 Hey, welcome welcome welcome. Hope you're all doing well this evening. Welcome. Hello people. Good to see you. I'm Mina Morita, she, her, hers, and I'm calling in from the unceded land of the Ohlone people here in San Francisco today. Hey people. My name is Sean San Jose. I work with the Group Composanto and very excited to share with you all on how around here can't see everyone but putting out to the universe. If we're talking about pronouns, pronouns, any preferred pronouns for me are any and all that make you all feel comfortable, make me feel comfortable. And I'm technologically impaired from San Francisco, which is Ohlone land, Miwok, Palmo land, all stolen land. And here we are. And I should say I'm the Artistic Director for Crowded Fire Theater. So excited to be here to talk about some amazing things that are in the works and that we've been celebrating over this last hard year. Yeah. What is exciting about what we're going to share with you all today is Crowded Fire Theater in Composanto were the lucky lucky recipients to be able to not only work with the great star Finch, the playwright, the revolutionary mind, the beautiful sister that she is, but we are the first, I believe, collaborative group. Both of our groups got this Mellon residency with HowlRound to work with Star Finch in the three year long playwright residency. And so it's really an honor. It's really exciting. And I think it's also emblematic about what kind of work we all are trying to do together, something a little bit different as we do things a little bit different in the Bay, the leftmost coast and more collaborative, perhaps in some ways, and also more real in some ways. We are both two smaller companies that have been able to sustain for several decades, but also have had small budgets. And the Mellon has been expanding more and more the more they do these rounds and the kind folks at HowlRound sort of let us work a much more collaborative and pieced together application. And lo and behold, we got it. And we're really thrilled about that. And again, thrilled with those possibilities mean of getting to work with a writer of Star Finch's stature vision and future seeking. And so what we want to share with you all the day is the first real shared public event that we did together. Yeah. And I just want to add that it's huge in terms of Mellon's shifting towards thinking about how to support local artists. And so for us, Star is local and visionary in terms of upholding sort of what the Bay has been about historically. And also to have, you know, a three year salary to be on staff with both of our organizations is an incredible life changing event for all of us. And it's changing the genetics, I think, of how we're all thinking because we're thinking together. Yeah. And one of the most exciting things you all are going to know about this, if you aren't hip already to the amazing power, like I say, the future seeking writing of Star Finch. But one of the most exciting things about getting the opportunity to have a residency like this is to not only have time to develop, share, collaborate on the plays, the productions of Star Finch, but really the larger vision. And so what we're going to talk about today is this vision, this curated vision by Star, a feast of resilience. And that's really for us, I think I can say this, Mina, about what our two groups are looking forward to is rooting Star rightfully at the center of not only this residency, but where we're headed in terms of the community work, in terms of creative work, in terms of collaborative work. And it's about rightfully centering the black woman in the storytelling and the curation and then the power seat is as well, she should be here. And so like I say, you will see productions from Star, but what we're going to get to see here is part of a much more expansive vision about gathering people and creating movement. And with that, I guess, Mina, shall we bring on the star of the event? The woman only Star Finch, Star Child, my sister, here she is, playwright in residence with Crowd of Fire and Capo Santo. Hey. Hey, peace, y'all. Thanks so much for joining us today. And Star will take us through from a sort of conception to the event itself, but we are lucky to be joined by some of our close friends and family and also collaborators and collaborators of that day at the Feast of Resilience, the one and only, the sage, Ellen Sebastian Chang, and also one of our great collaborative partners, performer, writer, do-it-all, Troy Rockett. And I think a magical thing is gonna, boom, there's the magic. And I think we're, Troy is coming back and joining us soon. Welcome to the virtual sphere as usual. Yeah, that is it. Troy is not making, that is not a Prince-like statement by Troy. Troy has a beautiful face and a beautiful image that he will proudly present momentarily. Hello, Ellen. Hello. Thank you for inviting me. I'm so excited. Thank you. And from here, we're gonna have Star, I think, talk to us about the Feast of Resilience, which is the event that brought us all together this June and hearing after Star getting to see some video clips. Star, take care. I'll jump in. One of the amazing things about this event was that it took a year of dreaming about it and dreaming about it during the pandemic, you know, a time of no time or a time of everything feeling off of its access. So the first sort of seed for it was when Sean Mina and I met on Zoom in like May of 2020. Compo had shut down rehearsals for my play in March. That was supposed to go up side effects. We all were taking like March and April to kind of figure out what was happening in the world. Everything was very chaotic and scary. So we met by Zoom and, you know, now Zoom is the norm, you know? But then it was still kind of like, oh, I guess this is what we're doing. I guess this is how we're connecting and keeping our humanity. And so we were all kind of processing. It was kind of a therapy session a little bit. And for whatever reason, I had Jonestown and the People's Temple in my mind really strongly, I think, because I felt so locked down in San Francisco. And that event in my mind is something that rocked me as a child. And I don't feel it's ever properly been sort of recognized by the city. So for whatever reason, that was bubbling up in my psyche and just this idea that, you know, 50 odd years later, 40, 50 odd years later, I think most Black people were still having like, I wish I could run away to some other rural place and live off the land and live, you know, with my own community type of thing. And with Trump and all of that, just how unsettling that was, you know, for all that time to have passed and to still feel at this place of being on the run or still dreaming of a world that seems so futuristic, even though it's really simple what people want, you know. And I said to Sean and Mina, I wish we could, I just want to feed my community. Like I wish we could just have a revolutionary feast. And they were like, okay, yeah, let's let's hold that idea. Let's explore that. So that's what we did, you know, over the rest of 2020, whenever we would check in monthly, we would talk about that and say like, okay, what do we, what do we think about that? When do we think we could try to do it? We set a date for June 2021. Totally in the dark, just, you know, a dart of like, that's what we're going to try to hit. And it grew from there. By the end of the year, you know, towards December, I started having these visions about people washing up on shore, like walking down an empty beach and coming across people who had washed up after, you know, a storm kind of thing and wanting to, again, gather people, bring them towards a fire and say, you know, here's a blanket, let me warm you up and let's talk about what we've just been through and what we're currently going through. So I expressed that to them as well. And then we started to get more into like the nitty gritty of like, okay, well, what might the day look like? You know, I really wanted there to be amazing food. And I also wanted to feed people's spirits and their psyche. So then we started talking about what artists, you know, that we could use and invite to be a part of this. And it just continued to blossom slowly from there. The top of 2021 brought, you know, the storming of the capital and the whole whatever that, you know, whatever that was about. And I wrote something that I want to share actually that I shared with the artists who participated in the day. And it was just me really trying to process what the year had been and what where we were going leading into the feast. Like the feast was really something that was sprung out of my heart. And I kept just following my gut and walking on instinct towards this destination that I knew I wanted to reach. So I wrote something called things a playwright kept to herself in 2020, when asked what have you been up to during zoom happy hours. I've been counting the zeros in your gaze, while our minds mirror error codes error codes across these screens turned map, easing my way down a blue light road, following the haunted echo in my chest, where crown chaos collects payment on a corner called breath. I've been tallying historical repetitions, but mostly listening for the rhythmic double Dutch of resurrection, asking myself if I possessed the stamina to build a world made free after I meet you in the pocket and we move from there clean and quiet as a holy blade. I've been thanking madness for holding on to the miracle while watering the swollen promise seated within a system down protocol tangled around my ankles like a sweaty nightgown got me stretched naked in a poppy field of black fury. We're all landscape now you and me. No more presidents needed dead or otherwise. All those underground months spent trust over milky cold and left our hearts spoon tender, even as multiple fires still dare us to finally fall off the bone. So I'd say more than anything I've been awaiting a call to feast. So yeah I mean that was um that's where I was coming from and I and we just we set the table you know and and then you saw a little bit of the that's probably the first 30 seconds of everyone seeing each other and then the whole day as well. Yeah those are just some some candidates of what of what the energy in the day was like and just to set the picture for folks too because we were still I mean what's so deep about it is that what star has explained is that she visioned something in the midst of this madness right that would be a release and before we can even get to that stage we had to we had to prepare it in some ways you know producer wise so as a group collaboratively we set that stage but we're also in the midst of the the health madness of actual fucking pandemic and so we wanted so badly to be together and to realize this vision but we were also being as cautious as we could um and so this moment in time is August right where madness is leaking out again but if you can just imagine a couple months back it was it was the great release the gates got back opened back up and so we was already just like let's rush through the fields together and be with each other but we were also being cautious and so we had planned it prior to June but wanted to do it very limited for health's sake so we were preparing it as Crider Fire and Composanto and that were required you know 10 of us to you know get the food ready get the flowers ready this that and the other and so we really could we wanted to limit it to 40 people so we would be 50 people total and it was in an outdoor setting and at this point there's sensible sane human beings were vaccinated as well but fresh air of Oakland California but it became very more precious in some ways because we needed to to keep it special and limited in that way shall we roll let's go I just wanted to say it was just amazing I think prescient the timing because it was the first time for almost all of us to actually be outside of our germ pods you know outside of our homes with other people and it was such a strange and beautiful sensation to be in our full bodies I think we're all we're gonna do the intro well I mean maybe while we're waiting for the video to roll star do you want to talk about just how you know how the different artists you commissioned and also in terms of the melon playwright residency and the discretionary funds like how that was powerful to be able to support artists during this time for the yeah for sure I had discretionary funds through the melon foundation grant so I was able to add three more artists to participate and that's not something that I was usually used to as a playwright to be like in producer mode of like oh yeah I want more I'm gonna I'm gonna do that I'm gonna press the button on that and make that happen so that was super you know super dope to be able to take control you know as the playwright and and and punching the vision exactly how I saw it we had Troy rocket which we'll see and he did a piece that was super magical and like we'll get to that and the specifics of that and then we also had oyster knife and that performance was one that I feel like it just captured everyone's emotion of the day of just we're still here and we're alive and it's magical and what are we going to to do with that you know I think you know we put we put tissues on all the tables for a reason because it was overwhelming you know and Ryan kind of breaks it down when she frames the day for us but it was a lot to be around people again and remember that zoom isn't it and um connecting with other human beings involves exchanges of energy and just watching that and participating in that um was almost a holy experience for me like at the end of the day my body when I got home it was so fried like I literally felt like I got hit by a trunk a truck but at the same time like my my spirit and my energy was like vibrating out of my body and that stayed with me for days like for days after I literally had almost a high just like a love buzz high and um it was everything you know I think we're ready to roll the video okay cool ceremony and everything that you do from this moment forward will be ceremony we want to make sure and I want to compel all of us to make sure that we don't jump back into the world as it was or jump back into the world without communicating first to ourselves what we intend for it to be and communicate to the world what it has to be for us so we're here right yeah yeah yeah I share I share every word is an incantation every hug is a prayer right like for real we we didn't get to do this and I think that that pause was quite intentional from the universe um and so we have to acknowledge it as we reemerge and so I'm going to start by introducing the first performer of the afternoon and then things will just roll and um I invite us all to really just really be open and present to this I maybe I'm saying this more for myself right but just to um absorb every word I'm going to read every word of every bio I am going to taste every flavor of every food right I'm going to savor every drop of every beverage I'm going to do my best to look into everybody's eyes I don't do human contact very well as it is awkward is like what I do but uh but I'm going to do my damnedest to just really connect with each one of you even for a second and just know that I'm I'm I'm really trying I'm really rocket Troy rocket uses art to return to self and to explore new possibilities of connection go on and receive yourself right now Troy Troy is interested in the healing components of art and technologies Troy's peace is called administration administration is an interactive writing exercise of self-indulgence and the reimagination of touch during a global pandemic mm-hmm two black queer bodies one fem and the other trans mass engage in a in virtual musings after surviving a year of single them horrendous leadership anti-blackness and betrayal just as the vaccine became available to the public Troy rocket met Olivia Hunt in Zoom space their introductory conversations naturally led to stories of survival as abundantly black beings hello abundantly black yeah Troy came up with a prompt quote this year my skin was mine in quote this year my skin was mine and invited Olivia Hunt to partake the two pieces of writing will be joined for the first time on Saturday June 12th we're lucky Olivia and Troy have yet to meet in person administration invites you to witness an introduction and a return to one's own touch so like real this is facts like I wrote a piece Olivia did not know that piece Olivia wrote a separate piece to the prompt the year my skin was mine and we were like we're gonna put it together right now for you and this is like what's happening so all right so we'll just get started and just like our outfits we didn't coordinate this okay the year my skin was mine touch was discouraged but my pap smear is still scheduled I did not want grief making a home a permanent home of my body and typically they aren't so bad but a year without touch and this was one of the only options as trauma has already permeated the top layers of my delicate skin and is doing the its best to reside within my marrow at my appointment my doctor tells me about a new bill that was passed and gave me suggestions about freezing my eggs the speculums still inside this body my skin always a target within the constricting borders of our predatory society but this year my skin is mine and I'm no longer taking suggestions about what to do in or with this body but I don't reside there I go home and fill in the space differently on my terms my dark also smooth and also vibrant melanated skin little magic that tells the my resilience go out let the sun greet me go on hikes and take my shoes off to be touched to touch soil with the bottoms of my flat feet so in a year without penetrating foreign gazes I turn inward intentionally care of yourself the year my skin was mine I didn't only forget touch I forgot my shoes I forgot my underwear I forgot work I forgot words I'm guarded and vulnerable a break open lean in and journey through the multi-dimensional portals present within me and now even after I emerge from an odd sort of hibernation I have to remind myself of the days self-pleasure as the roadmap with which I remedied woundedness their names like food term plaque in the mouth what's the flavor of a sundae indulgence my vice a reflection of my defiance became a necessary act for survival and resistance but boy you ain't worn your church shoes in years during a year when the world was in disarray and as we shift our gears once more I notice I'm looking at the time more and paying less attention to my natural tics but in my skin I witnessed myself and held close into the things that brought comfort the year my skin was mine I was less robotic nothing energizing about this rapid an immersive process in which I surrendered to put pure mischief of insatiable desire to the pure mischief of insatiable desires wish my student loan debt was a naps because I paid those off daily I devoured self to be abundant abundant in all things especially rest receive the touches I heatedly long for let the grief settle in submitted fully to my own skillful pleasuring the grief been here savored the taste of my own juices and here abundance never lacked so I get comfortable with discomfort the scent lingers understand touch is a vibration that can be called upon pleasure looked like many things last year and the absence of that familiar friction the want grows on me like fungi gave my body the rest it desperately demanded ecosystems of memory breed sought refuge and in turn found solace in this isolation well didn't you know to be black is to have been touched different as I hear furiously explored the depths of my being well didn't you know to be black girl is to have been touched different in process stripped stripped away tired old narratives we died and we survived remembering as an abundantly dynamic being there are no prerequisites to honouring self I say I made it I worship I return to softness I say I made it this far made an altar of this tender body but the more I'm here I start to look around dear self I forgive you for my harshness I'm missing some things and not everybody I love is here 2020 ceremoniously engaged in the reclamation of my being we died and survived so here I am presently mirroring goodness I say I made it carved out the space I never had and gave self permission I did not know was needed to cultivate this level of self intimacy I say I made it this far I am more than a vessel and labor did not need not be my baseline the year my skin was mine and grossed in self immersed in my softness look at you reimagining touch to behold I say a prayer to my body thank you for existing and gratitude I'm so grateful that when the pandemic hit I had so much memory of touch tucked into all my creases I have you haven't been transformed by your own touch what does it mean for a black man to ask for touch this is ceremony we are here for ritual whether you knew it or not this is a feast of resilience uh the altar inside I don't know if you saw it I don't know if you participated or or you know working with it put something in it on it so on and so forth but an altar is a table I can't do it I can't do it for it I want to sound I'm gonna just practice more at home in the mirror practice for my ghrelian I should have been doing zones with my ghrelian this whole time an altar is a table used as the focus for ritual especially for making sacrifices or an offering to a deity this whole thing I'm gonna say it three thousand times today is ceremony you are at church this is religious and a spiritual experience we are about to break bread at an altar a table we will enjoy the sacrifices of somebody's labor some beings body while you are doing that as I opened this before I want you to savor the labor right enjoy every moment acknowledge the work that was put in to preparing the meals and this entire experience for us for you to share with one another so in that vein please check out the images that are in there my brits since please visit the altar please leave something at the altar um and if you didn't yet be an altar unto yourselves so the music will turn on go grab some food enjoy the feast of resilience all right this is ceremony beautiful beautiful to see Troy and everybody I just want to sort of say in a framing uh to elaborate on what star was saying so that that was video from the day captured by David Mai who shot and edited everything and star had commissioned five amazing artists and five amazing groups Troy rocket oyster knife brits sense Britney sense of all photographer uh San Francisco poet laureate the great tango icin martin and the one only rashad pigeon ritual masquerade performer out of body experiencer for us all and what you got to see folks through the technological stuff was just a taste which was really the opening for it all so you want to take it meaner shall we yeah I mean I think it will be great to hear from Troy and Ellen I think what we've spent a lot of time reflecting on after the event was just how it was ritual how it was intentionally stepping back into space with each other and how you know it would have felt so strange and empty not to have that to just go in back into business as usual because it's no longer business as usual and Ellen I think as you said you know like there was never any norm like that's all just cover up that's not real and what is real is the moment that we're in so we'd love to hear from you Ellen about what that day meant to you and to all of us together collectively can you hear me okay yes okay um when star first asked me to attend the event and she said I'd like you to speak at that moment in time I was very hesitant not to come to the event but hesitant to speak because I felt that after a year words were starting to and I think they're continuing to kind of fail me in the understanding of the incredible epic change that we're going through as a species that's called human and so I I star and I text back and forth a lot before that event and it was really for myself I just kept saying star all my instinct tells me is that I'm trusting you and I'm following you even when I'm feeling profoundly lost and showing up at the end in fact I actually went to a different location and was profoundly lost and trying to find my way there and when I got there I just felt you know I'll say I felt really splintered and shattered and like what's going on but as soon as I came out of that elevator and onto the rooftop and saw all the bodies of people that I had not seen in so long all of a sudden it was like that in profound exhale and I was like oh I understand on a deep cellular level what well why this was needed and viewing Troy's piece again what what really has leapt out for me in this moment is that as an artist as a collaborative artist I just felt like what a profound risk what a profound risk that Troy and their collaborator took profound to just say I'm going to put out a statement where we don't know each other but we're going to take a risk with each other and so what it brought up for me is that so much the way theater and art has been under the guise of professionalism has been hobbled and corralled and that we really don't take risk anymore we pretend and we we we act like we're taking risk but that day was about the beauty of creative risk taking and Troy's work of all the works there they were all brilliant but Troy's work for me was like well this is the kind of tension that I miss in theater and the arts that kind of tension that's living rather than rehearsed there's something magical about it and electric about it because of the fact I said oh this is this sexy you know this this this is what sexy feels like when you're that old cliche that's the creativity of life you know so it's it was beautiful to me I really loved it and I that could only happen because star took in Mina and Shawn the three of you met and decided we're going to take an incredible creative risk to say how are we in proximity together the risk of proximity after so long of being apart and how close do we need to be to to touch each other is it six feet is it across the room and I realized yeah you can be way across the room or across the country and start to vibrationally connect so I'll just I'll just stop there and I will add it's so strange to to get ready to hug people and everyone say I've been vaccinated and then my response me too and so it's like I don't know what's happening and I still don't know but yeah it was beautiful it was really beautiful I want to briefly just add um context for Troy's piece like you want we reached out to all the artists maybe two days before and Troy we thought Troy was just gonna do a monologue and Troy was like actually I want to do something with this collaborative thing and my first response was like oh like I don't know about zoom like I don't think zoom is sort of the the vibe of this event and Troy was totally like cool about it and he was like all right you know I'll just read mine and then I'll give a link to the other piece and it could be like this cool like treasure map kind of thing through like cool so then I walk in Saturday morning and Troy comes in with Olivia and he's just like oh yes you know she got on plane and she came out here we're gonna do it together and I was like oh okay that's the type of magic we on today like that's right it's go time clearly uh that's great was that experience like for you uh I mean yeah just thank you son you know um I think I discussed with Olivia after the event we were talking like so much of being a black person is about the pandemic and what that space offered me was that I forgot about surviving for a moment and that was like oh snap is this what it feels like so it just it was just a testament to how we need more which you know and how yeah the arts that's what it is for me for all ceremonies all Richmond to go that much time without it yeah that was that was uh it was just I needed that and just the um just what you said Ellen I really relate to that you know because like when I got the call from star and Sean I was like okay hmm I was getting into that mode again when you said like not to pretend but just to like having to be polished and all all the time you know I was like all right I got a couple pieces you know uh all right and then I was like no that's not where we're at that's not where I'm at and so um it was just really great to show up where I was at you know I'm not polished I don't have any problems with like that's just where I wasn't at oh yeah I just have to say it was polished and actually viewing it again made it just shine even brighter for me to witness it a second time was that there's things that I missed the first time so actually having it captured um to view again really made me say oh this is this is where we all want to be everyone wants to say hey man you know I was at the first Jimi Hendrix concert you know because this is why this work is live because anything can happen it is not zoom it is not television it is not film it is alive it is it is hopefully smelling the sweat and breathing it all in so actually seeing it again I said oh yeah I'm having a memory of how it felt in that moment to witness these two people have just met they are in physical space together and that added a kind of tension to the whole thing but what I call good tension you need tension to hold the table up you need tension gravity is tension you know it's and so to me uh uh no I I have to say oh you it was polished in a way that we don't witness enough because you're already polishing your craft every day inside yourself so when you show up you're you're gonna shine because you're already doing that you know so I thought you took a beautiful risk and I I personally I just I loved it I loved it thank you it was also nice to get dressed yes that part I know it's great everybody dressed up hey Ellen can you there's something about you know the energy of necessity that was happening that day and we needed to touch we needed to express we needed to release and you had said something during the share about capturing kind of that energy but how we how we move forward from here with true intention with bold intention and we're just like about it intention and real black intention community intention in can you speak on that a little bit it was just it was just so profound and it's been it's been something I've locked inside my being to sort of you know it's my it's my little compass you know so that we don't get back into the thing go like I'm gonna do a cute little show or whatever whatever but there's something about that necessity part that we can hold on to and it kind of focus refocus me a little bit I think if we're really present every day we're not going back to business as usual we're not it's over South Lake Tahoe you know everything you know we don't know what's going to happen with Hurricane Ida it's over it's over the way that we that this nation will call it America built empire and and try to spread and did spread its mentality and its global laws and global control you know it's it's done you know and there comes a point I think even stars vision of like okay I'm just gonna pick a date and I love that image of stars saying like I'm just shooting a dart into the unknown that's that's how we that is our intention those of us I mean we have to take it I mean if people are talking about spiritual wisdom all this stuff and I go then people take your spiritual machete and just start hacking the path and stop pretending like you know what the landscape is you not going to know what the landscape is until until you have the courage to take that that spiritual machete and like oh and and not everybody's going to be able to do that and that's okay don't I don't think we should put our pressure on us and you need to no no no because we I think what's really valuable right now is to undo the language like undo the language of leadership because that to me is done leadership is over we don't know where the guidance will come from so I'm I'm changing my language and I'm nobody's leader but at the right moment with the right time I might be able to guide something because if we're all cutting through these paths I might get to one point in my path and go oh fuck I don't know should I go this way should I go that way and then star steps on out of the jungle out of the weeds and star says and I look in star's eyes and star says you know I got something over this way and then my decision am I going to keep going into them okay no I'm going to follow star I'm going to be guided by star and then along the path Nina steps in and Sean and Troy and Joan and all this and then we like to say okay this is this is looking good right here let's let's let's lay out the table right here for a minute and because now we're all we're you know America what we're doing right now and everybody's scrambling and except those who have wealth in real estate and have created the loss keep trying to get us to to buy into what was and so I'm not buying I'm gonna and that's fear based because yes what will we do as a nation if hundreds of thousand of people are evicted based upon the new supreme court ruling what will we do who is our audience who are we creating with who are we creating for who are we feasting with so I think this is a fabulous opportunity to ask ourselves really exciting questions because we forget we've always been pioneers and I think that the thing about a lot of black bodies and brown bodies and including First Nations bodies you know white supremacy has been making us roam and and plant and figure out desert environments and for centuries now so we're ready for this we're ready for this let's just admit it we ready and make the effort and the work I'm here for this I think this and I think um visionaries like star and compo and you know crowd of fire and troids yeah we're here to play what is play play is I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm gonna be a bitch here but play is not copyrighted watch anyone that has children go watch children play and then you come in as the big big parent and say wait are you singing the spongebob song and playing with your little toys there well that's copyrighted and watch your kids look at you like you know so let's not kill ourselves with these laws that we didn't make because these laws that came in and stole everything and then made a law and so I'm not here to play with that kind of law because as I said if I had followed the law if Rosa Parks had followed the law we'd all still be sitting at the back of the bus so let's not talk about the law but I love y'all so I'm done thank you and Ellen thanks no offense to anybody that getting a paycheck from the law I guess all right because we still gotta pay too okay you heard it here I marked the day how around everybody get your spiritual machetes on are you gonna be lost in the jungle people lost in the jungle I'm not going to be lost I'm going to be with star yeah I just wanted to quickly say that building on what Ellen said that it's really all about dreaming while awake like clearly we wake up and the nightmare is here and we have to start dreaming while we're awake that day felt like a dream to me it felt like a creative portal and what came through to me is just that like we have all the tools you know it's not some future thing it's within us we're already there and we're already here and we have to reclaim our time literally and dream with our eyes open because the nightmare is always going to be there so it's like we gotta create our own spiritual path with that yeah it's wild too just in terms of the the work mode it's like you know we call star compost onto the third eye you know helps us see see beyond the bush it keeps us rooted in the daily but see beyond the bush and we're in the middle of rehearsing this play that we've been working on forever for some beautiful play side effects and then we all went into the you know the chaos of shelter in place and and then you stayed dreaming while awake you know starting it just in that energy it even through the zoom zoom rooms and all that other nonsense we're it's still penetrated and we're still creating and gathering because of it we're going to do more of it I mean uh stars piece side effects we we decided to film in in the midst of the the madness and that'll come out sometime in this year or something like that and and then star still has the two uh plays that are going to happen yeah shipping and handling so handling will drop with crowded fire and um and then um another play currently titled Josephine that was is directed by Ellen Sebastian Chang and Troy you better be in it um and it will be a beautiful thing and um we're actually going to do both of those pieces at magic theater in San Francisco here so we're going to have to change the name of the theater pretty pretty soon so just be the star child theater and come one come all coming soon to our theater where you all um but um I think that um does I want to say thank you to the people that also thank you obviously how around for making this happen this event obviously happened but the whole of the thing we're meeting and I started off with like to have support and visionary support that looks outside of box two is just it's so so necessary it's so so necessary like we're strivers and we would still we're never going to stop telling the story so we'll do it but to have support and the amplification that you get from some just and with bread because we do need bread um that we get from the melon and how round is this amazing and to think that too little joints that believe in people of color rightfully centered with crowded fire and composanto are the group that said hey can we do something together to support this beautiful amazing playwright and and you all made that happen so thank you all for making that happen and the event really wouldn't have happened without crowd of fire with bethany heron and santo the the woman that makes the world spin on its axis my theater wife john asato the producing director of problem and britney white both making this event happen and that event happened so that's that's all love and you all are theater geeks that are listening to it so you know that us five represent 500 people that make every event that we do possible so thank you to all the famigians of crowd of fire and composanto thank you and i also want to put out a shout out to um california arts council because during the pandemic you know a lot of foundations and this is for all the foundations who are listening there was a lot more flexibility and it came down to just trusting us with this vision and so we were able to move a grant that we weren't you know we were not able to produce and so that's where we were like listening and in a position to like let's use this resource and then not only will this be a moment of ritual this will be a way to support um with the bread the artists that we were connected to so thank you for that and i hope from that continues you know like talking about a new world like how do we step into this together and trust the artists to move forward with a vision yeah yeah absolutely beautiful and some of the images david mine did the video like i said in our own great genius jonas i captured some of those portraits and i'm told we're just some of the other photographs that you saw i just want to put their names in the air again because they made so much magic happen and continue to is ryan nicole peters austin who was our emcee for the day and ryan is just like the illest multi-talent um poet performer artist producer making up new words for the nomenclature because she does it all and then oyster knife an amazing profound performance dance theatrical duo and they're about to drop a new piece if you're in the bay coming up in right at the top of september the great photographer brit sense you should get online and look for brit sense she captures our neighborhoods beautifully um britney sense of odds her her full name but brint sense is the photographer's name and then the great san francisco poet laureate tango isan martin and actually we're gonna have a live concert with tango isan martin if anyone's in the bay at magic theater october 15 you've heard it here people tango isan martin so in about 15 years everyone's going to go up in that classic album drop that day that will be october 15 2021 and then the great profound vava rishad pridgen this amazing masquerading outer inner spiritual body performer who does things that are too supernatural to have words for so look for all of those names those are amazing beautiful profound black capital b black performers in the bay here and so whatever the numbers tell you with this bullshit census the bay is going to stay black and san francisco been trying to destroy it's never going to happen so come out here if you want to see some of this beautiful art with us and thank you all for joining us star a lot of words wait wait wait shon i want to plug too wait because troye troye is going to be with it's in the displace written by isaac gomez and we are actually heading into tech next week so it was wild today even to move from the rehearsal hall where we were in our full bodies to being on this you know zoomie zoom or i was like oh wait i don't want to go back i'm not ready like it's um it's been amazing and such tremendous tremendous tremendous talent and artistry and it's uh we're doing a piece on displacement it's going to be wild it's a horror play so it's going to be visceral and you will be in your body shaking in your boots so come on and see it we open september 17 yeah and that's going to be live and that should have been in the link to how we're on link for for tickets and more information on crowded fire theater there come on we're going to do a toast darling come on let's put it in the air yeah i just want to say uh thanks shon and nina and of course compo and crowded fire um um it was just like literally the feeling of a dream come true and um let's all continue the dream out loud and thanks for joining today thank you thank you blessings to everyone thank you