be happening now. It's kind of what, you know, Bernie Sanders, Bernie Sanders isn't a socialist. He's an FDR progressive. He never talked about nationalizing anything. He never, you know, he's anyway. So I do think that this is a time to really take advantage instead of disasters before disaster capitalism takes advantage and packages, whatever anyone can invest in to the detriment of other people. I think we have to think about the opportunity that this moment offers us to really invest and to really explore the kind of radical change that we do or don't want. I mean, the other question is, you know, are, yeah, I'll just stop it there. Yeah, maybe Aaron, as a question, I know you're also right for this is us or this is US and which took a pulse of the time. Is there, is this, is something happening? Will this be a time of change? Will people be radicalized? As Melanie said, will there be real change? Well, let's not talk too far. I don't think so. Because in America, we're too invested in the paradigm even though it doesn't work. And we're investing in the paradigm because it was created along tribalism and it's very effective. There's a reason why Mississippi is last in education and healthcare for like 50 years in a row. Why do white people in Mississippi keep voting for the same people when they are last in the entire country and at the level of a third world nation in health? Except, pardon me, but you know, if you look at Mississippi, if you look at what they're doing in terms of the solidarity economy movement that's growing there, it's pretty extraordinary. And I wanna tell you, Aaron, everyone in the world is writing articles about them except people in this country. Well, look at the South in general. When you look at the South, when you look at these areas in the middle of the country that have pretty bad healthcare, they have pretty bad education, they have pretty bad supplies. The answers are known of what to do. People don't wanna do it or don't wanna vote for it. So then I go, why don't they wanna vote for it? And it goes back to tribalism. And yes, part of that is the original sin tribalism of this country having to do with race and it's very, very, very effective. And it's effective in transferring over from black people to Mexicans, to Arabs, and after 9-11, it's a very effective switch to get people to vote against their own interests, to vote against their own children's interests and health and even their life. And so what I think is gonna happen when this crisis explodes or peaks and begins to go down is that Fox News and all those people will just pivot to finding the scapegoat that gets people re-entrenched in their tribal viewpoints. And those same people that voted against it- Are you saying- Can I- I'm not saying there's nothing we could do. I'm saying addressing the problem on the surface of we need this healthcare. And it's like, we all know what we need as far as healthcare. We have a terrible healthcare system. We have chosen this healthcare system. We have chosen an education system. So why do we keep making these choices that hurt us? There is a root to all of these different problems. Then unless we address it, we are gonna be playing whack-a-mole with the environment, with care, with education. And a lot of the times what I see in the arts and progressive movement is that's what we're doing. We're playing whack-a-mole and we're exhausting ourselves and we're exhausting our energy. Well, I wouldn't say the- Let's say Aaron. I think Aaron wanted to make a comment. Aaron, jump in. Well, one thing I would say is, so there's a great quote. I don't know if people read nonprofit as fuck by Voo Lee. It's a really, really great blog about how the nonprofit industrial complex perpetuates a lot of the problems it purports to wanna serve. And he's talking about, which I think I'm hoping this brings together the two of you in a way. I mean, what the two of you are saying? I think we're together, right? But like, he talks about how we on the left or in the nonprofit sector or who we identify as progress has become really good at helping out in a crisis. And then the right comes in with the next crisis. So we're here like giving, we're doing, I'm doing like some really fun stuff with my friend Flocko and Bushwick. We're trying to figure out how to get masks and sanitizer into the right hands that people who really don't have access to the internet. That feels great. But the right is meanwhile, like installing another judge, right? Like we do all these great campaigns and they get breadcrumbs on the street. So one thing I wanna say, listening to both of you is like, it is like we are prefigured, we are hoping to envision what's possible and the counter force is already happening. Like that, both of those things are evolving at once. Like they're, the stimulus package is pathetic if you're a single user and great if you're a corporation. The idea of getting rid of the post office is about keeping us from voting to continue the original inequities that founded the country that I think Orin is talking about, the land, the settler colonialism, the enslavement, right? So this is just a perpetuation of that that's trying to be done on a national scale. While at the same time, some of us are trying to go like, oh, what is this other thing we want to enter into? I went on a scary, like I give myself, like I literally put a timer on when I go down a Twitter hole of like, I'm gonna see what the other side thinks, which is I don't necessarily recommend it, but I don't not. Because like after that outburst by Trump, at his briefing where the journalists kind of finally held him to account, the entire alt-right Twitter was like, he owned the libs. Like that's what happened. So there are people that are equally entrenched in the points of view that are, as I see them, destructive as we may be desperate to prefigure. One thing I wanna just throw out maybe, and don't take it up or take it up, but I've been really, before we all went home and stayed home, I was really interested in the subject or the, I was think tossing around this phrase of like culture as survival or culture is survival. And I think there's just on my mind, which is it has to do on some kind of deep level with like putting us back together with the public sector that we originally came from, right? Like library, schools, culture, they feel equally important food, land, housing. But Frank, when you asked the question about what am I thinking about creatively, I think about culture as survival and literally as survival, the survival of people who have been enslaved, the stories and songs. And then also on a really scary way, the Charlottesville March a couple of years ago was culture as, it was trying to preserve the survival of a culture, a culture that has been dominant for so long and people I think got a glimpse that it was scary that they might not survive or that there was a chance they wouldn't. So that's what that, for me, this is just that moment where we're thinking about what culture as survival means. That's what I'm thinking about a lot. And on culture, no, that is the issue that the right and disaster capitalism has over us. They've created a lifestyle. We talk about issues. They talk about a lifestyle choice. And this lifestyle choice was created in the 60s in the midst of rebelling against the hippie movement and has consistently worked for the last 60 to 70 years and most of the states in the middle of the country. And it's the four or five Fs, flags, fetuses, firearms and the F word for gay people is what they depend on and they sell that with the Bible in a cross. I'm not saying it's right, but it is a very strong, easy to identify lifestyle choice. And- For sure. And Robin says after Adam essay address the death of the progressive movement happened in the 60s because the progressive movement from abolition to the 60s was attached to a spirituality and it created a lifestyle choice. Being a left wing person was attached to who you were on Sunday through Saturday. And after the 60s, the left became less spiritual in the churches in New York city and then Boston started dying. And the progressive movement, well intention became more political and more atheistic. And then the lifestyle choice sort of split up and it just became a matter of different issues rather than this is how you should live your life. And we need to create a left wing progressive new choice as far as a lifestyle. This is how we view the world holistically, not just issue by issue, not disaster by issue. How do you then, how do you look at the resurgence in the last 50 years of the grassroots movement and their own self-determinating power and their own, and their sort of intersectional understanding of this movement. And I mean, for example, when I went to that Zoom town meeting there were 20, they had to shut it down because there were 20,000 viewers or 25, whatever's the max that Zoom allows. And more than half of them were from around the world. And this, and when I used to go to the World Social Forum there were 186,000 people representing people from all over the world. Some came in bare feet for fuck's sake. I mean, so how do you, and I ask this genuinely trying not to be like, how do you, but really how do you metabolize those millions and millions of people that have been building for 50 years? No kidding. I mean, I'll just say one more thing. When I started the Foundry in 94 I didn't even know this. I found out when I was working on the book at that time that there was a huge proliferation of community-based organizations in New York City. One after a number were all coming up in the early 90s. This is the result of a lot of work that has been going on before that. But now the social justice organizations in New York it's a thrilling world of people and communities. And so anyway, how do you metabolize that? I posted this on Facebook where I was in Williamsburg doing my laundry, mostly Latino and black people there late at night on Friday and the Democratic debates were on. And every time Bernie Sanders spoke everyone sort of was pausing. You could hear it quiet down. They were listening to what he was saying. He was tapping into something that spoke to people. And then I come down here to Miami and Miami is less concentrated. It's a little bit older. And all I heard was from Democrats, oh my God, we can't get Bernie Sanders as the, please not Bernie Sanders. And so sometimes I realized my New York progressive view isn't held even by liberal centrists in the middle of the country and other areas. I could tell them, look, black and Latino people were enraptured by what he was saying on the TV and they'll say, they're not gonna vote or they're gonna vote unreliably or they're gonna vote in a crisis. And then two years later in the midterm elections the Democrats are gonna get slaughtered which is typically what happens when the Democratic president is in office. People get excited on the charisma of Obama and two years later the Democrats lose everything because it's not consistently focused. People are really great. And the left wing has a really good heart. It comes out when there is, like Aaron said, a crisis or when there's a tragedy, you have a disaster thing but then how do you sustain that beyond it? I have to ask you this question again because number one, do not think that this fundraising campaign in any way is my activism. It's not, it's an obvious thing to do. And it'll happen, there are way bigger things or different kinds of ways that I can engage myself. This is one. That said, I don't think there would have been an Elizabeth Warren or a Bernie Sanders if they didn't have a movement to ride in on. And there certainly wouldn't be the squad in Congress if there wasn't a movement for them to ride in on. And I don't think it's just New York. My God, in fact, New York is the smaller of the congregations of community-based organizations. There's more in the South. There's more in Detroit. There's more in believe it or not, in Mississippi and in Chicago. And so I mean, what do we do? Do we just, I mean, how do we align ourselves with that in a way that makes us feel that there is possibility because these folks can show you the reason I went to the kids that I went to to give this money to is because the possibility in their bodies is extraordinary. Yeah. And I don't think one negates the other. Like I said, I give on multiple levels. I give to the person on the street. I give to the charity. And then I give to philanthropy to build long term. And I think you have to give to multiple levels. I'm saying following. I'm saying working with. I'm saying aligning with. Forget it. Giving is easy. Giving is easy for money, but there's other types of giving, which is we have to create a system that gives people a actual lifestyle that they can attach to when there's a crisis and when there's not that they can go to that motive vote. The other side is motivated because they think of fetuses and firearms and flags. What is our three or four G's? What is our things that are stanching that people can go back to again and again, tell their children, repeat it again and again in a caucus when it depends upon enthusiasm? When I looked at the 2016 caucus or the Republicans, they had representative for a different camp. And then Carson's dead. Scott Walker talked about jobs in this vague way. Jeb Bush talked about experience, which puts me to sleep. And then Trump's guy stood up and he said he wants to build. Mexico's going to. You just cut out. What? He wants to build a wall. Mexico's going to pay for it, bringing coal back. Now I knew all of this was 100% it was a con. But this armor in Iowa could stand up and repeat five points out of the blue that no other person representing their candidate could. And that's the special thing about a caucus. And when it came time to vote, this is back when everyone thought Trump was a joke and didn't have a chance. So we're watching this on Brain Dad. We saw the pile of Jeb Bush's votes, which was scribbled out. We saw the pile of Scott Walker's votes. And then we saw the mountain of Trump votes of people who had scribbled Trump in because it attached to a basic foundation that was underneath rooted in something. It was rooted in their fear. It was rooted hatred. It was rooted in whatever they wanted. Nostalgia, what are we rooting things in? Unfortunately, fear is an automatic thing that motivates people. But could some version of life, some other version that lasts longer be a motivating tool for the left that gets people to stand up and say, Elizabeth Warren wants this, this, this, and this. Or Stacey Adams wants more things like you do. I mean, I would say I think the part of the answer, this is like slightly, it's my own cliche here, but I mean, part of the answer is local. I mean, it's attaching local concerns, issues, subjects to something like a larger narrative. And you could call the larger narrative a spiritual one, right? Like the four Fs or you could call it a creative one or a metaphor, whatever it is. But I think that there, you know, it is possible to get, you can win a city council seat on the Lower East side where I live by 2000 votes, right? And so that means there are certain strategies you can use to change the conversation in a locality. And if that's tied to something that is both bread and butter for people who live there and also connected to something larger on a national or international level, I think that's part of the strategy, you know, I think, so I mean, I feel like I'm seeing that a little bit and maybe that is what the organizing that allowed someone like Sanders allowed someone like AOC allowed someone like Warren to have a platform at all was connected to local grassroots organizing. Because I think the folks in Florida, like I have relatives in Florida too, and they're like very center Democrats and super scared of Bernie. And I think I probably can't have the conversation with them, but someone can, you know? And there are really great, they're really great organizations, generation citizen, there's like really great organizations that are trying to build creative strategies to get younger people more locally engaged because they can actually, there are places where, you know, the voter turnout for a council election is 10%. So also there's, you know, what's really great is the deep canvassing organization preparing us for the election. And they're doing really great workshops and I'm gonna go work for them in Pennsylvania in the fall, hopefully. And yeah, the question is, if I hear right, you also say in some way the civil war never ended in America, it was like a pause button there until that struggle that we have. And this is the next fight, it's a big fight. We are artists or you are artists. And so what should we do as Melanie said earlier, what is now really demanded of artists? What do you think an artist should be doing as an artist, but also as a human, as a person? What is the right thing to do? Everybody is struggling with it. So just from you, from your answers, what do you feel is of significance important? What should we be thinking about? Well, I think that one of the most successful movements that's been underrated on the left in the last 100 years was the Black Panther Party. The Black Panther Party in Chicago was actually one of the first movements that got black people, rednecks from Indiana across state lines, all these people marching together for rights under a banner, under some sort of power symbol of a panther that people easily understood. And that's why the police and the FBI killed all those people and assassinated them because they realized, oh, if poor white people and black people and these Mexicans get together, this is dangerous. This isn't Martin Luther King, which is dangerous, but we can handle it because we can dilute it and we can change Martin Luther King's message and just pretend like it's our own, like we do for Jesus and everything we sort of like take over, but this is dangerous because it's going to wake white people up. And so that all those leaders, but that movement and the style of leadership, the rainbow coalition that Jesse Jackson used, it became the coalition got the first black mayor elected in Chicago and broke up the daily system. It became the system that Obama's advisors used in 2008. And this thing that was like, this is when they get scared. When you actually start bringing these different people to get under a strong, simple and clear message that people can understand. And that is what consistently has worked. Now, I am someone who's both a progressive and a pragmatic and these are also the great errors. The first election I paid into in 92, I was, and the thing I, the person I love was Paul Songas. And I remember turning on the TV one time and C-SPAN had a governor from Arkansas speaking, announcing that he was running for president. And I was like looking at him and I thought two things. Number one, I don't know this guy, but whatever he's saying, I can feel in my bones he's lying to me. Number two, I like him. And those two thoughts ran on parallel tracks while I was listening to Bill Clinton talk. And I was like, he's lying, but for some reason I'm kind of okay with that right now. Still gonna support Paul Songas. He lost 2004, Howard Dean all the way. He lost two, I like again and again, I picked the losing candidate because I leave with my heart and at the same time when it comes time for the general election, I vote for the moderate because I realized. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. I think we, we, what happened? We lost him and he might be frozen. Maybe Aaron, if you can hear us, put your video off and just have the sound. But maybe the question to Aaron. We lost you on, I vote for the moderate is where it's stuck. You hear me? I just said that was pretty much it. I vote for the moderate, but at the same time my heart's with the more progressive movement. And I think it requires some pragmatism and maybe some deception where you have this clear, simple message because when Clinton tried to explain healthcare in the 90s, people were like, this is confusing to me. So you need to have a clear, simple message and then you have to fudge it when it comes down to actually executing it. So you're saying we see the leadership system like a Black ponder and a very clear message. People will be able to connect to an artist should be part of that. Aaron, what's your? Yeah, I mean, just to add to build on that, the Panthers and the Young Lords is exactly what people are doing when they do mutual aid networks which are popping up all over the world right now. So that is like, and hopefully most many of them are recognizing the lineage. I would also say act up. The Center for Arts Activism is using act up strategies. And in terms of to the point that Aaron made about messaging and simplicity, silence equals death was a thing and an image and a phrase that really had valence that had these really incredible outcomes like powerful outcomes for everybody, right? The reason we're gonna get a COVID-19 vaccine in eight months to 16 months as opposed to 10 years is partly because of some of the act up activism that happened around ACT. So, I mean, I guess maybe as artists we should be looking for ways we can both attach to programs that have a historic resonance and work now and then also perhaps allowing ourselves to try to find those messages and images like the pink triangle is really like emblazoned as someone who arrived in New York in 1987. Like that was something that changed the world, right? That changed the world in positive ways. So I think it's, yeah, let's all leave it at that. Pa, can you ask the question again, Frank? Looking at you have done 25 years of extraordinary work in an artistic aesthetic way, which is important to you but also in a very political way socially engaged so with an ethical and moral impetus. Right now, you and your apartment where you are in New York City, what do you feel? What is this thing we should be doing, should be thinking most about? What is of significance right now? I feel like this is, I really feel like this is a moment in which we can think about reset. I really do. And I feel that how that operates in my own community, such as it is, the idea of being able to return to exactly what they were doing, I think it's not only a missed opportunity, but I, well, it's primarily a missed opportunity but I also think it deadens our radical potential as artists, as makers, let alone as political animals. And I would say that I really feel we're not done. Disaster capitalism is perched like crazy right now, okay? And it's, there's a lot going on. There's a lot being set up even now. And I feel if we don't fight for single payer health care, if we don't support, demand that Biden stand up for some of these changes, as Bernie is going to do, I believe. I believe it's in our, we are artists in the world. We don't only make art, we make the world. And I think that in many ways, what's liberal about us gets in the way of our greater participation as in our hearts as progressives. And I feel in the same way that I hope we don't return to making the exact same theater in exactly the same place as if it was a frozen moment. I hope we don't continue to be stuck and afraid of this moment being something that allows us to participate in a reset. There's a lot of people working on it and they need us. Yeah, and are you guys, maybe we are becoming close to it and it was a very significant political discussion we had today, but on the artistic world, what are you working on? Is there something you do engage? Do you do journals? Do you write or do you write on screenplays? Melanie, do you think about production? Aaron, are you conceptually working on things to do? Or is that not the right moment? But how, what's on your mind? I mean, I'm working with the understanding that, again, because we are on this, like I agree with the word reset, and I feel like we were kind of on this precipice of what we reemerge into, that I'm working on what I was working on, which is like a very intimate chamber theater piece about insomnia as a superpower and unspoken framings that make us behave in certain ways. And I'm also like, I don't know what that's gonna mean a year from now or a year and a half from now. So I'm thinking about like, what's the raw material of what I normally put into creative work and putting a little bit of a hold on it and just trying to imagine it from this place. So that's one thing I'm doing. And then I just get up in the morning and I also have a meditation practice that's based in Buddhism and I sit and then I put the coffee on. And then as I'm putting the coffee on, I write a single journal page. And there's always like, this is personal, this is work, and there's a ton of lists in there. And so I think that's where I'm at. Thank you. All right. I am working on the second season of the CBS Show Evil. I'm a producer and then I zoom out and probably the near future. And then the mornings and the evening I am working on a play commission, examining the thing we talked about through the lens of the OJ trial when I was in high school. And I remember I had, I'm not gonna get into it, but a very strange experience because I didn't care at all about the trial, but everyone over dead. And so I soaked in these different strains of divisions that people had. And I had a very weird schedule in high school where I would come home, go to sleep immediately, wake up at one or two a.m. and do homework all the way to the start of work because that allowed me silence. So usually I had the TV on to the news and I would just do my homework to the news in the middle of the night when people were asleep. Anyway, so I'm working on TV show, the OJ play for Miami New Drama and then possibly a few movies that I'm working on dealing with black people getting out of prison and justice, all these other things that we've been talking about for 20, 30 years. And then trying to explore what are the canaries in the mind for the black community because whatever happens to us is gonna happen to the rest of the country 10 years, 20 years later. And on the meditation front, I meditate every day and I'm producing meditation videos for Limitless Health Institute. We have the first three or four out and it was an idea that I suggested because I was listening to another 20 day Deepak Chopra meditation challenge like in February. I ended that and now other people were doing, I ended that and I thought, what if we could do something that was actually a Buddhist principles, seven or 10 that people could do now that we're all in quarantine and you could do one a week. It focuses on compassion. It focuses on honoring kindness like what every day I'd say in New York City. Like that is actually important. It seems small, but honoring kindness, celebrating, being happy, banging a drum for the healthcare workers does something not only to the healthcare workers but it triggers a ripple of things that is going to help us recover as society better. So trying to give money but also give those resources because money as Melanie said is the easiest thing to give. And I try to give it, but it's about resources beyond money which is creating those lifestyles, creating those movements that Melanie is doing that Aaron's doing and creating the artwork that then can last beyond the crisis and influence people's lives down the road to possibly avert another crisis 10 years from now. Like we could have done in 2012 or 2014 when we were warned about this. Melanie. I write every morning even similar to Aaron. Like I usually have three pages. One is what I'm gonna try to do today. And the other is personal like journaling. And then the other is some sort of attention to material that I'm working on writing whether that's an essay or in my, I'm working on both on essays and also two theatrical pieces that may or may not do something. But like Aaron, for me, those are just, if I don't do those things or at least sit in front of them, I fear, I have to do them. But that said, none of them are satisfying me as material for going forward just yet. I feel I need to live through this time a little bit more to understand if I have anything to say about it or to ask about it that I'd like to invite people to partake in. The only thing I am doing that's giving me a lot of joy creatively is that I read out loud. I started reading out loud to myself. I live by myself in my little apartment and I read out loud because friends of mine like me to read to them. And so I pretend they're here and I read to them. And then I started recording them. So I've been reading Salinger stories and sending them to people who want them. And so I recently just did for, yesterday I did for Esme with Love and Squalor. So that's giving me a lot of pleasure to read some short stories out loud and think about sharing them with people. Wonderful. What I feel I can do. Maybe put them up on the Foundry website. So this was, I think, a significant conversation and different in the tone from all the other ones. And I think it is a time to think about the political, about changes, about the system that produced this and now the same system that tells us to stay at home and that hasn't, can produce 50 cents. May I ask you a question before we part? Yeah. Do you find it unusual or odd or notable that you've had all of these conversations with artists for these weeks and there hasn't been any political discussion? How do you interpret that? I think we had them, they were part of it. Of course, also, as you know, the Siegel Center, we feel art is significant. We feel that producing art is of importance, that the aesthetics of art do matter. And so, of course, artists, we asked them about their life, their daily life, and they immediately effected also in the moment that people are still under a shock, Thomas Ostermeyer from Berlin says, it's like a bus run over me, I can't think. But we know what's wrong with the system. This is not the fight. The fight will be after this is over. Like the people in Hong Kong, we said, you think this is complicated? Wait till this is over and we have to go out again, you know? And so it was never on the same, so it might have also been my ideas of the talks, but I also think it's changing, perhaps, in the mood, that from being shocked, motionless of thinking and then becoming and doing something to act, as you say, to act up, maybe there is also after three, four weeks some change in the air. And I also do think theater is a house in performance and it has many, many rooms and one room is the political and one room is the aesthetic. But perhaps right now, we all do think we have to be part of the change, we have to be, we want to see and we have to act and we have to point out what's wrong also for the people who come after us and for the people, we had Blackfest here and the playwrights said, you know, our family members are preparing their wills, they're sitting together, you know, families support each other, you have to witness and we don't know what to do, we don't have money, we don't have jobs, we don't have healthcare, you know, we don't have our laws, it's that kind of an end of time that happened for hundreds of years for our community that disenfranchise. And so it is a moment where we have to do that but also do think that the art is what makes it, what we miss now, what isn't life is what the arts is about and we always also feel it's part of it. But the political of course is always on our mind. So thank you for being there, staying with us. I think there was a very significant important discussion. I hope you guys might be able to join in today. After today we have Shahid Nadim from Pakistan and Abhishek Moomba from India who will tell what it means in their countries. Also those two countries, they have that complicated relation but they are friends to hear what is the situation for artists there, the complications as we heard in Lebanon for people who cannot even, the wrong Facebook post will you put you in jail and your life in danger already. So they have already a life-threatening conditions and now they are in their homes confined. And then on Friday, we have Gregor Zerjina and the Tia Varsova, a company that tries to work under a political authoritarian system that is now censoring shows. The show, the Kafka show couldn't come from Kostia Lupa couldn't come to New York. They took the money back from Varsova and Poland Tia Varsova and Agata Koljasz and Roman Pavlovski who are part of that great significant company they have to be with us at St. Dan's and already at BAM and now they have to struggle. They are about to build a new theater and they say, what does that mean now in the digital time where we are now but also politically, how will they survive? It's the only kind of free city in Poland that still in a way have artistic control over their work and because they have a different mayor. So having an overview and of course Melanie, you also visit your work has been always so close to the political and then this is why we felt to have you here of importance. So thank you all for joining me. We went a little bit over time. I hope howl around will forgive us and this as always we always interrupted and we will always be over time and things take longer but really thank you and thank you for our listeners and know how much is out there, how much content is out there, how busy your lives are even if you are at home. So it means a lot. We need these discussions and we also need someone to listen and to make sense out of it and we hope we make a small contribution here from this Eagle Center and next week, as I said, we have another lineup, stay tuned and thank you for joining and taking your time. Thanks Frank. Thank you Frank. Bye bye. Thank you too. Thank you. Bye bye and see you all soon for a drink I hope. I hope.