 Good morning, everyone. Good morning. How are you all today? Fantastic. Are you fantastic? Yeah. I mean, I just feel like the third day of a conference or at 10.30 AM, or if a theater person says, I'm fantastic, it's like, it's a big fucking achievement in America. In Ohio, we're always fantastic. You are always fantastic. Yes. Good thing. Well, good morning. Jeremy, and I am facilitating a discussion today that we're going to have around what wave we're in of amazing playwright collectives happening not only here in this country, but internationally. And just a reminder that we are one of the discussions today that will be on HowlRound. So thank you to HowlRound and Poojay for making all of that happen. And hello to our friends in Canada and Australia, who I know are tuning in today to this conversation as well, which is awesome. Awesome. So maybe we can just start real briefly by just sort of saying, hi, I'm this person from this place, or I'm kind of maybe really truly 11 seconds about, I'm curious about how you guys raise money or I'm curious about what is the biggest problem you run into and then we'll try to track things a little bit. We have a couple of questions that we kind of thought that we would discuss a little bit and throw some stuff back out to you guys and, of course, make sure we just have a lot of time for discussion today as well. So we start with you, general lady. My name is Hallie Gordon. I am the artistic and education director for Steppenwolf and adults and several of your companies. And I'm just interested to hear what the playwrights are challenged with. Paul Slee, executive director on the summer school here in New York. We're a huge ensemble of theater people and we have among our programs, the various collective directors called Youngblood, Larry Tungman-Turk, and we have a writer school called the Ferris School. And I'm here just to hear about the SSA school. I'm Dr. Carlisle Brown. I'm the sole employee of Carlisle Brown. And I'm here to listen to what? I'm Rob Tellers. I'm the education director at the District Public Theater. And I'm also a playwright. And I'm here to hear about some of the cameos. My name is Joel Greenheim. I'm the production director of the New Harmony Project. And we'd love to hear about that ever big problem of racing racing. We had to cut it back. Last year's project, the 14-day project, the 11-day project. My name is Sager Scott. I'm the director. And I'm also an apprentice at Queen's Playhouse. I'm looking forward to hearing how I can best start as a director of a support playwright and best advocate. Maddie Vaughan. I'm a playwright. And I'm also an apprentice at Greenland Playhouse. And I guess I'm sort of hearing maybe how I could form a sort of a relationship with other, other more traditional institutions. I'm Minnie Herman. I'm a theater artist here in Greenland. And I run The Dark Room, which is sort of a monthly open mic for playwrights at Greenland Public Theater. And I'm here because I want to know how playwrights like this are how you sustain them, how they keep going on. Not necessarily money, but interpersonal. I'm Jonathan Welholm. I'm the associate managing director on the theater and have a playwright screen called The Playwright's Gym. And the playwrights in The Playwright's Gym call me the cattle prod. I'm always trying to urge them to do more. So I'm interested in what other people use as criteria for membership in a playwright's group or playwright collectives, whether they have like a revolving door. I'm interested in sustainability, but also keeping things fresh. Hi, I'm Josh Smalley. I'm just a theater student at the local Ball & Wallet's University. I study the fabulous game terms. I was an intern at the Ball & Wallet. And I'm the English major as well. So I'm interested in playwriting. And I'm unfamiliar with playwriting collectives, so I thought I'd come in right. Ben Thiem. I'm the director of member services at the League of Chicago Theaters. I'm also the literary manager at Timeline Theater in Chicago. We're about two years into a playwright's collective and I'm just sort of interested to hear what other people are doing and how they're managing. I'm Ken Lezebnik. I'm a playwright living in Los Angeles still with a Minneapolis connection mixed blood in Minneapolis. It's kind of my home place theater. I'm just interested in the mechanics of how people's playwrights collect their experience at work. I'm Keele Lowens. I'm a new play associate at Cleveland Public Theater. We do not have a collective, so I'm really interested to learn how those work. We do have a fellowship for playwrights and so I also want to learn how to better serve the playwrights within that fellowship. Thank you to our Robertson with the Highest Theater Project. I also am an artist at the Cleveland Public Theater. I do work here. I'm a very new group and I'm just here to learn to listen. Hi, I'm Kristen Clifford. I'm a director and I'm excited about these collectives. I think they're so wonderful and I'm interested in hearing about the models and just how you start to wrap your brain about organizing it and especially how you think about making them play night. I'm interested in hearing about the models and just how you start to wrap your brain about organizing it and especially how you think about making them play night. The playwrights are a three-seven-year residence and we refer to them as a playwright company so in and of itself is a collective that changes every year with the introduction of new writers. We talk a lot about playwright leadership within the community that has to do with both how they direct their own development but also how those skills and those positions in that position translate that to the field. We have a Writers Executive Committee which is a body of policymaking bodies of our Writers Executive and on our board of directors so it is a I mean the fact that I'm called the artistic director is kind of a misnomer because it's more that they are the artistic directors and the way the staff serve there. So I'm also interested in hearing any variety of ways that include empowerment, individual collective and what that movement is. I'm interested in how and which is Philadelphia's first playwrights collective. I'm Maura Kraus, I'm the artistic director of Orbiter 3 which is a little bit of a misproduce but I'm Georgia Roof I'm the executive creative director of The Welders which is a playwrights collective in BC also was at the National New Play Network for five years and so have been. William Sullivan I'm one of the co-founders of the playwright with The Welders. I'm also a DC's representative to the drama test field and I built the new play exchange for it in the end so advocate for playwrights. I'm Jeremy I'm one of the artistic director at the playwrights center and like Emily was saying in a lot of ways really we kind of exist to kind of show up and really support this body of writers that we seek to support and I think one of the things that I'm really excited to talk about today is a reference back actually what Emily put out there and I'd love to hear some other thoughts about how playwrights really are and should be an ought to be encouraged and reminded to be real leaders of our field. They are our storytellers they are our great artisans but there's a separation that often can happen and so directors go there and actors go there and designers go there and even playwrights go in a very different special place and I think there's a lot of folks and it's one of the amazing things about playwright collectives is not waiting not asking making it happen because I think in terms of even language one of the things that was Karen Harman that coined this and it's been repeated over and over and over again but a place like New Dramatis or Playwright Center or any collectives that playwrights are the host artists not the guest artists and that's a big part of that divide is the way that people are invited into the big house and then your guests are invited to leave when the project is finished so it's very hard to have a sustained relationship when you are being thought of as a project not as a collaborator or as a... so the host thing One other thing to say about the Playwright Center is that we have two companies and residents one is Workhouse Collective which my really entrepreneur assessor Dr. Polly Carl put together and really offered at home these writers as they were coming out of many of our fellowship programs and looking for a way to sustain between cities as a viable home for them and also how to move those plays in a much more immediate way into production and so as Trista was saying Workhouse has been in residence for about 10 years, right? Yeah and then we have a second company in residence that's really come out of our many voices fellowship program which is for emerging writers of color partially funded by the Jerome Foundation called the Unit Collective and they don't primarily produce they primarily have an amazing monthly event called Badness that we host at the Playwright Center which is sort of a bunch of writers coming together around a certain theme or topic and having a couple of guest artists and then a bunch of actors come and they put it together over a couple of hours perform it and then have really fantastic discussion around the work using the work as a sort of lightning rock for the discussion that night so those two different things that are happening between kind of production and the immediacy of kind of writing and creating work and getting it out there using it as a focal point or kind of how we view the balance point of that program I think it would be great to start and maybe Trista if you'd be willing to start and kind of head down the line this way to just talk briefly about sort of how work house came to be and just the one thing that I asked folks to talk about with as much detail and specificity as possible so that you guys are here like remember when she said that thing and that was that weird crystallizing emotional moment so I think that's a helpful part of the discussion today as well I have weird crystallizing I can remind you of two don't ask me but no, no it would be great and again the work house collective playwrights collective started with which is a great I don't know I don't want to go into the fellowships too much but basically there was this high concentration of really exciting writers who had already been lucky enough to have fellowship so we were already sort of have a fellowship things are great some of the companies in town are producing our plays that we've already written have already been produced elsewhere but what was missing for us for a sense of a place really to a home was a way to produce the newest things that we were writing and we didn't really look around and see a company that was willing to take a chance on a real premiere which we thought was kind of interesting in between cities with all these playwrights sitting around who are being flown in places to produce work their new work elsewhere so it was like we're just kind of sitting here in town and flying elsewhere there's not like an exchange between our new work and this community and so in order to be here to feel alive let's just not sit around and ask and wait and kind of complain no whining that was kind of I think for me that was a huge part of the starting of the collective it's like can we stop complaining we're going to stay we're not living in a war zone you know where people are fellowships we should be able to do something so we kind of got all together over some food and at my house actually was the first meeting a little apartment and so about 13 playwrights were at this meeting of various ages and sort of times in the community I was really new to the community I've only been there you know six months or so but we all looked at each other and I said would we be willing to produce each other's work you know to do it ourselves to just turn to each other and say I'm going to produce your work I don't know what you're going to write I don't know what it's you know but I trust you because I trust your work we knew each other's work well so out of that basically everybody said yes and then out of that there was a people who actually said yes by being able to be interested in producing producing and not for everybody there's a lot of really terrible boring things you have to do and a lot of time you have to sacrifice to produce each other's work so the collective started organically out of people who were knew each other were expats who wanted something more to do in the community one more community connection an artistic outlet but then it kind of naturally shook out again organically to the people who were willing and able to put in the work so that's how the collective came to be the people that it's been I have a lot of things to say because we've been around like 10 or 11 years about how to sustain a group that is coming in and out that has professional lives taking off at certain moments how do you then have people go satellite basically kind of step out for a while and then come back in when they have the time to come back in so a lot of things about sustainability that I have to talk about that don't you know I do think it would be great to get to because I think there was a question over here a little bit about financial sustainability and because I think you guys are far and also just the artistic you're in a sort of a very new wave of writers that is very different than that original 13 and then have a long way so I think there's some interesting so the welders we were in an interesting situation at DC and in time because we didn't have to impact the idea of a player's collection because 13G and workouts have done it for us right so for us in DC there was a lot of conversation up until maybe four years ago should someone do a 13P for DC a well a workouts for DC and I was involved in many of those conversations with many players who come on go in the other DC and after the job just get a start and do it and I just kept saying no no no I don't see a clear reason to do that I was getting produced others were getting produced I didn't see I wanted to do it our way a way that felt right for at least for me and then some of us there were three of the welders in an email conversation one through a legendary night it was in retrospect it was really stupid we actually just traded emails g-mails back and forth all like from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. 3 a.m. when we could have got on the phone or gotten on our Google Plus hangout Google chat right instead we literally emailed back and forth but we have a thread where we where we hit on the simple idea that we didn't want to just produce each other's work we wanted to build something lasting for the city that had done so much for us so we wanted to build a collective that we would then get away from when we were done to a new generation of artists and that was the lighting round moment for us that was the focus for us that made sense we're actually about to announce on Monday who the artists are that we're giving away to expand the last year picking them so it grew from that first like amazingly exhausting and weary and e-mails crossing in midstream four or five hour chat to an in-person meeting with the three of us and talking about well who else do we want to give up three and a half or four years of our life and really redefine the rest because I'll always feel well with and we invited a few other people into the conversation we grew to seven playwrights and then at some moment it got really real and we realized this is going to be a ton of work and two of us said I can't I can't do it I have two children I have a special needs nephew you know this reality hit for two people they dropped out and we realized that we needed well I'm going to jump in sorry to interrupt so then at that point we also we looked for two additional people because for some reason seven playwrights felt like the right number so we went to two different people and they were three different people and they were considering it and then they ended up dropping like deciding not to do it because it was such a big time commitment and where they were in their playwriting at some point when we were seven we said we need someone in the group who's not a playwright who can serve as a lighting rod sort of an embedded dramaturge for the organization to serve as just an intelligent foil and really more importantly a leader in a lot of ways for the company or for the idea of the welders so we turned as the leader of our six month slot but we need a visionary really to lead the organization which is here so yeah so I think so I was brought in after the that's original seven were brought together so I sort of came in later but we were together as a group for six months before we launched publicly to the world and again wanting some through line of not only terms of relationships with the board but just a sort of leadership for the organization whereas the playwright becomes the artistic director of the production during their time and then for our new group of welders 2.0 there's also a new executive and creative director so in a year from now we will give everything from the board to our bank account to our 501.3 status onto a new group of playwrights and they then take it for three or four years and then they will give it on and on to the future we had a I had an amazing conversation with Maria Goyanes from 13P very very early on and they would talk about their implosion party that 13P had and a couple of those playwrights Winter Miller I think is one of them who really wanted to continue but the rest of the group you know they were just sort of ready to implode and move on but one thing from the very beginning for us was that we passed it on that we really created a platform that was lasting for us for the first place you guys I'm going to kick the first part over to you because I wasn't there for it okay so we started we're still quite new I guess like the Welders we existed before we launched publicly but the organic nature of how we began was there three of us who were in a playwrights lab and filled out via public foundry and we just see standard but amazing playwrights lab and after one session one weekend we were getting fears like hanging out and talking about Philly and the way that new work is produced in Philly and how it seems like it could be produced more and it is sort of this it's poised to be a hub for where the work could be for a number of reasons and we're like we what about this thing what about the Welders had I mean even more recently we just launched we were like oh that's amazing 13p all those playwrights inspire us in ways that like I don't think we even know and so we had been working on a fringe project with the three of us were writing a play together and Mara directed it and we were like we need someone who's not a playwright so then this similar idea we need that brain and she has now become my other half as well and so we organically kind of lived her in and then looped in our other two basically for in the very core we believed in each other's work and we were we believed that we could do it ourselves we were ready we think that it's possible and we were excited about it so we sort of just you know started organizing and decided to what we very effectively call like pull a Beyonce and like keep it really quiet and then that was awesome launch and it was like fully formed and ready to go and yeah that's sort of there's similar narratives throughout I guess do you want to talk about like what we plant the intricacies of how the company works as far as future well we so we looked at existing playwrights and like this we were I mean really lucky because not only did we have 13 community we had the welders and I chatted a little bit with Jojo and there was a lot of options that seemed open to us and so sort of parsing out what was right not only for us as people but for Philadelphia as a new work city and we came to the decision that we were going to exist for three years and produce six plays and after that we would just go away because Philadelphia is in a different stage in its new play ecology and DC or New York and it's very scrappy and we were all more emerging writers and artists and the welders or 13p and so we felt very much that this would be kind of an injection and once we went away we would leave this record in a way that in a similar range of 13p and hope that a new wave of Philadelphia artists would be able to craft a brand new thing for themselves because we feared that Billy was changing so quickly and the artist landscape was changing so quickly that we actually wanted people to have to build their own thing if there were going to be people after us and so we but one of the things we did in order to kind of accommodate that changing landscape is that we were on our sixth playwright halfway through and so right now we only have five playwrights the three that kind of came up with the idea and reached out to me are amazing James I'm Zinn Mary Twominin who we brought on later but who are now absolute backbones like the way that this group has coalesced is crazy and we're going to start taking just plays and cover letters from people starting probably it's the same it's the same through line here is that if you believe in the work you can really do anything to support someone to gather some maybe of what we heard a little bit more fit with one of the questions we talked about two which is can you maybe talk about one specific thing and maybe it's sort of success thinking about succession next generation of writers or whatever that is one thing that you sort of gathered around originally and it still feels like it's going that's been really successful on whatever terms that dance and then one thing that you hadn't anticipated or that was a real challenge for you and how you've met it and how are you working on it still it's a thing that's like no this is always going to be this is part part little thing or you can even think you knew it might be coming it doesn't have to surprise you and you were like and we avoided it couldn't you talk about maybe a few things would you Yeah I think that my collective our collective work house is the only one up here that doesn't have a non playwright in charge of anything about the administration and the idea of so I'm kind of I'm in a state of awe all the time that work house is so communist it is like it is such a it's a messy socialist communist like we just keep doing this and we drive each other crazy sometimes and we come in and out of each other's lives people go off and write for television in our way there's so much forgiveness there's so much like get over yourself there's so much something is just driving us to do this over and over and whatever that us is in a moment there's just this like yeah so I'm really impressed that the that communism works in our case and there were all writers and none of us are some of us direct as well and some of us have administrative you know skills as well or you know Joe with his website so we all pitch in what skills we have and that's how we have worked we've all pitched in the skills that we've had the strengths that we've had but there's always of course tension in that because without like a leader so we've had over the course of our many years together we've had okay we're decided well we can't these people are flaking out we've got to have at least three of us so we're like we're the producers everybody else is sort of hanging around became that but that naturally kind of fell away to more communism so um that part's been working we are just now after all this time getting our 501c3 we have also it used to be my bank account it's very it was like possibly but um it used to just come out of we just kind of opened our own separate thing under my social security number and then it was like a good IM we've been really and this was in part due to a tax guy who was like if you do 501c3 and all this stuff you are going to lead administration administration administration so actually I think one of the reasons at workhouses is still alive is we've spent so little time worrying about administration I was a part of a company in um in New York called the assembly which was which was a collective started by actors and during that time wonderful amazing people we all got connected everything fell apart because it was like how should we do this how should we do that it's like instead of just doing it so many discussions over administration and it killed us it totally killed us and everybody started hitting each other I was really sad um got over it so I learned from that experience coming into work house like let's just keep it as simple as possible all of our lives are really complicated I've had two children since this I got a full time teaching job we've had evolution lots of people kids happen out of the collective and you know people then dealt dealt with themselves as producers with infants in their arms and you know all of these things happening in our lives professionally taking off and steering us in different directions so um I think what has worked is actually keeping a low administrative overhead on the other hand that's hard it's really hard and we suffer with it in no sense that we are doing ourselves and we have to figure out so there's a lot of reinventing the wheel because people are taking on different roles um a recent change in our structure that's worked very well is that everybody stays on one um specialty only and then we delegate to other people so there's somebody who's in charge of marketing there's one person in charge of money instead of passing on all those tasks used to pass along to yeah so now we're using our long-term memories a little bit better but um a challenge now is we didn't have we didn't start ourselves with like okay we're gonna implode or okay we're gonna pass it on we've just we've just been doing it minute to minute year to year three productions a year except for a couple of years when we only did two we've been doing three productions a year and took good reviews and very little money how do you how do you decide which shows okay yeah so how do you decide which shows um has actually been um who's available because you have to be there that whole season you have to be in town the whole season basically um to make it work and you have to be in town to do your to do your show you can't have it done remotely and you need to have something ready to go or an idea that's you know warm well enough that you can plan it out and we've never had a real conflict over the entire time it's all been yeah yeah and also okay we'll then step back a little bit you have to have had been able to put in some work recently so if you've been gone haven't been doing anything for the collective and you're like I want a production no nobody even asks for that because that's just yeah I just want to have one quick thing too which is that uh that work house is done I think that's fantastic is because players are deciding which pieces of theirs they want to put forward and they're for very different reasons this might be this is a play of mine that has been around for four years it keeps getting close to getting done and it hasn't for this is a play of mine that's had two productions but actually I never really got to do the work that I needed to do on it so I'm going to bring a moment to do it on my terms or whatever the reasons are and I think about this piece and it really morphed for her in a moment where what she realized she needed to do she was working with Mary McClellan and they were really spending a lot of time talking about it what they realized in that moment was it actually needs to be more an open workshop production rather than putting any of the pressure of the rest of production on it and because work house has that kind of malleability they were able to be super responsive to Christina and Mary in the moment so I'm not trying to sell tickets and we're going to shift it instead to kind of this other thing and it's a beautiful piece that had a really great next step as a result you actually have a physical building no we don't so how do you work that well basically we we we rent space boat it's in a relationship with the playwright center we usually have about two of our three productions here at the stage and then we are developing relationships with other places as well so one of our productions was at the Guthrie like black box space another one so now we're part of art chair southern theater which has basically companies and residents that's a whole other thing you should Google southern theater art chair so they have a number of companies and residents at the southern theater is so beautiful so they they administer this co-production or no we've never we just rent the space or otherwise have a relationship that they allow us into the space for most we can't rent like the Guthrie for a full rate basically they gave a big discount because that's part of their grant kind of thing is to do that for smaller companies in the community production yeah yeah so you so we yeah so we operate a really low overhead thanks to the residency so we most of the time get free reversal space there and if not there then at a university that somebody's teaching at so yeah so how do you I'm sorry how do you raise funds for the rest of it to you at donations so we do individual donors and Minnesota has good good granting organizations not all kinds of would but yeah so much better so much better I mean that's one of the reasons that absolutely and can you guys maybe incorporate that as we were about to weld you guys incorporate that to a little bit about what you're getting here so I just wanted to finish the thought in terms of what's not what hasn't worked so one of the things that because it's been so organic so far we're at a crossroads right now because which we're crossing together but we're at a crossroads about how to have people come into us because that hasn't really barely been a question of how do you get new members so a bunch of people have gone off to Los Angeles basically to write their TV make some money because they're not getting paid to work so not only that of course just people but a lot of it's out the LA pool so Los Angeles is stealing workhouse collective like it's basically gone over there a lot of it and so now what do we do you know how are we then passing it on to another people so yeah Dominic Orlando and I was one of those people we used to argue about what the collective should be that's his emotional moment it's when they fought in a coffee shop got told to be quiet but anyway we looked at each other and we're like we're passing the baton that's great yeah we call it passing the torch yeah satellite torch well running well no satellite yeah we actually have and a satellite torch that we bought and at the end of each artist director's chair we literally get it so it's a question of so when you said about you'll always be a welder what if the welders so I have you know what if the welders become something that but you know here's the thing we actually the reason that we built a terminal in for ourselves is that we wanted to embrace evolution right we wanted it to change we were like this is just our idea of how the structure should be it's gonna change why not build that into into how things are gonna go so the people we're giving it to they have three and a half years actually because they're slightly larger group than us so they're gonna pay it forward to someone else and it's gonna change the welder emeritus or welders originals we're calling ourselves or elder welders for some of them for some of them so some of them are not embracing that structure we have one member of the 63 and she's like I'm an elder welder and you better deal with it now hi Kelly even if you're watching yeah so for us that that terminal was sort of built in and we're I mean I love hearing we are too even even within a production we have an artistic director who's in charge but that person is always like what do you guys think what do you think what do you want what do you want we actually have trouble this is one of the struggles we didn't anticipate is it's hard when it's your turn that hasn't been my turn yet I'm last it's hard to step up into that leadership role because we're so disempowered as playwrights we're so fast to the edge that when someone even when you yourself say you get to take the reins you still struggle to take the reins right like so it's like this is the time you get to run everything and you're like ah what do I do even if you've done it you know I work at Willy Mammoth I'm a director marketing for Willy Mammoth and I'm terrified to market my own show and to market my pure shows right so it's it's very very difficult and frustrating so that authority and leadership has been our main struggle and maybe we're getting a little better at it yeah well I think the challenge of it so I think one of the reasons why we have been so successful when from the time that we launched is that the five playwrights are established in their careers they're all slightly older Willy is actually the youngest out of the group of playwrights um uh they've all been they've all been produced regionally almost all of them have been produced in DC some of them are having like nine productions in DC next year alone and they're very established they have audience communities designers actors patrons donors who really believe in who they are and the work that they do and I so strongly believe that that's how we have been successful thus far and so all of them have had experiences where they've been in the room and even some of them were atypical processes of world premieres where they really had a voice and they were there learning a little bit more about how the rest of the group can empower them as a leader and really say this is your turn whatever you want to do people support you but it because it happens every six months because it's a new playwright becoming the leader every six months it's also a little like re-learning it over and over and over again and you very very quickly learn like what their strengths are and where we need to support um and like Workhouse initially the idea was the playwright were two line producers of the other playwrights and then the remaining two are roving and they're on the board and they're doing sort of other things for the organization and we should have talked to them we should have talked to them and we did that for the first production and then we realized that's stupid um and that we we need the amazing of marketing there's no reason why anybody else in our organization should be doing marketing or social media and Ali is amazing at fundraisers and she is like totally visionary in terms of that and she can do it in her sleep and there's no reason that one of the other ones should do it instead and so really building on their strengths um can I just quickly just because we're fundraising for a quick second yes is yours primarily institutional funding is it primarily individuals or major um so we were very very lucky to get a $10,000 grant before we were launched um which was totally revolutionary um and so we are so each of our playwrights can do whatever they want with that money um so most of them have used it towards world premier's Renee who's next is using it towards sort of workshop-ish production that's going to explode a little bit um and 25,000 each 25,000 the 10 the 10,000 launched it but it became a bunch of other money exactly so a majority of it is individual donations um we've gotten a few other grants as well um and then we've got this performing arts center which is a performing arts center in D.C. and we split the box office with them so we also get a little bit a tiny bit of money that way um so fundraising is like a multi-strategy for us I wouldn't recommend following the model of foundations appearing at your door offering money because that's actually happened to us now twice like big dollars have come to us but we didn't ask for X amount and then get into the check so like don't count on that but um I think people embrace our model they embrace the generosity aspect of what we're doing when you can say to a big ticket donor you know a four figure donor um we have dedicated three years of our lives to build something that is going to impact our city that's not I'm just going to produce my friends plays in my own play but we're going to build a lasting institution that's going to evolve forward and continue to evolve and meet the city's needs as the city evolves people want to get behind that they want to give you money they want to help you do what you want to do and when they see how much time and how much our hearts are putting into it so that message works but then we've also you know again um not only institutional uh fundraising and sort of big donors but we've also worked very hard to solicit Obama style tiny donations from lots of people because it's we belong to the city right and not everyone can give the same amount so we have an annual fundraiser that's literally 10 we all want is $10 all we'll accept is $10 so that anyway and we make thousands of dollars out of $10 donations and then we do um we've just instituted and are still learning from and still evolving a community supportive audit program for each production so that members of the community can best in the making of a piece of art for the community and they get extra out of it they get more than a ticket out of it you know your share and the well-known CSA gets you a deeper engagement with the artist and with the making of the art and with the art itself um because again we're just trying a new model and we're trying to innovate where we can innovation being the spirit and that was the idea and it's going to evolve slightly for each production because it's going to change what you get out of it so for Rene's production for instance buying a share in this CSA will get you a hard head tour of this really super cool space and so it's like it's that much extra so how much that actually will be I just don't determine but we're constantly evolving and changing and learning um passing it on it's really uh it's integrated into everything we do our board knows that they are going to be part of the new group for at least six months and then it's up to them whether they want to renew their term we want to make sure that it's really consistent um we're bringing on this new group a full year early so that they can learn so that institutional memory is passed on um and they will be at strike and they will be at all of what they're doing from them is we have what's called tickets plus and so at every production immediately after the show any donations given that night goes into an entirely separate account for Welder's 2.0 um and so we want to make sure that we're passing not only the surpluses each year that we have but also um a larger amount of funds for that so that when we started it was a token initial amount I mean I don't want to belittle how much that is but it let us buy a web domain print a brochure uh pay a graphic designer for some things it's little things that let us actually start the gears turning so we wanted to give more than that amount and we're already ahead of that amount um to the next generation to just feel like they're not entering that's great thank god every institution should have that so say it's all the newer I mean we're I feel like in some ways we're kind of in between the Welder's and Workhouse like we're a little bit communist and we're a little bit I mean we're definitely communist but we're not as um we're still evolving much more than the Welder's are that that is why we can do what we do um it is why we can apply to things as a project that is why the crazy busy people in the collective can commit for three years and not have the burden of a 501C3 so that's actually working really well for us it is my bank account which is terrifying but Fractured Atlas is our fiscal sponsor and they're incredibly helpful and really supportive so that is an alternative model now two even though I'm the artistic director I would say that like when they first came to me and were like we won a non-playwright brain I was like I'm the wrong person to do this I don't have that leadership experience and it turned out that what we really wanted was just someone to kind of be able to think not about the text like not be a writer and so artistic director for us means like strategic brain it means like artistic protector it means that everyone else has like one point person to go to so the playwrights kind of so the way that we define artistic director is not how our artistic director is commonly understood which was intentional we wanted to redefine what that work and what that relationship between an AD and a playwright meant and still hold on to the same vocabulary so that was why we dated that but it's not like you are in charge no I mean it's definitely like sometimes I'm in charge and sometimes Emily is in charge and sometimes someone else is in charge and it's actually in some ways is that there's always someone to step up into the position of like leader of a meeting or leader of a task and we also very early on figured out what everyone's specialties were and everyone is sticking with those so like we really early on figured out that Emma Goidell is amazing at design and social media and website marketing like she's just so good at and we really early on figured out that Emily is a lot better at fundraising so or like and we figured out that Mary is a freaking genius grand writer so we have definitely kind of like it's not coalesced we scattered into a very loosely traditional administrative structure that gets tossed around a lot and we try to delegate when things get overwhelming the other thing I'll say as far as our fundraising capacities and also to be innovative in this new model is we have in a response to the subscription models of sort of the more established convention we have memberships and our memberships in our original launch we had 200 available memberships the first 50 sold for 20 dollars and then the next 100 for 30 and the finally 50 for 50 dollars and a membership buys you a ticket to every single show for our existence and then also perks sort of like you said that if you are a member you get to attend certain events or have artists interaction in some way and what was amazing about that was before we'd even done anything 200 people I mean we sold these out in three months like before we'd even done anything 200 people were like we believe in you as artists we believe in this model Philadelphia as a city is proud to have a player as a collective like everyone is whether they're part of the collective or not is just so excited and we had $6500 to get started with I mean it was oh there's something else I wanted to say but I think that I know you did it that was right and we still haven't done anything our first show it actually opens next week and we're here which is you know really responsible and but I talked to your player this morning and he's doing this he's doing great I talked to him this morning too it's going well we're not freaking out and it's kind of amazing the open arms that we found ourselves in in Philadelphia it's a very tight-knit community and people are really excited about what supporting and producing local writers will look like in the future and if that will be a shot in the arm to people who you know because of financial constraints because of a lot of reasons it hasn't quite happened yet but it is poised to potentially be that place and we're really excited about what kind of long-term impact that could be so the passing along and belonging to the city thing as you might know Philadelphia is a little sensitive about stuff getting brought in from New York and so really you don't have that busy at all but so much of our narrative has been we're local artists we're employing local artists and we are committed before anything else to paying local artists a living wage like a fair I mean living but a fair wage for what they do which is not as usual sometimes in Philadelphia and so like so much of our fundraising has been about your money goes directly to artists like your money goes directly to the artist's experience to keeping the artist community thriving in Philadelphia like we are grow local so I like I love the CSA terminology because we're growing pretty slowly and it is grassroots most of our donations are small individual funders it's really we have two we have a similar sort of identical like real estate grants C-Buddy which is unbelievable that this Pinterest theater fund supports these players collected but most of our money is individual donors so that's the other part we really are a scrappy city and this is like scrappy DIY do-it-yourself theater making so I think one of the things to write is that sometimes we don't love to talk about the fact that like how many people are players in this room also okay fantastic like do you feel like the amount of rejection the amount of know as you've gotten them yes your directors get it designers get it as well obviously actors get it a lot but playwrights wow playwrights really have a lot of people say no to them a lot of time and I think one of the things that I'm just going back I think Tristan the way echoing kind of what you started us with and a little bit Emily is you're saying too so moving to a place where you're a model and then PN has been talking about would you play exchange of a married conversation that happened around the country with it you know how do we change that paradigm of not asking and submitting and submissions and all of that sort of thing and one of the power that we all have is however we have as artists is this experience that lots of people have said no to us we've asked people for money they have said right one finally where the reader pipe will know the answers and there's a lot of yes in our field as well and I think that when we're talking about where playwrights occupy a space and this is gross generalization because it's worse for certain playwrights than others I think oftentimes when we're looking at things like gender parity and racial equity in our field for writers this is a moment for playwrights collectives and for playwright even as we're struggling with oh shit you get the torch passed to you and then you have to take it right so that's where we're at and the power of this possibility is the more we do it the more we practice it the more of these efforts whether they're acting ensembles whether it's device work being created that there is not a weight but there's not a six year weight between I wrote a thing you know looking at George Brandt who you know and he's making new play a lot of people here have put Joel there's a lot of people that have put time into even just that one play and that's a lot of years of no before something possibly hits if you're lucky in that moment for it to really hit so the power that is harnessed here I think is incredible for what can happen and as you're talking about in the challenges of how does that get passed on and how do we strengthen our culture that the artists that are being served immediately in this moment are also thinking about in ways that some institutions don't what's this net how do we help raise up the next generation I think one of the ways that the playwrights collectives and playwrights taking charge is really important is that if you run into the same things as a playwright producer as another producer who's not a playwright who's the man or whatever you know you become the man and you're faced with myself the production you want wow that really sucks I've been working so hard on this I can't get that actor I can't afford her you know well that's that design is not why what's hoping for and yeah this play's really hard to produce or maybe I'll write something that's a little easier to boost next time or this is some of the conversation that work house has had with each other just for these people they're going like that's why I want you give it to me but it's like yeah this hurts this is our you know and production drama which is a totally different thing than God bless those of us that are front play centers but there is a point actually where production drama is the way that stuff gets addressed for writers so it's so good for the for the health of the theater community I want to make sure oh I know we have a lot to say so I just want to make sure we start kind of going around out of people have stuff otherwise we'll just keep talking yeah it's okay to ask two questions yeah everything's okay so one of them would be can you just speak up I just want to make sure people in Australia oh yes thank you and it's because you've had this ten years plus of experience do you use at all yes we did and how did that work out for you um it's worth well let's just talk about how that's been the playwright center as our that's been one of our our gifts from the playwright center a huge gift from the playwright center has been fiscal sponsorship they have run into some like board I don't know if they want to get into that but it's like it's not that it is but in terms of why is the playwright center our fiscal sponsor after all these years so we are we are no longer they're no longer our fiscal sponsor but yes so then it's a it's also we can get a different fiscal sponsorship but at a higher rate higher rate those rates there yeah anybody has some experience with that and they get a fracture of that seep ring board for the arts amazing organizations out there that are we started with fracture for the beginning until we got our final one year and a half did they have the structure yeah and like the company I was involved in in New York also fracture that wasn't very great I like that my second question is you know when it is as you say you know a very collective effort that how and you touched upon a little bit you know in that environment certain people step forward and end up doing a lot of the work and you know and how do you manage trying to be inclusive and trying and trying to get people's voices being heard and yet somebody ends up doing all the work and how do you manage that that you know that it shouldn't be like that sometimes it feels like that yeah there hasn't been too much of that there's been you know I think maybe you're not we have that only one conversation I don't maybe this you gotta let this go otherwise it's been self-management really seriously people are realizing wow I didn't do what I was said I was gonna do and so they step away or they you know take a break for a while and come back in and so then there's not a production lined up for them so you're not gonna ask for more so if they have to be in charge of advocating for their own work and they don't step up fill those shoes and their work doesn't be produced is that the answer it's basically a work ethic that is just built into the company and we all know what's happening one of the things that we found to address that is just sometimes people are so I mean everyone Philadelphia is a big multiple hat city so everyone is like actor, so we've actually found that one of the ways of addressing that is actually just information and really clear delegating because sometimes it takes more energy to figure out what the task is than to actually do the task and so like it has really helped to just be super transparent about what the work is and to talk about what the work is and then to allocate it in that way with really like well this needs to happen eventually it ends up being one of three people that steps up and does it like figures out what the action steps are so it's actually really interesting sometimes the work breakdown is like this person figures out the action steps and these two people carry them out and I will just want to say one of the realities that can't be shied away from is that when the playwright is having the writer who is getting produced they're the ones who are responsible for that that's the reality so in that sense there's an element of self production in it because this is your thing you care about it if something's happening you don't have time to complain about it you just have to make sure you get it done that's not how we work we're definitely co-producers and co-runners of each slot and I think the way we police ourselves is honestly I'm going to be so touchy-feely here but it's love like we really we're in love the six of us we love each other there's deep respect and love and so that manifests in I don't want to let so and so down and when I do I feel bad about it and so I step up and I do the work because it's become kind of a family you don't let your family down and then it also manifests in when one of us has a you know I have a old and that's demanding at times and I need to step out for the two weeks to deal with something or I need to take a vacation or someone else's integrating period they say they tag out and they actively say for a week I'm not going to be answering emails so then the rest of us don't wait like the decisions get made by the other five and so maintaining that like active communication and like over respect for each other aren't there curveballs that come in you're all professional writers and somebody might have to take off in the middle of something they promised to do and also though but for three years or three and a half I mean that's also like I'm committing to a term of a thing which is a very different thing to which I think I just want to just keep moving on so we're getting other people in here as well I just have a question from an institutional perspective I found it really interesting what you said about this idea of you know once you get into playwright producing your own work you're wearing a different hat in terms of understanding the challenges that that takes does that and do any of you think about or are interested in how that translates into your conversation with institutional larger institutional leaders in terms of say selling your work but having that conversation about a theater like 7 Moon producing your play knowing what some of the challenges are how does that how does that translate nationally to your conversations with institutions also just really briefly that's what I think I'm actually most excited about I don't know that we can tangibly talk about it right now just because we're relatively new in it but the idea that the first three playwrights I think it's going to be my hope is that it's going to be awesome that they have they've made decisions I mean the playwright is in charge of their budget so I work with them really closely but they decide what their director gets paid they decide which designers we hire and what we pay them and there's certainly we've hired multiple equity actors for each of our shows and we made a conscious decision to do that and they know what equity actors cost and so my hope is that they're moving forward they're going to be so much more powered by knowledge to lean in to you know really have an active role in the future process Emily you're right yeah I'll also just say that for me that's part of what this investment in the community of the future if we are training and educating playwrights to not just be playwrights but to be like well-grounded theater artists with knowledge and brains of other members in the field I know for myself I feel like I had a world of vocabulary that I didn't have before to know to be conscious kind of what Trista's saying it's not about complaining oh they're not doing my show it's really expensive to have like flying elephants so like don't you know be realistic about that so I think it's it's really a wonderful education process for me and similarly we have a we have a budget layout but I don't have total control being like no never mind not that less for him more for her so I think there's also this is the part of this whatever this next wave is that we're in in Brighton as always in response to another conversation which is a lot about please don't like please now we are suddenly where the playwrights exist X amount of years ago probably we should take care of them in a few ways if we're able to do it and maybe we will and also one of the ways we can do this by protecting playwrights please let's protect them from any of what's actually happening and if they only knew the economics of which is so infantilized and disempowering and I think also just to say because your art is writing your art isn't you're not a producer you are a writer even though you're a playwright whatever that means for everybody whatever the word playwright means right to anybody but there is value in just having space in safe space and time to just write and to be in that process of writing and so it's not whatever all the different models that we're talking about they only work for you when they work for you they only work in conjunction with an institution when they make sense with an institution and I think about like EST and I think about young blood all the amazing work that's come out of there I think about Carlisle Brown and Company which is the sole staff member of Carlisle Brown and Company and all the amazing work that's come out of there but it's not right for everybody and so I think figuring out what our new models are is important and also just oh my gosh playwrights are fine everybody playwrights are fine everybody they got it they figured it out it's all good we built a program directors a national advisory council a theater we raised thousands and thousands of dollars and it changed my son's diapers we did yeah I didn't have to wear any diapers on my own that's right there was that one but we don't talk about it that was just for you I'm actually curious Carlisle if you wouldn't mind just for a second talking about kind of what was your experience of starting Carlisle and Brown and Company I don't mean to put you on the spot but you know if you could just what context it was that you started in along to the company well there was there was an idea I was interested about play that I knew that no one was going to do but I needed to do that play in order to go to whatever the next step I was not curious is this thing you know can we make this thing live and you know I've been working in the Twin Cities in another country for a while and I had colleagues in the Twin Cities and we did this play aesthetically for us and it was a success and so they turned to me and they said well what do we do next because otherwise and then we did something so I mean one of the things that's possible for me is this these cohorts you know are collective it turned out to be a collective of designers really people that I've worked with over a long period of time and so in a lot of ways that kind of made it easy like we had a production meeting and then I don't see them in tell tech and then they just tell me what to do because I you know I trust these people and we know each other we hang out together we go to them together we're like long time friends like some years so it just kind of happened you know organically and then over time I realized that I didn't just like write and play I liked making it and then after a while I still myself was a different kind of artist they've only been there's actually only been one play that came out around the company that moved to other theaters the solo show was very successful but you know when you produce yourself your relationship with producers is very different right you know you get a lot more respect and you know you know what's going on and you know it's really more a relationship it's not paternalistic anymore because you know you actually understand how this thing works so it's an entirely different conversation which is more collaborative and then of course let me die as a woman you know what I mean because I'm bringing more to the table than they expected I mean I'm bringing the whole thing right I'm bringing the whole you know you aren't actually producing anything you have to decide to be presented this is somehow sometimes problematic because these are producing organizations and not presenting organizations so I spent some time thinking about what that means in terms of moving out because this kind of you know philosophical sense kind of conflict of interest you know so but you know like with one house the thing that's very satisfying our community kind of is impossible because the artists in our community are extremely generous space is always a problem but there are organizations that kind of make it you can do it you can actually kind of make it happen the same thing physical agency is what I do because you need more money you know to go through this final one season I mean the model of how you get money for individual art is a problem you know in this culture and I don't know what we're going to do with it but I think like workouts we're faced with the fact that you know we need that key you know to kind of get in the door but I think if you're starting out being an organization as opposed to making work you know before you have anything really to pitch to anybody or anything to believe in that might not be a good way to go I think what Carl understood about choosing to do it is because you had a play that you knew nobody else would produce and that's kind of how the part of the workout story that I left out and so I need to kind of go back to that also that there was a group of really excellent actors that we had been working with through the Playwright Center through readings and all these things and they're like they do a reading of a play and let's do it let's go what are we going to so the actors in the community like also started and the choices most of the time the litmus test for why should we all get behind doing this particular play is that this is a little more risk taking for whatever reason gender race class or structure you know artistic style of the play that's a little harder for another company to take a risk on so we're going to are more or more challenging to produce that's totally becoming true like we said before we didn't really set out to producing our work was a way to build something we're taking our six individual brand values and putting it in a bucket to create something bigger than us but as it happens the five of us are going to be using each of our slots to do you've been saying this a lot to really actually make the most of doing our most outlandish work that could possibly do really pushing our career I mean the piece I'm working on is this devise immersive participatory thing that I could I've been wanting to do for a long time that I'm feeling is a real new direction in my growth as an artist and I'm giving that to myself there's definitely this I think you said completely yes this is the opportunity here to say yes to yourself it's not waiting for yes that's what we're all doing saying yes to ourselves yes and yes immediately yes yes and it's coming and I know when that production is and I'm working towards a thing and there's no question mark there and it's already yes is in and starting with yes I think for playwrights it's a significant thing because there's not there's not always a yes at the beginning of the conversation that's right I'm sorry I think one of the most recent realizations that we had is when I Clarke was our next playwright who was going and she'd been talking about this play that she was going to do for a really long time and like two months ago or so and she's producing this fall she had we had the end of a board meeting and she was really stressed out and she realized that she didn't want to have a production and it was we had always talked about that they could do whatever they wanted with their money but this was actually finally like putting action to where like what and she just didn't feel like she was going to have the work she was going to be wasting everybody's time she was going to be wasting her own time so she said yes in like a different way of so she's doing this whole crazy whatever thing but that is still developing the play and she said where she was at that point she didn't want a workshop or didn't want a production that wasn't going to be helpful for her instead she wants a nine week workshop process in multiple spaces in DC so I feel like we can answer your question so I wanted to come back to as how does the affect a writer than with their relationship with producing institutions I think one of the ways that I've seen it affect the collective and certainly myself is to be more forgiving of the production that is the production that you've seen it's just kind of relaxing into the imperfection of our art and letting that imperfection maybe be perfect for what it is in that moment just creating greater acceptance of the realities of the future is it something consciously that you you are passing on to playwrights that are or is it more of like they're learning as they're going so yeah I have to say with the way the workhouse functions you do need most people have had some level of producing or they like person great producing experience coming in but they cut their teeth on some productions before they went into their own but that's still a steeper pillar that they find that has had productions yes for each production do your writers decide whether or not they want press to come and have that conversation great so this this idea of like really launching towards production and production as drama you're talking about like maybe in the right way and where press is a part of that journey is interesting to me just to care about I think the experience or ways you're anticipating that conversation we've had that conversation it turns out for this show we're having a press night a couple of nights after opening we made a conscious decision that maybe opening isn't the best night for press to come and have press until the last week of the show and it's really going to depend on the playwright's need and where we feel the production is and all that so I mean for us press is a really beautiful mutable thing defined by me and we have tried to make really good relationships with the press in the city so that they don't feel like we're leaving them out it's just more like are we ready for your critical thinking I in that way how is that relating to the audience that you hope to get in there like in terms of your concept does or does not do for you in terms of building audience I think we feel that there are ways to get the word out about the show that aren't reviews for example so we have like features and we have conversations with the playwrights and we have conversations about the way the collective has been structured and what more like ongoing collaborations like our first show is actually a product of an ongoing collaboration between our playwright and this director that he's worked with multiple times so if we can talk about the show for sure and we want it to be out in the world but reviews are a whole other hell of a fish in being able to say we're going to delay that or we're going to bring that in on our own time we're going to have control of when this show is open in that way it's been really empowering I think I have a struggle around that I'm not even sure because we've had press a traditional press presents at opening nights for our first three productions so I'm guessing we're not at all because it's you know not just thinking of it as a production production of the pre-seeds so that would be filled by the press entirely in these scenes all the bloggers and whatnot I'm not sure I want to do that like it just yeah so we've tried to have press.com to work host collective shows it hasn't been very successful there was one that I wanted to be just a workshop and to press me and review the hell out of it which was like really now I try to like make it like a workshop production bear bones really focus on the development of the play and to have people in the press see that and then it gets. But then just to say really quick that I want to get to these questions too, just that I think like even we as a development organization are thinking a lot about what our relationship is to that and how we can continue to talk about it. We obviously don't have people come to workshops in that way, but Jessica who's sitting down here at the end, who's our marketing communication manager, what even marketing means for us at the Playwright Center has a lot to do with how we talk about it and one of the things that Jessica really wanted to double down on this year was how do we get more recognition and understanding about playwrights forming communities and really pitch an incredible story that I know of the Pioneer Press, that was the front page of one of the two paper records for St. Paul, a whole story about playwrights making a living and a life in the Twin Cities and this particular community. So I think we're also just trying to think outside of the box about how we can get the conversation out there but maybe shift what's that kick and sales version of that looks like too, yeah, sorry. Actually along the same lines, my question was, yeah, if you don't make it just a workshop production, what's the relationship with like more influential theaters because we know that they all want to do the first production and the play is reviewed and you know, is it like you kill your play if you're doing a small little sort of theater and then it doesn't end because all the big theaters they want is the first production thing, that's my approach. Yeah, I worry about that a lot because I've seen, you know, when I'm a good playwright and sit around and wait for everybody to give me something, those are the scripts that sometimes end up in the larger venues so I have such a hard time with that. Yeah, Karla, do you do? I don't, me personally, I don't believe that anybody can do a better production in my way. And so, hey, you know, it's not gonna be a however thing, you're not gonna make a lot of money, that's what you want, that's what I want from someone else that does the play. And if I can do it, then that's the better choice. But I had a question about the press thing. Yeah. How does that relate to where I am, myself, my identity to me is not very complicated. But in terms of the community and your audience knowing you as a collector would change this with people and how that relates, and how the ticket prices relates to your whole economic kind of ecology, you know, when you say, you know, care about the press. I mean, they're, I don't know, definitely don't wanna leave the impression that we don't care about the press. We have a great relationship with the press. We're literally announcing the next generation of the voters in the Washington Post that we, so let's pitch them on a story about that and that's where the news is breaking because we have a deep connection with Peter Marks, the main critic at Washington Post. He's covered us before, he's written favorably about us and he hasn't actually reviewed any of our shows yet, I don't think. Oh yeah, he did have us, yeah. So, I mean, so we're not anti-impressed in any way, but yeah. So, but it's being part of the collective definitely changes your identity in a lot of ways. I mean, if any two of us are ever to show together in a lobby, it's like, ooh, there's a welter's meeting happening, I'm just at the theater with Jo Jo. So, but it does change your perception. Yeah, and I wanna say that sort of been following up to the workshop production that was reviewed a lot. Just letting, that also letting myself go and be like, okay, that's, I wanted to protect the world from mere possibilities for that play, that was part of it. So, the more that there's written about it, the less possibilities there are for people to just think of it as original and fresh. Um, my word's in their hand. So, there was that, that was my, but it was also, then I also respect that the press is so interested and we have developed, Workhouse has a great relationship to the press and that press is part of the community and then how you connect more the press to the community I think is a whole conversation theater is having and needs to continue to have. And so, those same press problems exist for great inner companies. Yeah, it's investing early and often, hey, we're doing this thing. You are the press that you were not, not part of this technology and conversation. You were a huge part of it, so. But it is challenging, because when we did first look at the three new plays that were full, full productions so that they could go on to other theaters for the world premiere. We didn't want press, we press got angry. When press came, we said, don't review, we like it, we didn't like it, we reviewed it in the context of what it is we're trying to do and they didn't and they actually started rating the three, because they were, this was the best start of the month. You're just like, what do I do for them? I'm tired of waiting for that right production, I'm giving my virginity to myself. I'm giving my virginity to myself. I'm giving my virginity to myself. I think we all need to do that. You know what, my play was premiered by the Welles, and take a little pride in that, a little mockery. Like we did it, we did this amazing thing. It's like, oh, I want to prepare it to be right and accepted, there's no dead until I fall. This is it, right, this is it. We have a similar experience of producing the play that no one else would produce. It's saying, it's saying yes to yourself, it's also having the moxies, it's saying yes to myself and it's awesome and it's the best version of whatever it could be. I love to. Yeah, so, and that doesn't make you a bad collaborator. I think it's taking socializing yourself differently than we've been socializing, saying I'm good enough and this is my world premiere and like, here. And that doesn't, I hope it doesn't turn the press off. I hope, I want that to be a better conversation, but it's just taking ownership of that. And I also think that the cool thing about, I don't know if it's filling in particular, but there's so many ways to include audience outside of a traditional press. I think that we've done a really good job as we're, I'm like a young theater artist to reach out to young people and get them in the theater which is a particular mission of ours is to change who gets butts in the seats. So, we're trying to do that in a lot of alternative ways as well, so. I think we have time for just one more question. And so, Derek, I'm just gonna throw it up to you. Well, I think it's probably early to crack this, but I'm interested in how the innovation of these models may impact the way education is happening around, and I think very early, right, students are inherited models of what it means to think about learning to be a player, right? And this kind of range of skills that these models are tapping early as students are going, why do theater? What does it mean to be entrepreneurial about my work from the beginning? How does this range of interest, and so I'm just, I think that's a, it's maybe a rhetorical question, but I feel like as an educator thinking about, you guys have used a lot of innovation to bring into the spaces that could be very empowering for people who are getting messages very early, that like, oh, you know, like someone's gonna decide everything for you. I mean, I think the biggest message is like, it's okay to fail. I remember JoJo used the word experiment with us really early on in my face all at work, because I was like, oh, that gives us so much permission to fail. And it, like, that to me is like, what we should be teaching people is that you're not that hard to fail, and you're gonna go on to have a career, like. And it's helpful to use that sort of mindframe for us. In all facets, not just in the art making, but in the fundraising, someone gave us, I don't know if it was Janitor or someone else, gave us an analogy where if you're a researcher, a scientist, a researcher, people pour money into that, and they fail all the time, and it comes to nothing, but there's so much money going through that, so why can't I look at myself the same way? You're investing in me as a researcher, and I'm experimenting, and maybe it'll be nothing, and like, sorry, it doesn't mean it wasn't worth it, or worth your time, or your money, or my art, so we really like to use that, that word, that we're an experiment, we're experimenting. Were you someone major in the DC community to see our last show and come up and tell one of us that he thought that this was our least successful production because it wasn't finished? And I actually think it was the most successful production. Totally. Because it totally wasn't finished. The playwright totally knows that. Bob, if you're watching, you totally know this. We've had this conversation. But it's still got a production, and we stood up behind Tim, the five of us, and said, we believe in you, we believe in your work, and that's the point of the welders. And so I think it so embodied our mission in every sense of the word, because what made it was the most successful. And I totally agree with you, that if there are any theater educators in the room or in the virtual room, the more that you can orient your undergraduate and even graduate programs around emulating or creating new versions, because don't just copy us, do a new version of this. And by the way, there are other, the neo-futurists are doing the same thing, right? I mean, this is, there's a rich vein of this that we inherited as the welders. And since we launched, not only over to three, but Boston Public Works, and Three Girls, Three Theater, and Playwrights Six in LA, and there's one we've just learned in the Bay Area, X and ILO Theater, and there's probably 10 more that I'm not remembering right now. And there's one we just learned is getting the same grant that we got, and we don't even know who it is. So this is a movement and it's happening, so either get ahead of it, theater educators, or get blown away by it and fail to prepare your young playwrights to jump on the train. But don't fail to prepare them, just do it right. Yeah. Thanks everyone so much for your conversation today. Thank you.