 This catastrophe movie, we are all in and one wish what could say the news are getting better. They're not really getting better in Europe. It seems to have a little resurgence in Belgium and Switzerland and Luxembourg. It's coming back up. France is sending per-mail masks to people who can't afford them or might not be able to buy them. Japan and Brazil, Mexico are experiencing, again, resurgence. And so we really do not know what is coming up. It's becoming more and more clear that infected people who have no symptoms might have spread the virus around. It is airborne and it was never so clear how could so many people get infected if it was just really by droplets and often protein had to be in it, but it's becomes clear and clear that there are different ways this virus has been transported and perhaps also mutated a little bit from different regions to others. California, where our whole round is based with Sia at the moment. Also, Betty, who is with us today. So first of all, hello, Betty. Hello. And it now has more cases than New York, the state of New York. So the big shift is taking place. Latin America has over 4 million cases, 2.2 million in Brazil alone and the US has 3.9 million just alone. Of course, it's a very big country. Unemployment is high over the first time in the last month. It's last week. It's higher numbers, a lot of lower numbers. And unemployment help is running out. The eviction moratorium is running out. Many landlords are preparing to throw it out. So it's a recipe for disaster, complete distrust for good reason in government. Heat in August, people on the street, civil unrest for very, very good reason and distrust in workplace or perhaps seeing no future. So it's a complicated, complicated time we live in. It is a time where we feel very strongly we have to listen to artists and we have done that for the last four months here at the Segal Center. Every day of the week, we talk to artists from New York, America, all mostly actually from around the world to hear what they have to say. And they are the ones who are close to the present, anticipate the future. As once here says a great philosopher who actually will be with us on Monday. And they have been on the right side on the fight for social justice and the complex history of freedom and liberties. And one of those great artists who really in her life's work has contributed, make enormous contribution and is exploring what theater and playwright in Kintu is Betty Shamia. She is with us here. So, Betty, welcome, welcome. And before I read a bit from you, Bio, where are you right now? And what time is it? I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area and it is about almost nine o'clock. Oh, it's nine, nine a.m. Yeah, so we got you out on an unholy time for every theater person before nine o'clock. Yes, that would happen easily. Yeah. Fifteen plays, and that's a lot. And you'll learn something when you write and produce 15 plays. She's a Mellon Foundation player in residence at the classical theater of Harlem. And her work includes, of course, Roar, which is perhaps one that is the most popular, most well-known and being presented at so many colleges and cities translated in seven languages. But other works and interesting ones, these are the ones that are not as well known, but other ones are the Black Eyed, Fit for a Queen and The Strangest and many others. She actually also starred in her own series of monologues that was called Chocolate in Heat, Growing Up Arab in America, which gives you an idea of what we might be talking about. And it had a long run off Broadway here in New York and went also around the country. She was named UNESCO Young Artist for Intercultural Dialogue. She's a Harvard Clifton Visiting Artist. And she's currently developing a new comedy, Malvolio, a sequel to Charles Knight. And first of all, Betty, thank you for taking the time. I apologize for talking so much. It's all, as we say, part of what you might eat. Frank Henshaw from the Segal Center. So, Betty, how are you? What's going on? How come you're in San Francisco and not in New York? Well, I've always considered myself by coastal. My family is based in the San Francisco Bay Area. And I am very family-oriented. So I spent, though New York is my artistic home, my familial home where I have a huge Palestinian family is actually in the San Francisco Bay Area. And me and my husband and my child have been bouncing around for the past few years. And we decided to sublet our place in New York and come to San Francisco and kind of quarantine with multiple generations in one house, which has been interesting and is very, you know, I think there's two sides to artists like myself who are very community-minded but also artists who require a significant amount of time alone to create and thrive. So it's been very interesting that, you know, when the apocalypse hit, I chose to, you know, kind of ground down with multiple generations of my family in one house. And so it just kind of shows, I feel I bounce between that kind of, you know, really being centralized in a community or in the family and also being an artist who needs to write and create, you know, alone, which I think writing is one of the most lonely, lonely, not in a bad way, but requires a sense of separation. And so it's been very, very challenging but also wonderful to kind of, you know, deal with what's going on. One thing that I always bring with me is these two lions that I bought from the New York Public Library where I wrote for years, you know, the main branch on 42nd Street. And the lions are named Patience in Fortitude. And most people don't know, they were initially called Lord Aster and Lady Lennox. And they were named after these very wealthy funders. But the mayor of New York during the Great Depression thought it was unthemely to be naming these iconic New York figures after rich people. So he changed it to Patience in Fortitude. And so I kind of carried these bookmarks around with me. And I spent a good part of my career after Roar in Europe doing work about Palestinians and Arab Americans that I was not able to find homes for as easily in the U.S. And I would carry these lions with me, which is quite a thing. And, you know, in the first days of the quarantine, Patience broke. And so I was left with Fortitude. So it slipped out of my hand and cracked. And so I created this series at the classical theater of Harlem called The Chronicles of Fortitude, where I interview artists very similar to what you're doing here, Frank. But my main question is what was the hardest period of your artistic life or personal life? And how did you develop the skills in which to push through that period? Because I needed those answers from the artists that I admired. And I needed to connect with them here. And, you know, being in resonance at a place like classical theater of Harlem gave me kind of a platform to reach out to amazing people and say, can you talk to me about how you got through things and what does Fortitude mean, you know, when you're without Patience? So one of the things that I've really extrapolated from just talking to different people in this interview series that I'm doing is that, you know, we've got to make somebody said, it's actually Chris Wells who does The Secret City, who I listened to. He does a similar kind of podcast. But he said, you know, the first part of compassion is compass. And if you use it as a compass, you know, make compass your compassion, you can kind of extend compassion to people who disagree with you or belittle you or dehumanize you. And what does that mean to be operating? And one of the things that I'm trying to make, you know, compassion, my compass is to make, to be compassionate to myself as an artist, because there's so much that I want to say and do and express. And just being compassionate with the fact that I am stuck in a home, you know, and I'm homeschooling. I'm outside of New York. Even if I were in New York, I wouldn't be able to, you know, really begin the residency that I started at Classical Theater of Harlem earlier this year. This is, I have three years that the Mellon Foundation gave me to kind of be working with them and be part of their kind of ethos as an institution. And the fact that I'm doing it from afar, I had to kind of create things that made sense to me. We're doing this amazing project at the Classical Theater of Harlem that's being curated by Sean Rene Graham and myself, which is called the ICONS project in which we're commissioning writers at different stages of their development, some very experienced, some new students to write about lesser known figures of the Harlem Renaissance. And to kind of uplift on the 100-year anniversary what this community meant. I mean, Harlem is the only place in North America known for creating renaissance. So it's the fact that we're approaching its 100-year anniversary in the middle of so much social unrest felt like an important time to kind of locate and talk about the artists and figures unlike Langston Hughes whose names we may not know. And that's been really, really wonderful. So we're going to, we're waiting to see if we can, Classical Theater of Harlem does this amazing thing where they do a classical or a classical inspired work uptown in the park. And it's really kind of devastating to me that the first year that I'm in residence they're not doing it. So we're trying to see if there's an opportunity for us to maybe perform in the park. But it felt like uplifting the voices of the Harlem Renaissance, people who went through a period of social unrest and flourished and created during and after it felt like an important kind of project to be working on. And so those are the things that I, so I, when the pandemic hit, I did what I normally do, which was work really hard. I got really busy. You know, I started interviewing amazing people. I started, you know, commissioning these young writers and selecting them and, you know, guiding them. And I started teaching, you know, because everybody went online, a bunch of my professor friends called me up and said, can you teach a solo writing class? Can you teach a playwriting class? Because as they were getting, you know, used to the format. So I did a lot of work. And now I'm feeling like, you know, using compassion as my compass. I'm using this time to also kind of settle down and reflect. Because we don't know how long this is going to be. And, you know, one as an artist must kind of think of their life as a marathon and not a sprint. And I tend to sprint while I'm running a marathon and, you know, and not take the time that I need. And this is forcing me to be more reflective. It's forcing me to, you know, homeschool, my six year old son. And that's, you know, I think parenting and artistry is almost diametrically at odds because you're teaching someone how to learn. But as an artist, you're always learning yourself. So you're always balancing your own needs as an artist to continue growing and learning and thinking and creating with helping somebody get the tools to be able to do those things. And so during the pandemic, that's very much at head for the artist parents that I know who are kind of grappling with the needs of others versus the needs of oneself when you don't have the outlets of, you know, let me hire somebody to play with my kid while I write or let me, you know, run to a museum and get really inspired and be alone for a few hours. So yeah, so that's very important. There's a lot of stuff going on, family stuff going on outside, but we'll try to ignore that. Yeah, so that's where I'm at. Yeah, my family's apparently walking around outside. I'm in a little like, yeah, which is distracting, which is, you know, their right to do but just distracting your life. But that kind of is indicative of, you know, I'll be thinking a very clear, precise thought and then, you know, someone walked by and you're like, oh, there it went. So yeah. So where were you when you had to make up your mind where to go for this time? We actually were, you know, we had sublet our place in New York and we were living in Miami. And so it kind of just made sense to keep subletting. And and my actual residency at classical theater of Harlem hadn't officially started. So and it looks like most of it's going to be online anyway. So it's it made sense to kind of work within work within the framework of having family help, you know, so. So it brought the family back together. So you're based in Brooklyn, I guess. No, I kind of I really do see myself as Bicostal, but I am are I'm in the East Village. Oh, you're in the East Village. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so living with your family, it might be a lion's roar as your play was. So yeah, absolutely. How was that experience? Tell us a little bit to live together with multiple generations. Do you want do you want the real version? Or do you? How is it? It's I think the homeschooling is the thing that's the, you know, the suddenly having to be the social and emotional learning as well as academic learning for a child that is, you know, is really knocking the breath out of me. But it's also a chance to really to be here and to be doing the thing that I really desperately wanted. I very much wanted to be a parent. That was that was an experience that I deeply, deeply wanted to experience. And, you know, and so I, you know, I think I will look back, hopefully, if we all survive this, as, as a time that was where I discovered a lot about myself as, as, as a person, you know, connected to an older and a younger generation and kind of, you know, you know, I'm, I have a lot of friends who chose not to have children. And I always say, you know, if it's not something you're absolutely sure about, don't do it because it's, it's, you know, it has to be something you entirely wanted. And I did. So someone said you can as well get a tattoo in your face. It's the same commitment. It is. It is absolutely. And so, and, you know, I, I did it with the expectation that, you know, the kid would go to school too. So, you know, like, you know, what did you discover as a writer or as an artist in that world in this time of corner? What, what surprised you? What is it? What did you, what did you? Well, what surprised me is the need to pace oneself and the need to have, like I said, compassion, real compassion for, you know, I am too tired to write. I have, I'm spent. I have, you know, I'm somebody who's, who's kind of on high speed all the time. And I think that comes from being a Palestinian American and Arab woman, but I feel the very strong need to create and speak and write and take up space in a, where, where women like me and our stories are seen in glimpses, if at all. So that is often like being a parent and an artist and odds with, you know, the need to rest and recover and process, you know, like I begin my next play in the middle of a world premiere of my last one, because the idea of not being working on something is, is terrifying to me. So the pandemic has forced me to slow down. You know, like I said, the first thing I did was like, let me start an interview series. Let me, you know, let me create this Harlem icons project. Let me do things. Let me, you know, do the 24 hour viral plays. Let me, and so I feel like, you know, any disruption is a, is an opportunity to grow and growth is always challenging. So this has really been an opportunity for me to see, you know, the other thing is I have really taken a turn in my work where I really just want to be writing comedies, dark comedies, generally, because that's my bent, but I really want to make people laugh and have that opportunity to do that. And because I write about women and Arabs and Palestinians and Arab Americans, you know, I'm not really known for my comic bent. And I, one of the things that's really exciting for me about being at the classical theater of Harlem is I don't feel like when I'm at an institution that's for and by people of color, that, that I have, you know, I walk in with, and people have expectations of what a play about by an Arab American woman is going to sound like and what's the theme and what's the subject matter. And, and, you know, I right now want to write comedy. I mean, the first thing, and that generally happens. I mean, after the Great Impression, you know, all Hollywood was making was comedy. And I think that that's going to be something that comes out of, you know, any disruption. Our lives are so unsettling and uncertain and difficult right now. And the ability to make people laugh is, is something that I'm really eager to get back to live theater, you know, I'm, you know, I'm, I want to say something about live theater and live theater is like music. And some of the earliest theatrical experiences I had was in Daly City where I grew up until I was a teenager, going to like the public library and getting, you know what I mean, those Sony disc players of Broadway plays, not even musicals, and listening to them. So what I'm urging people who are like sick of live streaming of theater is to think of it like music. Listen to it. Don't sit there and watch flat actors and compare it to Hollywood and think that that's going to be, you know what I mean, think of it like an opportunity to listen. Because that's, I mean, I, I heard a, I think it was a, you know, Broadway production of the Duchess, the Duchess of Malfi, that still to this day, those actors voices have stayed with me. And, and so I feel like if we stop staring at our screens and start listening to plays again, it's a much more fruitful experience, you know, and, and the idea that you have to be moneyed and connected and, you know, exposed enough as a child to attend Broadway shows or that we need opening night parties to experience theater is something that hasn't been true to my experience, that artists find ways to learn and grow and listen. And so, you know, Classical Theater of Harlem has a number of plays that they're streaming that are wonderful to be heard, you know, and the visuals are amazing too for, you know, the limitations of, you know, something that was not meant to be filmed. But I really encourage people to think about plays as music and to listen to the music of the plays, you know, in the way that you would listen to a radio play, because there's, that is, you know, the, I think the way we can experience live theater or performance more successfully, you know, so. So, so do you, were you able then to write, are you working on a play now? Yes, absolutely. I am laughing my, my, you know, you know, what off at, you know, I really am very excited about my play, Malvolio, which is a sequel to 12 Night, because again, I first experienced Shakespeare on the page. I was not exposed to, to theater until I was much older. And I, and, you know, one of my teachers taught us 12 Night. And I, there's this character that is always cast as a, you know, an old bledge or, you know, a Puritan. And in my mind, he was a young servant, and he's sexually humiliated in, in the Shakespeare original in a way that is really cruel and mean. And I always thought the reason that they did that is because he was a servant. And there is a lot of classism in, in plays, you know, by Shakespeare, who was incredibly savvy. Shakespeare was incredibly savvy about kind of endearing himself to the, to, you know, the Royals and the ruling regime and the people who funded, you know, the Queen Elizabeth and James after her. And, you know, most people don't know that King James was really into, I hope it's King James, it's one of the kings that wasn't Queen Elizabeth, was really into witches. And so he crafted Macbeth. And he, the king even wrote like a, a treatise on witch paragraphs and thought that he had powers. So he crafted Macbeth in kind of homage to the things that was interesting to the king, you know what I mean, and even Banquo in Macbeth. So he created witches, which, you know, wasn't traditionally done. He used real magic. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. So he, so he was kind of a kisser. And so when I think about what's happening in American theater and how, you know, artists of color have been made to feel to kind of have to kowtow to the people who have money and power and influence the taste makers, you know, playwrights have been doing that since Shakespeare, you know, like, and how do we kind of change the dynamic and the, you know, one of the things for me that's very important, you know, I feel like when I go in and try to, you know, pitch a play, everybody wants to play about sad refugees, you know, because people want to feel like, oh, they did their duty and, you know, and they also see, you know, Arabs and Arab Americans as either victims or perpetrators of violence. So they don't humanize them. And if you're a victim or a perpetrator of violence, you are only seen in relation to how you affect us and us as in the white theater going audience. So, you know, when I come in with plays about, you know, Egyptian queens who become pharaohs or a sequel to Shakespeare's 12th night, you know, I have a really hard time pitching it. And so being at a place like classical theater of Harlem that is engaging first in classical themes, you know, I think one of the things that I feel that's problematic about American theaters were reactive in that, you know, what does well on Netflix isn't going to do well in the next generation of theater makers. I think we have to be what we are. We have to be, you know, the nerdy intellectuals that we are. And even if our industry is going to become more like opera, more rarefied, I think that we lose more by expecting, if you are watching a play that you can see on Netflix or Hulu just as easily, you're not going to go pay money to watch those kinds of plays. So we have to become more of what we are. We have to become more experimental in terms of form and content and more exciting for the people who actually love theater, because trying to hold on to that audience, you know, as if we're in the era of Arthur Miller, where there's like a Broadway show and a few TV shows and how you go to hear real stories is the theater is not where we are culturally anymore. So I feel like, you know, part of the reason why I was probably done in Europe more is I write big ambitious plays, you know, I'm the writers who excite me are Genet. I love Tennessee Williams and I love Arthur Miller, but, you know, Genet's kind of wildness, you know, the blacks, the maids, that's where I think American theater is going to go if we're going to survive, you know, and still remain a really important cultural force. We need to, you know, kind of embrace that we are a theatrical form and we have to do things only theater can do if we're going to have an audience, you know, so that's something that, and again, being at an institution that supports, that has classical in the title, that takes, you know, writers and says, what do you want to create? How do you want to engage with the canon? How do you want to become part of a canon? It's really, really, I think the future of American theater. No, no, I think it is an important concept that existing institutions, existing structures, invite people in to create instead of saying, you know, we have a play, you can audition to be the director or the actor, instead of Karaoke model of the theater. And if it's done well, it also has something to it. And most of the time, it's not as good as the original, but the idea to open an institution, be outside, be in the parks and and say, yeah, as you say, what you write could be a classic too, you know, so or is a classic now. And so what are those lines? The very beginning of the history of the of the MoMA Museum of Modern Art, there were concepts, no piece should be older than five years inside the museum, because then it's no longer, you know, modern is already all it's a classic piece or not, you know, so it's completely different from of course, where I ended up. So tell us a bit, you mentioned it, the experience in the American theater, what do you think of American theater? Well, how did you experience it? Well, you know, I, I was very rewarded by American theater when I, you know, you know, wrote traditional family dramas about Arab Americans that were not exceedingly politically explosive. So, you know, I got out, you know, chocolate and heat and roar, you know, I love those plays, they're my early works. But I felt like, as a minority, you're put in, in, you know, when I and I know that many other writers feel that way. You know, I wanted to write really interesting stories about Arab Americans that were, that complicated the, the picture of, you know, Arab women as, you know, for example, I wrote a play for a queen about a female pharaoh who ruled ancient Egypt, which was the superpower of the world, the ancient world for 20 years, and nobody knows her name, her name's Hepchatsip. And to me, that was crazy that you could know Cleopatra and you could know Elizabeth, but you didn't know about a woman who ruled the superpower of the ancient world for 20 years. And I was super excited about that. And nobody was, nobody was. They'd like, you know, you see people's eyes blaze over. And, you know, and also what was challenging about that play was, and what was amazing that CTH did it in the middle of the election period was she was complicated. And the point of the play was that power corrupts. It wasn't that women are wonderful. And thank God we have a couple of prime ministers in Europe because they're going to save the world because they're women, because that has not been my experience of women. And, and I think it dehumanizes us and belittles us to say, oh, we're inherently nicer and inherently more, you know, we're empathetic to people. That has not been my experience. And, you know, I'm not saying it to put down women. I'm saying it to humanize us. And so I felt like what was also hilarious is, is people who really dug the idea of, you know, telling a story about an ancient African woman who ruled the superpower in drag. And what was so cool about her was she didn't say like Queen Elizabeth, I'm a queen, but I'm taking the place of the king. She said, call me king. I am Pharaoh and she dressed like a man. I mean, that is just incredible to me. She ruled it for 20 years. She wasn't like a couple of years until she had a son. She was, you know, falls to the wall. Amazing. And so when people, okay, nobody was interested in that, it felt like they wanted, you know, you know, there's Syrian refugees, don't you want to write about that? Absolutely. You know what I mean? Like refugee life and story was clearly a part of my very early work and, you know, part of every Palestinian story. But I also wanted to do other things. So when I would go to theaters, they weren't really super excited about that. So I got that. But some people who were excited were excited about it because they wanted a narrative about how women empowerment meant better things for a country, which was, you know, it's a tragic comedy and it's a farce. And there's a lot of violence in it. And, you know, there's a lot of sexual violence. Women forcing men to have sex with them. So it, you know, it just was not what the narrative of even what I felt like the master narrative of what feminism wanted to project. So I wasn't getting the kind of lift that you'd get as a woman when you start saying things like, oh, you know what I mean? We are, you know, I feel that part of what is our shared humanity is we all have to curb our own appetites when we are in power or have them curbed for us. And that was the point of it. And I felt like, you know, when people were in the run up of the election, they didn't really want to hear that story or didn't get that what I was doing with the story was showing how men and women are human, operate the same, and they need to be in check because people who have no checks on their power, you know, all of us myself included become problematic. So I felt that but and that's, you know, why I am so thankful that I did find classical theater parliament and they said yes to producing that play. And it was, you know, like, like everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. We lost the star director, Coleman Domingo, who had brought the play to tie to tie and said, you know, we should work on this because he had a scheduling conflicts. So that was terrible. We tried to get a downtown theater to co-sponsor, which had they had done with other CTH projects that fell through. We then we lost our space, like everything possible that could have gone wrong with that production went wrong, like everything. And, and I was used to the experience of a theater waiting for three or four years for the right director to say yes, or, you know, putting a project on a shelf if they couldn't find a co-producer. So I was expecting classical theater parliament to basically treat me as an artist, like how I was usually treated, not at every institution. And if you look at my resume, not at the institutions that I worked at, this is not, you know, this is to, you know, these are the people who did not treat me that way and did actually produce me. And I just need to acknowledge, you know, the new group in New York Theater Workshop and the magic who really did get behind my work. But that was my experience of being like everything has to fall in place in order for you to be produced. And everything you say in the play, we have to be able to get behind in a kind of like feminism women good, men bad, you know, I mean, like, and, and, but they still soldiered on with their limited resources and did the play because they felt it was important. And that was not an experience that was usual for me. It was usually like if everything works out, you know, then maybe, but you know what, now that I'm thinking about it, it was, you know, and I'm thinking about the places that did support me, you know, those theaters that I mentioned, it wasn't that way at those theaters, but it was my experience of trying to get things up in American theater. So I felt like it had to be a simplistic story, particularly if it was about an Arab American, or an aura perspective that was not traditional or white. And it had to like, reinforce the master narrative of, you know, a woman in power, no matter what kind of woman she is, is better than no woman in power. Which, you know, I always want to see myself reflected in positions of power. I want, you know, children to see that, you know, and, but to not have a complicated narrative about humanity, you know, or to feel that that was somehow, you know, not the story you needed to be telling right up at the run-up of election time, seems so simplistic to me. So one of the things I did, I wrote an article, you know, that was kind of my response to, you know, we see you white American theater, which was, I know that there will be people who will be targeted as troublemakers in American theater. And I hope that they're able to do what I did, which was find an institution that really, or create an institution that really gets behind the work that they want to do. And, you know, and to really look for, because I feel like one of the things I'm noticing, you know, as these kind of talks come up is, I would love for, you know, the white allies to be able to have room to engage. And I feel like that will hopefully come soon. And, you know, because there have been a lot of people in my life who have, you know, made me the artist I am by supporting me and stepping up. And not all of them are people of color. And I would like for the next phase after this phase, you know, because what I'm concerned with is there's all this flurry and all this action while no theaters are operating. And I just would hate for it to be business as usual in the year or so that things open up. So I would just love for us to think about, because nobody got into theater hoping, you know what I mean, to silence voices or, you know, trample on people's rights. I firmly believe that, you know, it's a hard industry to be in. And we are all doing our best. And sometimes our best isn't good enough. And how do we get better is a very important. It's an important thing to be said as we're moving towards, because, you know, I just hate that the fact that we're all shuttered in our homes and our theaters are closed and we're having these conversations. I would hate for there to be no impact to these conversations and no kind of bridging of ways for people who are like-minded and trying to engage to do so. So the letter was about saying use what we have in a responsible way. Tell us a bit more what you wrote. It said, you know, the title was that we've seen white American theater. How can we black indigenous people of color now see ourselves? And it kind of talked about my journey of, you know, writing the kinds of plays that get rewarded in American theater, which are like family dramas that are not too political and how I was not able to break out beyond that. And when I did, it was kind of like I stopped being, having the same opportunities to have my work produced and seen and how I had to go to Europe to get them done. And how I eventually finally found a home in the classical theater of Harlem that where I felt like I could, you know, write a sequel to Twelfth Night and people wouldn't look at me sideways and be like, don't you have anything about Syrian refugees? Which is like, you know, which is an important story to be told. But it's not the only story to be told. And it's not the only story I certainly can offer. And, you know, I, so I, it was just kind of a letter to A, acknowledge that the black experience in American theater that they bear the brunt of microaggressions and artistic spaces, just like they bear the brunt of, you know, racist violence on the streets. So to acknowledge that we don't all have the same experience, which is something that is, is a conversation that's happening within the people of color community, you know, we don't all experience microaggressions in the same way as people of color. And that's an important conversation to acknowledge and have, but also to affirm that, you know, what I thought how you become a successful playwright of color was not the path I ultimately took, and how I kind of pivoted was by realizing that you never know where you're going to get your biggest opportunity. And so if, you know, the aftermath and what I do think it will be the aftermath is what happens is the people who become associated with a movement become targeted and isolated, and for being at the forefront or speaking the most forcefully. And so it was kind of a letter to those people who are in the position of being pioneers that you can still create and find homes. And that also the, you know, we talk a lot about the resources in American theater that are, you know, funding. And that was something I spent a lot of time early in my career, because, you know, most theater companies have something about we believe in, you know, diversity. Now, if you go to a museum and it says we believe in diversity, and there's one or two pictures or paintings by a person of color, you would be like, that's crazy. But I think American theater has gotten away with taking the language of, you know, inclusivity in order to get funding without really truly being what they say they are. Like, I think if you want to make theater about pink elephants, that's cool. You make whatever kind of theater you want. But to take the lion's share of funding, saying you're doing diverse works and to, you know, do one black play a year, or, and usually it feels so tokenism, you know what I mean? Like, I'm so excited about the other voices in the Middle Eastern community. You will never see a season of me and another Middle Eastern person in the same season. You will not see it. You will probably not see it within the same three years. Because the idea is there's there can be only one person from that community, and they can only tell one kind of story. And then we're done. And we've filled our quota. So for our funding. So I spent a lot of time focusing on the funding, you know, as a resource, how are these resources being used? And then when I kind of, you know, spent a lot of time in Europe and kind of got my, my sea legs as an artist and said, this is the kind of work that I can do and want to do. And it's comedy, and it's big, and it's expensive, and do it. And if not, I'll find a home elsewhere that will. So once I kind of grounded in that place, I realized that that that I am not in the position of going and offer and asking for resources. I have a resource. And I have an audience base, and I have people who will come and see my work. And I take that with me. So it's not a matter of please do my work. It's let me use the resources that I have, and take them to the places that empower me, as opposed to always be in the position of saying, you have this grant, I know you need to do a Middle Eastern person at some point in a post 911 era, please make it me. So, so just pivoting and saying, we have resources, we have incredible artists, probably the artists that define this era will be people of color. Or I like to think because I am a person of color, maybe won't be, but that's what I like. So we have an incredible resource, which is the art that we make. And we don't need to always be going to these institutions or going to the funders and saying, don't fund these institutions. We need to be taking those resources and those audiences and that excitement and enthusiasm for the work that we're creating to the places that make us feel seen. And we're actually created to make, you know what I mean, like classical theater of Harlem is the natural place to tell a story about a woman who ruled the superpower of Africa, you know what I mean, for 20 years. That's a natural fit. And so rather than trying to change institutions, why don't we go where and take our incredible resources as artists and are the incredible excitement we have when we create work to the places that where the audiences are. So, and that's, you know, and, and also continue to hope that the institutions and the taste makers, you know, really live up to their mission statements. That's important too, but that's not the only thing we can do. That's, that's it in a, in a big nutshell. Absolutely right. As far as I know, the majority of people living in New York City is 10 million. Nobody knows exactly, but they are no longer white. It is, I see the minority but you do not see it reflected on the stages. You don't hear the voices on the street, you don't always see that. I mean, of course, lots of exceptions, but it's not, as you say, not, not a rule. And often that one play that's supposed to be the diversity token play, then the people in charge decide what theme, you know, it should be, and I remember once I had a black playwright, and she came to the Segal and we talked about her work and she said, you know, I got that big award to develop a play in the downtown theater. And I said, oh, I like Joyce. I want to do something about James Joyce. And she said, people freaked out, people said, what do you mean? That's not why we gave you this thought. You have to have show us the problems of the world, of your community and the struggle and the suffering. And, and yeah, as you said, my, my joke I have always is that, like in the medieval times, you know, when you had to pay for your sins and then you taken away, now often you can see a bad play. It's very expensive. If you don't enjoy it, you feel bad made for it. You did something, you know, so, but it's not representing life, the complexity of lies, as you said, the multiple layers of what it is all about. And, and so your work for sure is trying to do that. I also, if I remember right, even in the Arab American community were upset with the place that you thought were also successful, the family drama, but they said, how can you show us this way? Right? And, well, is that do I have to get that right? No, I'm always challenging my community. I'm always, you know, aspiring for us to be more cohesive and do better and create actual institution buildings. And, you know, but that, but everyone's, like I said, doing the best that they can and, you know, heaven bless them for it. But what I will say is, you know, it's a very cynical thing. Someone, a black writer once told me and, you know, I don't know if I 100% believe it, but sometimes it feels to me true in that way that you kind of pay for your sins by going and seeing a play. Somebody told me and like I said, I don't espouse it, but it's something I think about like in that spirit of because it's certainly been the thing that you don't want to see. I mean, nobody's asking me to write a play about a Harvard and Yale educated Arab playwright, which is my experience, you know what I mean? They want to play about, you know, I firmly believe if I wrote an honor killing play, you know, that would go to Broadway, you know, the idea of if I reinforced, which I constitutionally, I was actually commissioned to write an honor killing play and I constitutionally was unable to do it. I wrote a play and then the father shoots her at the end and and Ian Morgan, who is somebody I trust very deeply said, Betty, this makes no sense. This father would never kill this daughter. And I was like, I know, but I was commissioned by this university to write this honor killing play. And he said, you know, you need to let that go because you I am unconstitutionally unable to write that play because it is not my experience of Arab culture. And it feels like I am pandering and making white feminist feel better about their position rather than see the need for women's rights to be on a spectrum. And that that to other eyes, one person's experience, you know, there's a, you know, law of what crime of passion. So if you shoot your wife in bed with a man, you get off a little bit easier than if you just shooter, right? So things like this exist in Western culture where it's the idea of policing women's sexuality exists. And I want to talk about that. I don't want to go and make people feel better about their lives because, you know, one time in Jordan, one crazy father went off and shot his daughter, you know what I mean? Like, like that doesn't that isn't my experience. But this, you know, Black writer told me and it and it and I and I don't, you know, I don't mean to put down what has been produced or anything. But he said, Betty, people like to have their stereotypes confirmed. So if I have a stereotype that Black writers or Arab writers are less intellectual, less interesting, less human, less artistic, I would rather go see a play that is less interesting, less intellectual, because it confirms my worldview rather than a really complicated, intellectual, exciting work, because then I have to change my mind. Then I'm not paying the penance of going and seeing this play about this sad person that is unlike me, that to actually make a complicated picture is actually harder on the brain. And so when you see plays by a lot of the Black and a lot of the Arab writers that do get done, it tends to be less interesting, less complex, less intellectual, because that's easier on a white audience than blowing their mind with saying, Oh my God, you know what I mean? There's this Black woman. And maybe, maybe she is the most intelligent person alive about James Joyce. Maybe there is nobody more interesting than her. And maybe when you see a Black woman on the street, you need to incorporate that into your worldview. And it's easier to be like, no, James Joyce is not for you, and I know what you are, and you're not that interesting. So he says that white institutions would rather do a less interesting artist, a less intellectual artist, and give their theatergoers the penance of reinforcing their own stereotypes than actually finding the most interesting intellectual, exciting voices from those communities. Now, like I said, I don't 100% agree with that, but I will tell you, everybody wants to play for me about sad refugees. And everybody wants a play about poor Black people in the ghetto. And so we can go feel sad about how hard their life is and feel like we've done our penance. So if the theaters are asking me for that play, then commissioning me to, you look at me and you're like, Oh, this is the girl to write about honor killing. And I had nothing going on in America. I had a lot going on in Europe. So I took it and I said, let me try to humanize this story. Let me try with everything I've got to tell an honor. Can we start? And I just couldn't do it. No, I couldn't create it. It was not, it was so false. It was like, you know, a green banana flying and knocking the girl over on the head. It was so strange that this completely human, complex father would do that to his daughter. It just made no sense because I couldn't do it. And I, and I, and I know that if I was capable of simplifying my work and presenting that kind of story, I would have a, in the way American theater is structured now, that would be a very easy Betty Shimia play to sell. That would be the kind of play that would be produced all over regionally. And, and you know what I mean, Garner, you know, a lot of awards and kind of get that, that juice going that when you, when you talk about Arab on Arab violence, that you get because it lets the audience off the hook. It lets, you know, white feminism off the hook. It lets, you know, about our own participation in our own other. And that's, you know, something that's that, you know, is really important for me as an American based here creating work that I want to have a life and be part of the cultural conversation here. It's very important to me that I complicate through comedy what is possible and what is said about the, how women worldwide are connected and, and that, that it's, it's so much easier to feel better, you know, about yourself if you think you've got it better than someone else. And if I tell you a story about a woman in Africa who ran, you know, super power for 20 years and we can't get one woman who was a secretary of state and married to the most powerful man in the world for eight years to be president that kind of shows you where world feminism is and was in a way that I don't think it's talked about in theater or any sphere because it's because it doesn't reinforce like that Black writer said that kind of simplistic narrative where people are comfortable and where I think audiences are ready to go but I'm not sure that the taste makers of our American theater have been helping us get there. So when you look at the early work of Agent Kennedy, the Nico Sanhouse or she talks to an Ohio State genius place where you say why the hell is that not everywhere? Why didn't she get all the opportunities in the world but it didn't work and she truly is a, is a master and I think also it's true. I mean, even so I shouldn't know enough about it, I shouldn't know more but I also do think there is a problem perhaps also in Europe and I don't know enough about America but that the white feminist movement says I'll speak for all the women in the world, the African women, I speak for the Arab women but it's a white movement also, you know, my claim stings their thoughts and to have an already formed opinion and perhaps without fully including them or saying as some friend of mine said, you know, in Paris, you know, they would go to the airports of Hamlet as the white liberals but the woman who cleans by, they would notice that, talk to them, so because they are Arab or African or something, you know, that there's a disconnect and it's also part of that and to break that is I think the idea of theater, how do you see, how is the Arab-American theater community experiencing this moment? Carrie Dutt said she thinks there are very few small places that produced her work labeled, a lot of them will close, they won't survive, she says maybe people will have to go back and build little bandwagons and go through the countryside because it's better than nothing but she had not so much hope, tension in a way, existing places, how is it, what do you think? Well, you know, very early on I had like kind of a pan people of color experience so I can speak more broadly, you know, I don't, I think we have to do more institution building to get at the level where the African-American and the Asian-American community with Mayi and classical theater of Harlem, you know, like these are actual, you know, and I can speak more broadly to New York because that's kind of my artistic home but yeah, we need to build institutions and when you do that you need people who are willing to hire or step down as artists to kind of do that full-time and, you know, because I'm not able to do that, it's hard for me to speak to what, you know, the people who are trying to create those institutions can do but, you know, we are new, you know, as a community in terms of, you know, in terms of our identity, you know, we are, you know, we're also like the Latino-American community, some of us look white, some of us look black, some of us look in between, some of us identify as people of color, some of us don't, you know, we're different religions, you know, we're, you know, there's 22 Arab countries and then we're also talking about, you know, other identities so it's like are we Arab, are we Middle Eastern, you know, the politics of, you know, what does Middle Eastern mean, who gets to be included? So I can't speak directly too much but I have a lot of hope because I feel there's a lot of energy and excitement around supporting people of color in general and I think that that can only help and uplift all people of color who are working, you know, but, you know, to me there's, you know, the debt that is owed to the black American community for in theater but in any industry for, you know, basically integrating white institutions has made all of our journeys a lot easier and so for me it's very important that people of color, you know, I attended something at TCG that was, you know, and, you know, it was people of color and we said why don't we create theater together? Of course it's a lot easier to go to Arab people and say let's fund Arab American plays and, you know, Asian theaters, let's fund Asian, African American, let's fund Asian. Why don't we all do that together but I think it's hard because there's everybody has such a great need and, you know, and for me it comes down to how are these theaters funded? You know, how do we fund theater? How do we agitate for resources? Because that is, you know, the, I see, we see you white American theater, you know, like I said, you know, if you want to make plays about, Pengalefans do it but don't say that you're doing diverse works and so how we as people of color, whether we are cohesive or whether we're all in our own separate boxes. You know, I vote for we be cohesive. I think we're stronger together and I think that's how we can build stronger institutions but it is much more difficult to fundraise that way. It's also different, difficult to audience build that way. You know what I mean? Like if you're going to go to an Arab American community and say, you know, it's a lot easier to say come buy these three Arab American plays than come buy these three plays by people of color and which one is an Arab American writer? So that's that's our own work that we have to do. And, you know, it and I have heard from, you know, a lot of white allies that like they feel like this movement is happening at a time when theater is particularly vulnerable, you know, that that, you know, that they feel that this is kind of, you know, and a movement happens when it happens. And I think there, there are ways to think outside the box. I mean, what I think about that is, is many of those institutions were on their last legs anyway. So if we're going to be rebuilding, let's rebuild a different kind of model. And maybe that could be more cohesive. Maybe that could, you know, it's not about just integrating white institutions, it's about getting funding into the hands of the people who are already doing the work that and it's about, you know, finding the people in the community who really want to do the institution building, which is a whole separate job than being an artist who makes work and then has a theater company. So it, which is more my bent, because I don't have, I don't have the desire to build an institution. I don't have that skill set or that desire to be, to do that. But I would hope that we could work as cohesively, not in our separate little boxes and, but I don't see that happening soon. Yeah, it's a big question. It's a giant space. I'm not fully aware of this in New York City, in that big cities, there's a space that's dedicated to Arab Americans theater, just one night. No, there's not a small space. There's Silk Road. There's North Theatre Company that was in residence at New York Theatre Workshop. There's, yeah, there's different institutions that are. It represents the significance of it. And I know even the Great Play Company, one of the few companies that is dedicated to plays from around the world, they don't have this, but they can't afford it. They are lucky if they find a partner who produces a play that is of significance, you know, that is an international play and which we do need also to hear from. Absolutely. And so nobody will fund it often. It has to be American. It has to be young American. Yes. And then reinforcing existing models instead of saying, if it's already been done, you know about it, why should we do it? You know, it's something new and different. And perhaps this time, we'll give us a bit more urgency to do it. From your talks, how many artists did you talk to? Can you maybe give us, what's the mood of the artists you talk to? What do people say? Well, I mean, we're conversing more on social media than actually, you know, in real life. And, you know, those are always in soundbites. And, but, you know, I think, you know, there's, there's people who are like, burn it down, burn it down, you know, and, you know, I think theater has to make a fundamental shift. And, you know, most people aren't going to like what I have to say about that. But I think we are, you know, some guy who I was interested in told me theater is going to go the way of opera. And I dumped him because I was like, that's terrible. But 10 years later, I'd like, you know, I think that, you know, we, the way we're operating has been on its last legs for a long time. And, you know, either we have to be able to make it cheap and dirty, you know, and, and, or share spaces, or learn how to audience build. And I think the way to do that is to do the kinds of plays that you can only, the all kinds of experiences you can only get in theater. Like I did, the last play I did in New York was The Strangest, which is from the perspective of the mother of the murder victim, and Albert Camus, The Stranger, kind of, it's her story. And she tells it in an Arab storytelling cafe. So I invited audiences in to experience kind of the oral tradition, the Thousand and One Nights tradition, where you have one storyteller drinking coffee and hearing the story and being immersed in it. And I kind of, because it's about French outdoors, I have traditional Western form mixed with traditional Arab oral storytelling traditions. So kind of in the way that that was a hybrid culture, I created a hybrid play to tell a story about that era. And that was very exciting for people to be able to enter into an Arab storytelling cafe. And we could only do 16 performances because we were an equity showcase contract. But I think we have to start thinking in more interesting ways. And I'm not, you know, not everything has to be like immersive or different. But I think there's room for us to evolve. And that's why classical theater of Harlem doing classical plays in open air stadiums in the way that they did in Athens. Is it so exciting to me? People go out for that stuff. And so are we going to look at little family dramas like we're in the era of Tennessee Williams? No, we have to continue to evolve. And, you know, I just have so much empathy for everyone who is, we are all trying to survive right now, just survive, like not get this VAM COVID-19 and not be thrown out of our homes and not, you know, so, so I have such empathy for people from any background who have dedicated their lives to trying to make theater their, their way of being in the world. So I hope we can all together figure out how we are going to survive as, because I firmly believe this too, as somebody who has worked in so many different cultural contexts and with so many different kinds of artists, I have more in common with a playwright from any culture than I do from an American who is not interested in words. And so that, that how we think of ourselves, you know, I would really hope that we could think of ourselves as theater artists first, and not as white theater artists, you know what I mean, who want to hold on to our power, you know, or black theater artists or Arab theater artists. I would love for us to make our own subset of a community of these weirdos who believe in like setting lights up and pretending things are real and investing our lives in making basically plays, which are, you know, when you have a kid, you realize how similar theater is to playing it. That's what we're doing. We're adults, we have responsibilities, but we have decided that we're going to, you know, spend our lives and our emotions and our life energy and our careers playing. And that we're wonderfully weird creatures and, you know, and as long as everybody gets to play on an equal playing field or does the thing they're saying they're doing with the money that they're getting to do it, you know, let's go back to being that weird subculture that we are that makes room for stories that we can't hear in any other way. So that's incredibly beautifully said and true. And this also a vision, I think that we all can, you know, put our names under and I think this is a hope that this this crisis, I mean, Karl Hancock wax yesterday said, you know, we don't change personally. Institutions don't change. What have all these people died for COVID that put us in such existential trouble? And he says, as you said, we don't know if we will survive. And it's really true. And even mankind itself somehow is saying, what if there is no vaccination, like people who are infected get it again and get it more severe than the first time. So it could very well be. And so this is a small serious time. And so we have to find better forms, we have to find better ways of living, as we all see the American form of the health insurance, not having a nationalized satellite health insurance is a terrible system. It doesn't work. Everybody knew it before, but now like an x-ray, it's clear. And perhaps also, as you point out, something was already deeply wrong in the theater where artists perhaps are not part of the artistic decision that money goes to institutions. It's run often by people who study business administration, but artists, and that's important, but they should be on the table, you know, in the board rooms. It should be shared, you know, something to say. And that's the moment perhaps isn't, is not fully there. So there is a lot to be done. And I think your work is inspiring. And also, I think your idea to say perhaps a comment will be something of significance. Hanamura said, I can only write my tragedies in the dictatorial societies, you know, you need. So your idea that, instead, comedy is for your democracies and understand what we're doing. So it's a hopeful that you say we perhaps move into a way where this is the most significant perhaps. Also, ridiculousness represents the real world much better. That is farcical, that our leaders are not Trump is not a tragic leader, you know, pointed out, he's a farce, you know, and this is disrespectful to the people he's want to serve. So we have to be part of that change. And so it's important that what you do, we are coming to the end. And of course, we could talk so much more. And by the way, listening to you, I would say, maybe the classical theater part should be the Renaissance theater of Harlem, you know, listening that you are doing your project now, you know, and and it might be a name that also gives hope and connects to have a rebirth of something. And, and Hans-Tis Lehmann said, and I always quote, he said, theater is a big house, and it has many rooms. And there are rooms for the revival of a 10 civilian play of the great place of the new group, the 18th, 17th century plays. But there's also plays for new communities on you. And perhaps, as you said, perhaps it will define this era more. Of course, we do need, like in the museum, to see here, experience messages from different times and re-evaluate them. And, but what is missing at the moment is spaces for artists who are part of that complex community structure of society we all live in. And they are not represented as they should be. There's a lot of space. But we need to hear the stories, as someone said who was with us here from the Caribbean, that, you know, if we don't tell the stories, we are sick. And we don't hear the stories we need to hear. We are such as part of healing. And I think what you did and what you are on to discover is of significance and importance and greater of the classical leader of how to give you a space for the melon to support you, for people to come, for your family to give you a space. I can only imagine how complicated it is that in a way you are isolated, but you're not alone. You don't have solitude with this difference between the loneliness and solitude. But the solitude as a writer you don't have, even if you are, you know, because now you're isolated, but you don't have that. So it's a very hard place to be. And as someone said, I think it was Thiago Rodriguez from Portugal said, perhaps we have to also live this moment and experience it. There might not be answers and postpone it and this or that, but we have to live the complication at the moment. And this is a way to deal with it. So as the last question we often do ask, what do you say to the, what would you say to the young Betty Shamia who's stealing out? What do you say to young artists? What should people do? Oh my God. Frank, I always ask that question and I don't even have a good answer. You know what I mean? I always ask that because I'm interviewing people too. But I think that I would say is that it never gets easier, but you can make it more fun. You can laugh, you know, with your full self and really enjoy and give yourself the opportunity while you're alive to be alive. It's not about, you know, you don't have a responsibility to change the world until you can change yourself and your belief that you can change the world. You know, and I just would say, I would, I would tell people to have a better time. You know, I would tell people, if you're alone and reading books, enjoy those books. If you're in the middle of three generations of your family, enjoy that family. Just really, and moment by moment, really just take in where you're at and because we aren't here forever. And this is, you know, I think Jeanette went just and said, you know, Sam and don't question the stream. This is where we are. This is where we have to go. And we can't be like, oh, I wish I was on that stream or this stream or this stream is harder. And I, you know, this one has rocks and I'm, you know what I mean? My tire, you know, we just, that's our kind of imperative as people, which is to keep swimming along in whatever streams we find ourselves in. And, and just to have a better time. I think that I, one of the things, you know, now that I do have a home, now that I'm back working in America, which was for a long time, incredibly frustrating for me, particularly given, you know, that everyone was saying that they were doing diverse works. And I was one of the leading Arab American artists in a post 9 11 era. And my stuff was being taught at universities, but I could not be part of the cultural conversation is like, you will find your home, but you won't find it until you know, you got to be calm to look. That's important, really. Thank you. Thank you. I also would like to mention the Seedle Center next to European stages and the Journal of American Drama and Theatre. We publish Arab stages since four or five years, Marvin Carlson, the great Marvin Carlson created. I helped it to get it in where we review and, you know, and the theater work is about productions all around from the diaspora, but also in the Arab countries, Seedle Center is even so it's only 12 or 13 books, but no one has published more Arab plays and translations than we did, which is stunning. We are the leading. So there is a significance of it. And we have something to learn from it. It makes us richer. It's like world music. Every great musician listens to music from everywhere in the world to become a better musician, to learn something he hasn't seen or heard and to incorporate it or to know what kind of musician he really is. And the same has and should be with theater. And your work, of course, also contributes to that. I just have to acknowledge you and you and Marvin and the work that you guys have done. I have spent a good portion of my 20s sitting at the wonderful talks and the wonderful work that you do. And it really has fed me as an artist. It's kept me excited and motivated to be part of an international conversation. And I just, I am one of your biggest fans. I think what you guys do at the Seedle Center is incredible and so important and fun, fun, really fun. Significance, you know, I think this is the joyful participation in the sorrows of life. This is what we do and joyful and thanks for reminding us. So thank you all and for listening. And this, I think, was another, I think, important and illuminating a conversation. What that has to say is of significance for all of us, but also for, especially for people in the theater, but how she thinks about life and what she detects and how she puts it into a form and creates meaning. We don't have the structures of religion or dictatorial governments, hopefully. You know, we have to make our own minds now and you have to connect it and switch it. And that's okay too. It's hard, but the theater can help. But tomorrow we will continue here on our Seedle talks and we will have Adelheid Rosen from Amsterdam and Seedle talk with Melanie Joseph about her work, social engagement with communities in Amsterdam. As a theater artist on the fringes, she has become by vogue, was mentioned, was declared Women of the Year in Arab. We didn't know that when that came in, so there will be of interest to hear what she is doing. And Melanie, of course, will be a great partner to talk to next Monday, which will be the last week of the Seedle talk. After four months, we did every day, Monday to Friday, we had Adelheid Rosen. And as with the next one, we have the great French philosopher Chaconciere. He will talk about how he experiences this moment and how he feels. And what it means to him, the great Morgan Janes, the dramaturg, supporter, agent, who is so connected to the New York community, will share her thoughts with this heli minority from Indonesia, performance artists. We'll talk about her work, the organizations and the art network she is creating and how that matters to what we have here. Thursday, we will have one or two artists from Lebanon, it's not completely clear who it will be, but we will announce soon. And Friday is kind of a closing, Richard Shackner will come back and talk about theater performance and also perhaps lead us a little bit to the upcoming TDR edition. We also had good news, PHA, the Journal for Performance and Art will publish 30 excerpts from our conversation. The upcoming Performing Arts Journal edition, and they're doing very fast. It will go to print next week, so people will have access to students, whoever teaches can also find this ultrasound. MIT Press, it might even be publicly available, we don't know yet. So thank you, Betty, for really contributing things for our audience, for listening. And it's important for Betty that she knows, that you care, that you listen to her. She said she was part of that conversation, but I didn't feel she was in the center of it. And I hope this also puts you a bit more into it. And it can be something in the business of significance for our lives. Thanks to HowlRound for hosting us and the Segal team. So see you all hopefully tomorrow and next week. Thank you so, so much. And it was a very, very significant what you said, and a lot to think about. Bye-bye and good luck. Thank you. To your family, and that you all stay safe together. It's a big, big, big challenge and that we all get through this.