 to have a conversation with the pillars. And we have defined the pillars as leaders, producers, scholars, and administrators. And the person that's going to be moderating this next discussion is Abel Lopez. We'd like to bring it to the circle Alberto Justiano, Toni Garcia, Antony Rodriguez, Elisa Marina Alvarado, Josefina Lopez, David Lozano, Ivan Vega, Jacob Padron, Alex Meda, Rose Portillo, Tiffany Vega, and Patricia Ibarra. And I'll pass the floor to Abel. Thank you. Muchas gracias. Good afternoon. How is everyone? Very wonderful. Just a housekeeping thing. When you actually, if you comment and you just identify yourself or our note takers that's both in the circle and outside the circle. And the other thing that I also want to make sure that we understand is even though this is about administrators, this is a very creative group of people, they have to interpret also because of our budgets and organizational structure. So even though, and they're also artists as well, minimum artists as well. So it speaks actually to the duality or to the multifaceted roles that we play as playwrights, designers, actors, directors, that we're all part of a larger ecosystem and that we sometimes wear different hats and speak from different perspectives. Which is also what's great about this convening is actually seeking out different perspectives. And we touched on some subjects throughout the morning in this afternoon that we're going to continue. So it may sound redundant, but it's actually what I want to speak from your eyes as leaders of an organization in a community, in a field that is part of a larger field as well. And the last session kind of ended also on the issue of dreams. So both the inner circle and the outer circle for us to reflect a little on what is the dream that you have for your organization? If we talk about it, the year that the redemographic changed. But we don't have to wait for the demographic change for our vision, for our organizations, or for our own work. So the first things that I wanted to ask this week of leaders and pillars is what is your dream for your organization? I'm Anthony Rodriguez. I'm the producing artistic director for the Aurora Theater. The dream I have for my organization and that we've been working on for many, many years now is to make our organization look like our community. Everywhere I go, I just, I ask myself that question. I'm like, does my organization are the plays that I'm presenting? Do they look like my community? The people in them, the people working on them, they look like my community. And more often than not, I'm not doing the job I should be doing. Not nearly as good. But we're getting there and we keep working on it. So that is my dream. My name is David Lozano with Cudamy Theater Company in Dallas. And my dream is to have the most skilled, the most trained, most capable, most inspired artists in all aspects of production and performance as well as design, working with our company. And that our company is in a constant state of evolution. So that we're constantly evolving artistically and the work is a priority of our organization, including our board. And that we also begin to collaborate nationally and internationally. And that that will also influence the evolution of our artistic work. Hello. My name is Alberto Plotiniano. And I am the artistic director of Teatro de Pueblo in a scene called Minneapolis. My dream is kind of twofold. First, I want to leave a legacy in the region in the upper Midwest of a theater, a Latino theater when there was one before. And I'm committed to that. It's been 22 years. And I wish one of my students to have a stable theater with a budget that, a sustainability that I can pass the keys to some young whippersnapper Latino that can take it to the next level. Because I believe theater could be a portal into Latin America for not only Latin Americans for the country. I also want to create new type of works. But really my main goal with Teatro is to create a bridge among communities. As demographics in our country changes in that political landscape, it's important that we start conversations not only among ourselves but other communities. Because if we're going to lead, it's so important to know the other. And so I'm really into collaborations that started collaborating with a nation theater, a great theater. And we've been doing this for five years and it's very successful in creating Latino theater with the nation organization. So I'm really excited and so that's my dream. Ivan Vega with Urban Theater Company. So my dream with Urban Theater Company in the Humboldt Park community is to continue to create opportunities for Latino artists to really thrive in a community so we can tell solid good stories in the community to work closely with the community and really become a strong mentorship foundation to those who are starting off and don't have all the answers. It comes from a place nothing where I come from which is really learning things like as you go. I didn't study at all but really making creating access for those who don't have the answers but to really thrive in a community and to also be a bridge like was said right over here not only in Chicago which is a beautiful city that's culturally vibrant but also like very segregated but to also create a bridge in Chicago but also which extends internationally as well. My name is Alisa Marina when you first invited me to the circle I was like administrator but I am you know in a small company I want to know what's going in France I want to you know I've learned how to read a budget and I'm always there breathing down the neck of the board so you know definitely part of our organization anyways but a dream big dream I maybe it's just you know getting up there I'm very very interested in the playmaking process I would like to see the attribution become more come a laboratory but particularly in terms of the process of performance artistic process development of the play but also development of the artist and in collaboration with community and really finding each play I think requires its own process and we could design processes that are very specific you know for a playwright and a play and be this place that could you know could do that because we have the fortune of having a home a wonderful cultural center that's in the right in the middle of the east side of San Jose it's a state of the art theater it's a beautiful venue and we have deep roots and community we've been involved in immigrants rights so my dream is that we have a home or laboratory for art making processes Hi everyone I'm Josefina Lopez Artistic Director of Castle 0101 and it's located in Boyle Heights and I just want to give you a context for those of you who don't know Boyle Heights Boyle Heights is usually when you see films in LA that usually shot in that neighborhood there are about 87 gangs and just about as many boarding and Christian churches so we kind of got in the middle between we're trying to be the gang you know but instead of destroying things we create things we're trying to help you heal but all the stories don't have to end with Jesus saving you but just the same way and so my dream you see first of all we want to reflect the community that we live in but then we want to be the kind of place where people will see their possibilities and my dream is to have to be the anchor of a theater road because you know you always look at theater road and Noho and all these other places and I go I want one in the body I want us to inspire so many people that we have 20 theater companies on the three blocks and I would love to be to create a theater festival because I don't I don't just want to tell all the beautiful stories the thousand one stories about the Latino experience and about women's experiences but I want to do a festival for instance called 69 Plays About Sex and I wanted to be that we have so many theater companies so that we're taking on the shame of sexuality because it's so connected to death and how nobody wants to have that conversation so I'd like to be not just one theater company but a ton of theater companies that we're all trying to take on the story of being human and we transcend all the things that make us different and we really look at what really frightens us that's my dream Hi, I'm Tony Garcia from Suthiathro in Denver my dream is in the next 10 to 12 years to get ahead of some of this shit by that I mean the dynamics that are changing in the country so much in our communities the old models I think of the SOBs about this centralized arts space where everybody built the downtown off of those things are dead, they just don't know they're dead yet and I mean it's really something like the immigration issue, the immigration issue is over the issue is they haven't caught up and they haven't resolved so for me as an arts activist and that's kind of the work we're doing here with Nalak is for us to really start to get work with our organizations to build that infrastructure long term so that we can be ahead of this shit so that the time when I'm with one here playing shuffleboard because I'm not going to be around and put in 2040 whatever you know what I mean, I forgot the plans but when that time comes that this infrastructure would be placed, it's a good conversation but I really would like to be in a place where we're talking about the conversation 20 years from now and we're still out, we're still talking about it in the long of the day so for me I would really like to be having that conversation internal and external challenge Nivega was, I'm the general manager or soon to be general manager for high arts which is also known as the hip hop theater festival based out of East Harlem near city now this is really back to have anything right I like to have a staff of no less than 20 I like to have an unlimited budget I would like to have our own theater I would like to have a school that teaches graffiti that teaches breaking, that teaches emceeing and DJing the next generation and the next generation employing our elders giving them health insurance giving them all of that so we can continue to pass on the knowledge and I my ultimate dream is for hip hop to be respected and given it's due as an art form as a culture it is the most popular culture in the world and hoping that we can shepherd that and I think we are I don't know if you guys know but we're co-producing the International Hip Hop Festival one Mike with the Kennedy Center in March so check that out so I really hope that we can continue to have hip hop and give it it's due Hi my name is Alex Mela Teatro Luna in Chicago of course I share the dreams everybody here before me has echoed but I think it's not about my dream it's not about the dream of the women currently at Luna, formerly at Luna future at Luna I think all of the stability all of those issues so important but I think we are actually living our dream right now in that we have sustained although maybe poorly a safe space for women to succeed to fail, to try to come together and what I'm hearing aside from all the issues everybody has been talking about today is the lack of safe spaces that they are experiencing whether in their small theaters in their large theaters, in the community at large and for me I think the most important is the safe space that the company was originally founded upon and keeping that alive Hi, I'm Diego Padron I am here representing Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago but till about a week ago I was the associate producer on staff and Steppenwolf exists to serve an ensemble of 43 artists so my dream is really simple that when Martha Levy calls to invite that 44th ensemble member it's a Latino artist Dr. Shibara, I am the president-elect of the Association for Theater and Higher Education I have two actually one is very widespread which is just to help stop the corporatization of the university that exploits many, but especially exploits non-tenured and not permanent artistic faculty and does not give them any financial security whatsoever the second one which is maybe I think they both agree though because I never ever want to hear anybody with the VA of the affair and if they ever tell me again that they never read or acted in a Latino play Hi, I'm Rose Boethio I'm associate director of a company called About Productions we create original work from the ground up and the dreams are many I did not want to be an administrator of any kind so I was forced I'm not particularly happy about it can you tell that said oh dear god give me a staff oh dear god give me a yearly salary oh dear god give me money and healthcare really tired of those fights and I'm going to be 60 I'm really tired of those fights but on the more losty thing we went back we created a new piece and we premiered it and said it needs work and we rewrote it and it's ready to tour and I want to be booked across the country I want you to see then what else do I want we move on because we generate this work it's like then the grant comes okay that's done got to move on to the next one and so this thing because it's new work and it's company produced it's messy the script isn't there for you to have so just a real simple basic dream I want the scripts in a form that can go out so that they're not dependent on about productions producing them and they are there for you hi I'm Marisa Chivas I'm head of Duende CalArts I'm a theater and filmmaker and Duende CalArts celebrates Latino culture it is part of the CalArts Center for new performance which is the professional producing arm of the CalArts School of Theater and it's just under four years old Duende and in that time we've been able to do these fun days dream of international collaborations we've done two productions with artists from Mexico and artists in our community from our community and by the end of this year four workshops so well two things one is I a big dream now after today is to have our 2% that Olga talked about at least rise to our numbers which would be 17% and also to continue this work with that I'm doing with Duende but and a lot of theaters are doing around the country that I'm reading about the Goodman has done projects like this Borderlands I just read about that project that's happening that we create more and more of these tearing down of the borders and these bridges between the countries and find power within our larger and international community before we actually hear from your dreams because I think it's a time also we heard from you even though larger circle I want also the inner circle to begin thinking about some of the challenges however they face as organizations or as individuals to realize those dreams that we just articulated but in looking at those challenges also I'm curious about the challenge because all arts groups face challenges in this country or there are unique challenges because of the type of organization you are you know and those are both external and internal to be so in the outer circle does anyone would like to share your dreams that's perfect all just perfect I mean what a great community one of the things that I come from is guerrilla theater it's like head and run and I think a few years back Susan Moray Park did 365 which I think is one of the most successful theatrical experiences undertaken by somebody we should do that we have the power we have the playwright we can write a little piece for every day and just roll it across the country to address a lot of things and really teach people that diversity is not actually their strength on that I'm not going to undertake the project but I know there's a lot of people who are just doing it so three days ago I had a little brainstorm sometimes happens in the middle of the night and that came out of a conversation that I had with Jose Rivera I ended up doing Mariana Mariana of every New King in the city of Brooklyn and you know I just woke up in the middle of the night and went 30, 30 and I went back to sleep and I woke up in the morning and said I know, we'll do this so what I'm proposing and I've launched it already and it's live and we have one page and I have a producing partner Dominic Dandrea of One Minute Play Festival who come on board a day and a half ago and people are sort of saying yes, yes which is I asked 30 writers and it's still added but I just reached out to 30 writers initially, 30 writers 30 days, 30 plays from now through spring take it on and as many variations as you want I asked each writer to give me one play a lot of people are saying I want my newest thing to be out there other people are saying I have this play that I love and people never want to look at it and I still love it and I'm like putting it out there so this is happening and it's still here the wealth and diversity of the work that we make for God's sake, it's there it's not like it's invisible and to reach out laterally so it's universities, colleges, student groups coffee houses, bands of actors bands together in a living room or garage whatever they want to do or whatever, higher structures, lower structures however you want to name them I don't care about that to me it's democratic think about what's come back so people have been saying yes and I'm interested in so forth and a lot of the questions are but in my community that I live in, I may not have actors who and I'm saying what's cool is let's embrace theater's transformation so I don't know what to tell you, it's cast people Anyone else? Mr. Spress I guess my dream is I look forward to the day when we no longer have to have it thank you Ricardo Guterres with the Opera Beast and Chicago and I talked about this a little bit to some of my colleagues in Chicago my dream is to own a Dominix grocery store let me explain Safeway about five or six years ago bought out a Dominix grocery store which is a powerhouse in Chicago and Dominix those days are around the corner a grocery store chain which is a powerhouse in Chicago and announced about three weeks ago they were folding them all all of them and I'm assuming another chain might come in and get some so we have all of these buildings that are there in Chicago is to have one of them as a cultural center in Chicago Latino with the Opera Beast being the flagship and other companies being there as well a training center, a cultural center for theater artists with a parking lot those of you in New York see me I'll explain what a parking lot is now having said that having said that here's the second part of the dream which addresses the challenge and that is to have the Latino influential business people leaders help us achieve that dream and gravitate to the Opera Beast and the other theater artists not necessarily away from but gravitate to us stay with not necessarily just support institutions like Blank Blank and Blank Blank in Chicago because of the prestige because it's there they can do it and the Alderman can do it I'm knocking on the doors I'm starting to see the Alderman we have six or eight of them I've been attending the National Hispanic MBAs I've been attending the Illinois Chamber of Commerce all of them are there so I'm knocking on the door I just need to knock harder and they need to listen and that's it I have a dream I'd like to share a model that we just finished in Seattle oh sorry Rose, Cano, Esediano and this was for kind of a two-fold thing a new play was writing called Doki Hote and Sancho Pansa and it was to be able to do series of readings at homeless shelters and so we were able to go to nine different shelters in ten cities somewhere indoors somewhere outdoors to do half-hour readings and then dialogues on dignity and it was so moving so successful we had so many people with amazing education levels English and Spanish speaking living on the streets and in different shelters in different situations and all kinds of ideas came out of those people wanted to do a book night in ten cities other people wanted to be actors there were real-life modern day donkeys that could just do amazing speeches and I was just really I was really moved so I would like to see this as a national model to be able to do these shelter readings and to be back on to Garidad's project I think we could do that I could organize that and see what the five shelters I worked with so let's do it Hi I'm Teresa Madrero and I come from Dallas and I would like to have the notion of the Latin Scholar the Latin American idea that scholars bleed into society and we serve as critics also so that I don't have to hear the thing about teatro staying that we don't have to provide critics talking about our work in major newspapers Here are the challenges I'm interested in a model that is being supported in Europe of intrapreneurial training for artists so that artists are receiving an MFA with business knowledge and intrapreneurial training and what the vision of it that I have here is an MFA kind of sort of a little bit of an MFA degree and then also funding for MFA producers we have one that we heard from earlier and she's awesome she's kind of mind blowing so if we do get young people to some funding for MFA at major universities in producing I am sure that when you graduated you thought you didn't think you were an issue organization or maybe you did but you know if we start thinking of getting training young Latinos to be producers this whole landscape so we can see that our dreams are not unlimited that they expand and they're very expansive and they're wonderful but on the flip side what are some of the challenges in your face we can talk about those challenges that are internal to us but all that we've heard is systemic challenges as well so if you can speak from the perspective as to who is here and who the other circle about those challenges about those that you proceed to be systemic and therefore impact directly on us as an example given by LOGA and those that are internal to us as a field itself that we identify to ourselves that we say we need to address we need to require additional assistance or support but we recognize this as a challenge that we need to face and acknowledge someone from the inner circle so the biggest challenge that my theater company is facing right now is you know we're very lucky that when you build community and it just expands from there you have so many people so excited and you know we're running out of space because we're doing too many productions too many classes and it's a great problem to have but the big one is not which is the third year it's a theater festival and I came up with that idea because in my writing classes there were a lot of gay people who were suffering because they had to be the perfect immigrant son taking care of their parents but their parents couldn't accept that they were gay so at night they were doing things they were expressing their homosexuality but in a way that it was self-destructive and the story kept coming up like wow you have to live a double life when you're a Latino immigrant and I knew that this one particular person was going to die if we didn't do something about it and so one of the things I did is I empowered that person to be a producer of a theater festival so that he could come out but not just come out by himself but with other people coming out together so it's so successful artistically that we said we have to do it again and then he became the leader of the producer event so we did it a second year and then this is the third year and it's only gotten better and you have more people are coming out and they can't wait to come out and our ticket sales are really bad you know and it really sucks they're like wow we're telling the stories that need to be told and sometimes people don't want to hear but we can't even break even and so the temptation is to say we can't even afford to do the show again and it sends me because I go I know, I know I put on the first Latina lesbian musical and I knew that by putting that title that people were not going to come but I knew I had to do it to say look, there's a place for you here and so we always are running out of money so a big fight and I'm lucky that I have an administrator an executive producer but he gets to tell me the reality of like how little we make off of our productions that we get wonderful reviews for even my plays don't break even you know in LA Times the best review of my life and I'm thinking we didn't break even on LA so the challenge for us so then we gotta go to California Endowment and all these corporations for sponsorship and it's very hard to build those relationships but then of course they're like okay but it has to be about this because this is our mission so can you tailor your play to do that and I'm very creative so the play I'm writing and I'm saying okay I can bend and I'll find a way but I know that we're getting to the place where our productions used to cost $2,500 for a little black box theater and now they cost $25,000 and that's the state of the art theater and every production cost minimum $25,000 so the challenge for me is at what point do we sell out because we need the sponsorship in order to keep telling the stories that people don't come to see because there's so much homophobia and sexism in our own community so that's my challenge I always say that Supe Atom never sold out because nobody ever made an offer to anybody who's willing to buy it but for us this is the challenge and it's a broader thinking challenge kind of stuff we talked about it within our organization about how do we move forward do we move forward pulling the cart or pushing the cart the problem with pushing the cart is you can't see anything around it and you can't see where you're going and it seems like to be that's the dynamic that we have in a lot of our organizations that we're trying to get through Saturday so we have no idea what the next month looks like so it really is it's more of a philosophical question of thinking really long term in what we're doing and for me going back to my earlier conversation let me just take a quick aside but just kind of jump back to the identity thing because I think it's where you're kind of leading this at some point in whether we need Latino theaters is that the reason in the 60s and 70s we marched through the streets shouting Chicano power is because we had no power it was a way of us asserting ourselves and asserting that identity the idea of identity arts came from the point that we didn't have that and we were told we said because we thought that we were on the verge of dying so how does that translate into what's happening in the future for me it really is us learning learning to look past today looking past the $10,000 or the $5,000 it's not a question of just looking up with a great donor it's really a question of changing that whole concept of how we're doing and looking at our work too as our work is the mainstream as we become the mainstream I mean we had a lot of conversation about fitting into the mainstream Ardu has always been and I got it from Luis long time ago so it's not mine it's like that we need to expand the mainstream the mainstream needs to catch up my question is what the hell do we do to be in front of that because that's a quickly evolving kind of stage our arts are becoming decentralized we're finding arts in small places all around and it's happening in the dominant culture too their models are not working anymore that's why they're going to innovation conferences and where the innovation is happening it's happening on the grassroots level in the middle of that innovation yet we're still behind the cart so for me it's a philosophical struggle of how do we get ahead of the cart so we can see what's going and then pool what's behind us we do want to get to that question I did it again I do have a question about innovation we want to hear from you about what models that you may be using already that we haven't heard about so we do want to get to new models but are there other challenges in my organization but this is a challenge with me always being the only Latino in a room and I'm too young for that in my opinion so for me it's the fact of education and I'm a child of Reaganomics and I've been affected by Reaganomics my whole life and it's still happening today of a lot of schools don't have arts education and most of the schools that don't have schools which are most populated by people of color and then these big theater companies each city, big city, wherever you are have teaching artists who are people of color and they send them out into these inner city schools I've had this discussion already at lunch and then these kids come to these theaters these mainstream theaters they don't ever see the teaching artists if they're actors if they're playwrights they don't see their plays on stage so you have these artists going out and teaching these kids but they don't ever see their faces you're not really you're using us to get funding you're not always putting us out there we work with the people of color in the community but you don't actually produce us exactly and then in higher education I went to University of Maryland it's a huge school I was the only Latino in the theater program all four years I was the only Latino in my MFA program in producing and it's a bit ridiculous that this is still happening and it's in 2013 and I'm too young for this to still be happening and then you don't see the reason why I got into producing is because I got sick and tired of hearing people say that we're not being produced we're not producers we're not decision makers and we're not sitting at the table and I think that really for me my passion the thing that I believe is going to change is that we actually start sitting at these tables if we are but if we are actually people with power and we are decision makers we are in a circle right now and I guess Ryan just one of the comments on the issue of producing and having the talent to create art but to have somebody there to create the infrastructure so that art can be made one of the reasons many theaters fail is because there's a lot of passion in the beginning but then everybody is how many actors take to do it like all right it's about everybody wanting to do art and there's not one person lifting the infrastructure those things that are so important for the organization to continue on beyond the 10 years that people are excited so it's one of the things actually I'm pondering about what to tell a new theater that's about to open or they're going to be doing their first production next weekend and I got a call for a weekend theater in Cleveland and I was asked to go and talk to them so I'm trying to figure out what to tell them and then I just can tell them about my story I came to theater actually I'm a math major and I I didn't know anything about theater I came into theater based on the fact that somebody else two actors were upset about not having the type of roles that they wanted to to be involved in and I kind of opened my big mountain and they will start with them so 22-23 years ago now they moved on about 12-13 years ago and I stayed because I'm committed to trying to keep but theater started to talk to me and I became a theater artist and a filmmaker but it was all because of theater so I started theater after I started the theater which is you know but it would have been great to have that person there who was really committed to lifting the theater letting the actors and the artists create but I think we disregard that many times and we learn as we go I never went to school for theater management I made a lot of mistakes and I still do but I'm self-educated be a lot easier if there was somebody who knew what they were doing so that we didn't have to repeat the mistakes of the past I'd accept your answer yeah what I want to speak to I think really straddles the challenges specific to our field as well as the innovation so I think one of the challenges and it can be seen from multiple perspectives depending on what arena you're in, your playwright I see so many of our playwrights either living in the world of just readings, just workshops and just never getting out of that or the world premieres on large stages and this idea that it's kind of like one and done you get this one shot or we don't allow space for not just the artist but also the organization to innovate, innovation doesn't happen over one night it doesn't happen over one production it doesn't happen over one season and to allow ourselves the space just to allow ourselves the space to grow, to change to innovate and not just in one area, not just in one way but how do we do that I think it's a challenge that we face that we do to ourselves also that I see maybe one show of yours and I think I know you as an artist or I think I see one show at a theater company and I think I understand that theater company so I think we just need to allow more space I just wanted to address a little bit something that I'm hearing on the training issue and it actually came up in the Latino conference that we had in LA that this is a big interest and there are some places that are more inviting than others about this I know Jose Luis Valenzuela spoke about big changes at UCLA that is becoming much more diverse in terms of the faculty at CalArts I'm very proud that the majority of our MFA students are students of color in the acting program and we have a producing program that there are these places around the country that people can seek us out and that we know that we can refer people to places that are more inviting and then of course there's also as we talked about in our little circle this morning there's the stealth the infiltration right how great that you were there and maybe there's a couple of more Latino people in your program now but we're going through those growing pains and some institutions are more progressive than others but all of them are going to be opening up I wanted to speak a little bit about education but in terms of donors and corporation and because I think we are all dealing still with Reaganomics exactly what you're saying and the fact that the arts were removed and I'm fully committed as a teaching artist to continue working with you both in the community and within the institutions however what I realize is and my students will wake up and go oh my God I grew up with Bush wonder I don't know what you're talking about and they say that which is a thing of beauty to me but we are not trained to we don't have the culture of going to theater anymore as a nation we don't have it so we don't have the cultural pride in giving to arts organizations anymore so yes in terms of corporate the Chamber of Commerce speaking to the Chamber of Commerce our founder and artistic producing director on my back all the time go to the Chamber of Commerce and convince them to give money to your theater works the education program gotta knock again gotta go harder but oh my God it's talking to deaf ears I mean this is the reality it's like oh yes that sounds really good you're doing good work you keep doing that yes I will and who's gonna pay for my medical bills when I drop dead from doing this work I know I'm being extremely bleak right now I'm almost 60 okay so anyway I get to be bleak for a moment um no it's really I think it's a challenge that I put out to all of us how do we begin to make it valuable again to the corporate to the business community to see that it is a feather in their cap to be associated with arts organizations and art making that they don't have to do it but they can have a personal investment in it and that there really is something for them in it we have to find a way to educate on that point is it also a challenge to make a value proposition to our own communities does anyone have any thoughts on that whether it's also a challenge to make the value proposition even in within our own communities about the value of the art for the value of organizations I just have a quick comment I think one of the mistakes one of the mistakes that we make when we approach people about money and is that we have a tendency to say and I need this and I need that and I need this right and it's kind of like that scene in Blazing Saddle where Cleveland little holds the gun to his head and he says if you don't make one move I'm gonna get it and nobody they don't care when you sell things to people you don't go to them and you say I want you to buy this couch because I'll get more money out of it our pitch is an artist do this all the time do this and I'll make have a great costume people care sorry right this the reason you do it is because it's about you here's what you get you get to sit on the couch you get to lie down your kids get to have their story stolen your kids can be on the stage your future that's one of the big that's my quick briefing that's the mistake I think we make so often that we think we think it's about us and as long as we make it about us you're still gonna keep asking social value for our community so with our community it's about relationship we can't go to them once or twice or three times a year just when we have a show we have to have an ongoing relationship and our social value to our community is one that we are truly partners with a certain kind of expertise that makes theater necessary within our community for social change and we just did Magadio and we did the staging of Magadio the film and the classic the novel by B. Traven and we have partnerships with leading organizations that are doing food justice work and this is a project we're moving away from the regional model we've had several conversations about this with others that the regional model made the funders were pushing us and pushing us over these past 15, 20 years to have the subscribers to have this and this and this and really it was almost the lead shoes sinking us to the bottom of the river and so now where everything else is pointing in a new direction we finally shook that loose and we didn't have subscriptions this year we didn't have a season and we had some of the best attendance ever but our partnerships are an ongoing relationship with our community is one that establishes our social value and that's what businesses listen to they see that our audience is 80% Latino 60% under 30 we filled 500 seat house so they might want to hang a banner on our show I just want to echo a little bit of what Tony was talking about and I heard a great quote from a local senator in Georgia Stacy Abrams at a conference where she said we need to meet people where they are not where we want them to be and I think we do that so often with the people we go to ask money for and when I go and talk to people about a sponsorship I don't take a bunch of paraphernalia I don't even take the sort of template of what the sponsorship is I assume they know I'm asking them for money because they let me into their office so they know that already and then I want to know what they want to get out of this what is their place within the theater that we're creating within the art that we're creating how do they view it and I needed after a few years doing it that they may not actually want to see what they're giving me money for and I have to be okay with that eventually I might get them to that place but there are other things that might be really important to them that are inspiring children that they're helping their community so I would recommend always focus on the success that you're creating and they will buy into that it really will I'm going to be president of an organization that's not Latino based that does not have Latino culture as its base but I think the problem is that as theater educators and sometimes as artists we're forced into models of entrepreneurship that ask us to constantly argue for our own validity but also to try to fit ourselves into economic models of risk that actually give you one chance and then you're done and you're out so I think we need to quit fitting ourselves into sort of neoliberal economic models that don't fit the long term collaborative modes of art making that really be people that come at our artists so I think in arts organizations at universities all the time people are downstailing arts departments constantly and so artists always say oh we're just like the sciences or we're just like business or something but they're not to gain validity and in doing so we set ourselves up to fail so I think we have to quit unabashedly and uncritically adopting that language Alex Alex? You sure? I'm about to get kicked out of the room so we can have it after I know that I'm saying this from a really tiny slice of the pie perspective of a very small space in the theater but I just want to turn the scope of the lens inward a little bit and I want to challenge us to think about are we cultivating for me the first place we have to start is well what are we doing with our audiences how are we cultivating them and more importantly how are we keeping them engaged in our organizations and I think for me that's the first conversation before I don't give a shit about the funders right now in the place that we're at how to grow my audience because I believe our audience can feed us to get to the place where we are paying what we should be paying I believe it starts there because that is the cache for me that actually funders will listen to what are the numbers because that's what matters to them so I think the conversation starts there Jacob? I think I want to just talk a little bit about what it means to work at large regional institutions earlier and I know there was a lot of discourse around sort of good pluses and minuses and you know I feel like I've been very blessed to work at you know three institutions the marked tape reform, Steppenwolf and OSF and those institutions taught me a lot but I think you know for me a very personal challenge was walking into these institutions that were primarily white and not necessarily feeling like I had the tools to be successful but in those moments where I felt really kind of alone or confused or frustrated by my work I looked to my mentors and then I feel like to kind of connect back to the question around like what are we doing to kind of promote these MFA producing programs you know CalArts which is probably fantastic or Carnegie Mellon or Yale but I feel like for me the people who taught me how to be a producer are in this room it's Diane Rodriguez, it's Luis Maldes, it's Chris Acebo and I feel like that I feel like I just want to offer up it's just a kind of affirmation that the value of mentorship and the people who kind of saw something in me that I didn't see myself I think it's such a sort of beautiful thing and I hope as we kind of existing community over the weekend that we continue to sort of shine that light to people that we believe in. We have about ten minutes left but I want to ask a perhaps a provocative question and that goes back to something Richard said earlier and others have alluded to in earlier sessions as we see a more diversified America is there a need for Latino theaters? Anyone have any thoughts? I would say yes only because I feel like if I didn't have my own theater company I probably wouldn't have a career as a playwright you know after having had something like 20 productions of real women have curves I couldn't get produced in Los Angeles so I never wanted to start my own theater company to be extraordinary I wanted to be small and just be an actress but I said okay well then I guess I have to learn to produce and then I have my own theater company and I realized that when I go to big regional theaters I still don't see me I don't see our stories there so to me I wish we didn't need Latino theaters I wish the theater could be like oh yeah everybody's story gets told and until that happens well then I guess I have to have a Latino theater company so that I can continue to get my stories out there and the stories of so many people whose stories aren't being told yeah I'm probably going to fall I think we need maybe it's not this is the heresy part maybe it's not theater in the next 30-40 years I think that that's one of the dynamics that's changing a lot about how people are going to get their cultural arts piece how are people going to get their arts fixed and we have to really also delineate between arts and entertainment and I think that's what we're seeing in the larger theaters they're bumping back and forth between the two of them they have like a non-profit wing and they also have a for-profit wing so they're trying to jump back and forth between that's one of the models we're seeing out there but I think what we're talking about in here is the models are really changing to be much more localized so it may not be theater it may be some combination of spoken word, texting you know what's that thing about putting pictures of themselves it might be that piece Latino yes I just wanted to give one what's that at least reminded me that yes I directed an original theater I did a show and I brought all my actors in and they loved being there because everything was kind of taken care of them the difference is you said screw in the light well I would settle for turning off the light right when you leave a room so they were like really excited about this and I said hold on, hold on the master invited you to visit the house did not invite you to move in and that's the kind of dynamic unless it's our house, at some point we have to control our houses and if we don't own a house then we'll be out in the street I definitely think it's critical that we have Latino theaters because not only do we need to tell our stories we need to determine how we tell our stories and how we create and establish our own artistic processes as independent artists with independent theater companies because for one, that's our tradition as Gigano Latino theaters and we see the precedence of ensemble theaters working together traveling and creating in ways that we will just not find simply in larger companies I'm Brian Edetta I work at Princeton and one of the things that's really important and I do think that the academy is encountering this in all kinds of ways is area studies at Gigano Latino and other ethnic studies are being phased out because this is the idea that they now can be part of the survey and this idea that we have the book we have the unit of the textbook and this kind of thing and so I think what we have to be very careful about is if there is theater in the future if there is one you bet they'll be doing Ipsen you bet they'll be doing Shakespeare you bet they'll be continuing certain traditions and part of what this convening needs to do and other convenings like it is to continue that deep dive into the depth, the breadth and the full dimension of that you know literary and theatrical expression that's what we need to advocate for because we need that depth of inquiry we need that breadth of voices we need that diversity of forms and if we are not careful in entertainment or a guest in the master's house but that's what we have to advocate that's why Latino theaters need to continue, need to face the battles and need to be brave in the face of all of these challenges because the breadth and the depth is what's going to change everything Christopher DePaola, I just wonder because hearing all these things swirling around since this morning and this idea of segregationist theater I call it I guess we're trying to protect something and so I heard a couple things in there that we want to tread an Anglo theater and get our voices heard in there but then when Anglos tread on Latino theater we're like whoa whoa whoa you know and so I wonder what is that it's a real mine field and so what I see this my personal experience with African American theater where I feel like it's got because the pendulum swung so much to one side where every ethnicity has now said we've got to do our own thing because nobody is giving us a voice so now the pendulum swung all the other ways that we have black theater for black people, Latino theater for Latino people Asian theater for Asian people and I'm wondering is that the right idea because is the pendulum going to swing back towards the middle where we're just going to see multicultural things that last work within one play not just like the Latino play and how important is it for us to be protectionist and is that hurting us in some way at the same time because we're segregating ourselves from the larger picture in a sentence and saying we're off on the side doing this couple more here and then I have a question between Rose and Ben I wanted to just ask so what is diversification of regional theater mean exactly because sometimes I think it means using us to do the outreach portion using us to bring the brown people in because they have to write everybody's regional mission includes encouraging diverse audiences so does it mean that they do one play a year with bringing in Latino actors from other cities but I feel like what does that mean we have to define diversifying regional theater I feel a lot of times it's kind of a usage thing so we can go to where our communities do the workshops and then they write it on their brochure so the reality guys is that leadership is generational and once we get more of you guys who are coming up in the ranks to be the artistic directors of the OSF and the center theater group and all that it's going to change meanwhile our reality is how do we as powerful people figure out how we live in this current reality from a powerful position and part of the thing is that I think that are you know I love my position right now I'm a leader I'm not necessarily leading a Chicano Latino organization but I am a Chicano and I am leading from all that I bring to the table from all these years right and part of the thing is like why can't the Atrovision be a diverse company why can't as powerful as Elisa is but I'm going to I do Latino work but there's a beautiful Asian play that I want to do and I'm going to have a Latino director and I'm going to have some Latino designers or I'm going to have an Asian director or I'm going to have an Asian director do one of my Latino plays what's wrong with that nothing show from showing how we do it how we diversify we're powerful it's not about selling out it's not about giving up it's just approaching all of it because I am powerful I know where I come from I know the people that are behind me right because otherwise we're going to get so frustrated by the current climate and we don't need to because we have moved forward and so it's a kind of I look at what Elisa is doing at LITC my god I don't know how he does keep this huge theater open but he does and it's partly his board but it is him and his fabulous company and they do diverse work they don't just do Latino work that is the future and I think the question is not whether or not we get rid of our Latino theater I don't think I want to do that but can we lead the diversity inclusion conversation by showing how it is done not the last two or three comments because the conversation will continue I want to go and get to a question that didn't come over to you No, I was going to talk about the question about getting rid of Latino theater and Diane your question showing we're in a different position because I happen to be an artistic director of a multi theater company so right now we have an African-American nation a Latino play and we produce all this work but the important part of the work again is quality funders are going to come to you if they like what you're doing corporations are going to come to you if you get an audience that they say you're getting 500 people a night and those leadership I have a great work and it's very expensive to be in my work you know it's all they have to do and it costs them a lot of money but you know what they get they're proud to be in the work they get a lot out of the work and I don't ask them they see it as a transaction that they get to do and the important thing is we're babies but we're doing this is what we have to remember we are babies she got up there at least for my 65 we're barely beginning to talk about the best work has not been done yet I thank you Mr. Luis for saying that because it really is a drop in the bucket when you look at the time I guess part of why I had to step in and I appreciate what Diane said too is recognizing our power and our work because tomorrow our charge is to start looking forward and to start a day of the dream if you will and all of us know how to do that we've made things all of us have made things from an idea to a thing and we're going to continue to make things but it really is just kind of a drop in the bucket and someone who started 13 years ago on the strength of an idea and not necessarily in the framing of I'm going to do Latino work it was a different sort of frame because we're going to do we're going to bring our hip hop family into a space and we named it we gave it a sense of power and that's black, brown, yellow, white it was interesting stepping into this room working to create this opportunity along with my cohort to have this conversation which we need to have to move forward but I want to challenge all of us to really take what Diane and Jose Luis just said and some of us have touched upon Chantel about the new paradigm it's part of our charge and let's embrace scale there's an artist talks about let it burn and let it grow right? some things are going to have to burn down to the ground and some things are going to grow and all of it has to happen to move forward great thank you the circle is widening people out there in the larger hemisphere as well as the cyberspace so we have a question update that has been tweeted by RB Barb he asks or she asks what are some alternative economic models that don't force us to be what we're not hedge fund could you repeat the question it's not hedge fund anymore they changed it to well you say projects now it's hedge fund oh now it's hedge fund and it sets up a model where artists can apply get a project together and then apply and through crowd and through funding that way they can raise half the funds and then USA artists or another organization provide the rest of the funds for them to produce it and I know that Denise was able to produce a production of a play that she eventually moved to the LATC Wild and Wichita and I know that the documentary filmmakers are doing that I know that visual artists are raising funds that way and and it's then sort of raised independently of a producing organization and eventually their producing organizations become interested in the work once it's funded, once they see it once it's produced and it goes on to have a greater life thank you very much one more brief comment Tiffany and then I'll put this one tell me I have another I have another model an economic model and I'm going to read the Wikipedia definition of it it's called the L3C which is the low profit limited liability company I don't know if you guys have heard about this but there's actually one I think it's a big one in Denver actually a low profit limited liability company is a legal form of business entity the United States that was created to bridge the gap between non-profit and for-profit investing providing a structure that facilitates investments in socially beneficial for-profit ventures while simplifying compliance with the IRS rules for programming related basically it allows you to get private foundational money so foundations have lines where they have a loophole where they can invest into productions that has to be socially beneficial which every single organization in this room is while also being commercial which I think we need to embrace that as well and not spelling out where you know so it's not offered in a lot of states Illinois has it and then Colorado has it but definitely try to look look it up and see there's other models gentlemen here my name is Lou Moreno I just want to take a quick second thank you all for allowing me to show up late I know how important it was to be here the entire time and I apologize thank you for welcoming me I had a quick cross question I don't know if this is the format and I'll tell you what you'd like but it was a question to you about your board and I was curious about how diverse your board was and what the Latino giving is there if it's not diverse how can you get diverse and how can you help those of us that are trying to keep a more diverse board there how do we start schooling the Latinos of money to start giving us the proper money specifically the Latino my board will now try to get it diverse it's all Latinos and the way it was it's a private club in Los Angeles we invited the most powerful Latinos in Los Angeles with money private club we talked to them you're going to be in this board for a Latino board it's a lot of money it's not like a paper but minimum you have to give us $15,000 from your private money okay and then you have a corporation that you can sponsor and that's the main amount that you pay give or get and now because we're going in a whole infrastructure because they want to raise the amount of money because we're growing so now we are going into an analysis you know but these people have analysis that they give this software honestly that they say I want Kinan to come in the board and analyze Kinan no way thank you thank you thank you very much we'll turn it back to you thank you let's give a big round of applause for all the moderators for today Aben we began the day with a conocimiento group and a few moments we're going to be heading back to those particular places but today we've touched upon from multiple perspectives and with a full respect for the group here issues that relate to advocacy that relate to art making to scholarship they relate to our ability to network the idea of hosting convenings the need for mentorships some platforms for the art such as festivals and then other communication strategies perhaps like that fail all of you have your cards and so this is a reminder that tomorrow's conversations will be about these particular issues as we transition to the next phase of the day don't forget to take a look at your card and begin the process of negotiating with your collaborators in this room and your colleagues if you want to switch groups that's going to be the rest of the process think about that for a while all the stuff that came up today will begin to address tomorrow what we are going to do next is return to our conocimiento group to begin to sift into the collective wisdom all of the things that we've heard today and we are going to ask the conocimiento groups to reflect upon all that they've heard and to begin identifying two to three themes that have emerged throughout these conversations two to three themes that speak about perhaps and point to a future vision but it's the themes the reflections that have touched you moved you got a new fire so the other is that we know that we are all artists in the room and so your reflections can take the form of a five minute presentation to the group via piece of paper or it can be in a more creative manner that is up to your conocimiento group to decide you can create some sort of mini-performance that reflects these themes if you so desire we will determine that with the groups we will have approximately till about 5.25 with your groups I will begin announcing that it's time to reconvene but we will begin our report backs at 5.30 on the nose it's 4.07 as we transition out of this particular space we're not leaving yet watch your things on the floor we want to take care of ourselves by taking care of our space and I believe that has one final announcement before we go it has just been reported that we are trending high on Twitter just saying I think Chris will give us that report thank you Chris just one thing is that people have been retweeting in this room and retweeting out there and thank you out there everybody who's with us here say hi to the camera we have a team with us in the room wait wait wait folks from without this room have been commenting and retweeting what stuff's been saying here and having no conversations as you move into your conocimiento groups check out what's being what's hot for the community as well to help inform your conversations bring your community into your circles thank you and so with that we have a small little break you are to meet at your conocimiento groups the places where you met by 4.15