 All right. Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for being here. Welcome to Reimagine Theatre, a panel series that brings artists and community leaders together to envision a new theatrical world. My name is Nubra Nelson and I'm the Director of Arts Engagement at Seattle Rep. I'll give a brief physical description of myself for blind and low vision attendees. I am a lighter-skinned woman with short brown hair and a mauve shirt and behind me is a white white wall with a black and white photo. I would like to acknowledge that we are on the traditional land of the Coast Salish people here in Seattle, including the Duwamish people past and present. We honor with gratitude the land itself and the Duwamish tribe. This acknowledgement does not take the place of authentic relationships with Indigenous communities, but serves as a first step in honoring the land we are on. And if you want to learn more about our local tribes, resources, and ways that you can support, you can visit the land acknowledgement page on the Seattle Rep website. I want to take a moment to thank everyone who is participating in our democracy and making their voice heard in advance of this important election. If you are able to vote, please make sure to vote and to have a voting plan in advance of November 3rd. I deeply appreciate every one of these panelists being here to have this conversation today as all many of them are deeply participating in our democracy in advance of this election. We are doing these panels so that we can envision what a future of equity and justice looks like and how the arts and theater should be a part of that and be a consistent part of community voice. So the leading questions for this discussion are if you could wave a magic wand and build a new theater landscape, what would you create? What is a theater landscape in which theater is integrated into civic life and civic practice is integrally a part of theater? What is our vision for the future of our country and how can theater be a part of that? And what does theater at the heart of public life look like? People in the Zoom audience who are joining us directly, please think about your answers to these questions since we are going to invite you to be part of the conversation at the end and join the discussion actively. In the meantime, you can react to what folks are saying and ask questions and be an active part of the conversation in the chat box. This is for you, especially this panel about civic theater, so please put your thoughts in the chat. You all are at the center of this conversation. So now I'm going to pass it to my co-facilitator, Inji Kamal, for this panel and for the rest of the panelists to introduce themselves. Thank you, Nabra. Hi friends, my name is Inji Kamal and I am the director of the Public Works program at Seattle Rep. I am a 40-something-year-old light-skinned woman with short, graying curly black hair, a black blouse, and I'm sitting in front of a white wall with a picture on a table of an open highway on a stormy day. So thank you for joining us today. I'm going to hand it off to the next person to introduce themselves and we'll get through all the panelists and then we'll start the discussion. Miki, why don't you go next and then you can hand it off to somebody when you're finished introducing yourself. My name is Miki Kusanose. I am an 18-year-old student at Newport High School. I'm a senior. I am light-skinned. I have short black hair. I'm wearing a maroon shirt. I might not look so maroon in the camera, but I'm wearing a maroon shirt. And I have a poster of a cartoon tiger in my wall. Tavern and hops. I'll pass it off to Kathy. Hi, my name is Kathy Shea. I am the culture partnerships and grants manager with the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture by day and I manage a women-run Asian-American theater company called CIS Productions in my spare time as well as being a theater artist. I am a, you see her pronouns and I have pinkish cream colored skin tone. My hair is past my shoulder length and black and it's got weird kind of curly cues today. It's pulled back at the top. I am wearing a black sweater. I have almond-shaped eyes and I have in front of a wheat colored wall that's pretty bare, but I have a cream colored cat stand to my left and on it is a dark vase with what's called a spider plant that it basically looks like a fountain of green and white cascading fronds, grassy fronds. And I will pass it on to Nithni. You did that again. I forgot to unmute. Hello and thank you, Kathy. Hello, everyone. My name is Manny Kowalian. I am the executive director of Inspire Washington, which is our state's cultural advocacy organization for science heritage and arts programming. My pronoun is he-him. I am a Filipino-American male Pacific Islander. I have black glasses. I need a haircut. I have a goatee and I have a medium length dark hair. I'm wearing a navy blue sweater. I'm in front of a background that's kind of cluttered with a lot of little jock skis. It's a white wall with two white pillars and hanging from the ceiling are these star-shaped objects with white translucent shells that are actually called copy shells because they come from the province in the Philippines where my mother is from. And I will pass it over to Sarah. Hi, friends. My name is Sarah Porcolov. My pronouns are she and her. I'm a storyteller and arts activist. I'm Filipino, so my skin is the color of caramel, long black hair parted down the middle. I'm wearing a pair of gamer headphones, which makes me look like a nerdy pilot. And hopefully the sound quality on your end is good because that's really why I got these. In the background, you can see a shiny black toolbox and plants sitting on top of it and some exposed brick because your girl lives in Pioneer Square. I'm so excited to be here. I'm gonna pass it off to Naho. Thank you, Sarah. My name is Naho and I use she, her pronouns and I am an actor, an educator, and I'm also a racial equity consultant. I have long dark hair and I just got hair cut so I have bangs for the first time after when we went into quarantine. My background is actually a virtual background that sort of echoes what Sarah said with bricks, walls with large window behind me that overlooks sort of a city building that has sort of a clean office look that made me feel good. I'm going to pass to, I guess, Cristiana. Hello, my name is Cristiana, my pronouns are they, them. I do a lot of things. I don't even know, I don't know what capacity I'm here in today. I'm a social equity consultant for epiphanies of equity LLC, which part of that is artistic justice and how to make the arts more equitable and accessible as well as the intersection to disability justice, racial justice, economic justice, gender justice, and size acceptance as well is a lot of my favorite things. I'm also an artist, writer, I'm an actress, I sing, I do all the things and a lot of that, my understanding of equity and cutting to this space came from that background. I was trying to think of what I can call myself, because I was going to say Carmel too, perhaps like a deeper, I am also Carmel but I am perhaps like a Werther's original, a little Carmel. I am wearing a navy shirt that says living the dream. I am also wearing an amethyst necklace. I have red lips. I have secretary glasses and I am wearing a multicolored head wrap. I am sitting in a leather highback chair in a room full of books and I don't put that lightly. Additionally, on one side of the room, there is a silver and purple curtain. There is also a pumpkin and various knickknacks around and if you are lucky, there is a tiny puppy in a red and white shirt that may be in this dog bed over here. Thank you for that. I look forward to the puppy appearance at some point in our conversation. Well, friends, I do want us to get started with one of these questions that Nubra has brought to our attention and let's start big. Let's start with the magic wand question. If you could recreate the theater landscape right now based on your knowledge and lived experience and what you want to see in the world, what would you want it to look like? What would you do differently? Is someone inspired to begin the discussion? I'll start. Thank you, Kathy. For me, in really thinking about that question, I would love theater to be so fully supported at a federal, national, local level that anyone could attend in any way that they want to engage so that theater becomes the center of civic life, where stories, all of our stories are shared, where in that imaginary future, and hopefully won't be imaginary forever, would be one where the minute you that the grounds that would be centered to every city, a town, a neighborhood, and that the grounds are such that it's basically set in a park and people could come and spend the day there. And with their families of all ages, there'd be programming for different people with different interests, and we all have different unique things that we enjoy, and that artists would be fully supported to be able to create and let their imaginations go, that the housing for them would actually be on site, that transportation to the events would be open and accessible for all, and that diversity of stories would be available, and that it doesn't all happen necessarily in person either that we have in person, but we also have these different ways of engaging, depending on what people feel like that day, that we that it could be through radio formats, it could be through online formats, it could be in person formats, and in addition to just presentations of stories, not just kind of the formal ones where you go and you see this fancy set, but there would be rooms where people could share personal stories of because I actually really go back to the indigenous, what I imagine health theater began was around a campfire where an entire village would spend their evenings sharing stories with each other, and that it was really the way that people connected holistically, humanistically, and that everyone was able to live up to their fullest potential and their authentic self in sharing their gifts with each other. Oh my goodness, that is so beautiful. I want to go to there. Manny, do you have some thoughts on what you think theater would look like in like Manny's interpretation of a theater landscape? Well, you know, all I could think of when when when Kathy was telling her stories and vision is that it's so complete, right? So I think what I would would add to it or maybe try to see a different lens because because that was such a really great role that theater was in every place, right? Because right now, to contrast and to highlight why that's a really a vision that we need to work to is that right now theaters are where they can afford to be, right? Or where there's a great interest in it, which only plays to the people that see the value. But but what Kathy's vision is about access, right, and introduced and through access, everyone is introduced to the power of theater, right? I also maybe a different view of looking at that really complete vision is is how people look to theater, right? That people are looking for it in their main street neighborhood hubs in the center of town. And that and that also carries all across Washington state, right? I mean, it may be a little hard for us to imagine those of us that live here in King County or and very specifically those of us who live in Seattle, that you know, there isn't too far we have to travel for a theater. But imagine when your town doesn't have a theater, right? And you don't get that opportunity for reflection. We don't get that opportunity to visit a place that humanizes the concepts and the ideas and personalizes it in a way that the magical way that theater does. So so theater within all of our 280 cities, towns and hamlets all across Washington state. And also to know that that by that even having that isn't something special about Washington that it is what is unique about America, right? And then therefore that the flavor of theater that happens in each city, town or hamlet is really specific to that community. Thank you. I just want to go ahead, Miki. All right. I just want to add on, I guess. Kathy, I think you had like a really thorough and really cool explanation of what you think theater should should look like. And what I think personally, I have a much more I have a different slant at it. I came in with this thinking I think theater should should really transform into something into classrooms. As a student myself, I love school. And classrooms are I think one of the most important places for expression, storytelling and learning, which I think is fundamentally what theater really is about, right? And theater doesn't necessarily have to be that traditional setting of a stage, but it can be in classrooms. It can be in the places that we already occupy. And I think one of the important things about bringing theater into classrooms is that the value of learning isn't it's not always about memorizing, reading the textbook, memorizing, et cetera. It's really really comes down to learning about stories and learning about experiences. And I think that's what's so important. And I think that's why there's such an important like intersectionality there. And I think a great example about, you know, the flexibility of what storytelling can be, for example, is I like to listen to podcasts, for example. And for one example, Glenn Washington's Snap Judgment. It's on NPR. I think it's pretty fun. And something really interesting is that his podcast is, it takes a lot of theatrical elements. It uses music. It uses, you know, all these different elements that you would that you'd see in the theater. And it's kind of untraditional. But it's interesting because it educates. It it teaches me about the world through a very anecdotal and a very personalized approach. And I think fundamentally that's really important to theater and storytelling in general. And also like Hidden Brain, that's another really cool podcast on NPR, I think. And it's really about human psychology. And it presents a lot of, you know, statistics and research. But it does it through the lens of experiences. It brings in people. It brings in individuals. And it tells these stories through people. So what I'm trying to get to, I guess, is that I think theater can be very flexible in what it can look like. It can be in regular spaces. It doesn't necessarily mean we build more theaters. It can really, it can fundamentally mean, you know, going into the classrooms, going into these public spaces, these that we already had, because the flexibility and the fundamental idea of storytelling really is what theater is about. And I think that's the direction I'd like to see. And I think that would be really cool. I love what you just said, what Miki just said. And, you know, I'm also an educator. And absolutely, yes. And I, theater, I think there's this notion that, you know, theater is supposed to be this way or that way. And I, you know, and I think that's where I want to see is like, really, who decided what it has to be, you know, this is storytelling. There's kids playing on the street and making up stories. And, you know, I made up stories with my sisters when I was growing up. And that's the storytelling, that's the art, that's the theater. And I think because of the way things are structured, I think sometimes we all get caught up in like, this is how it's supposed to be. And if there was a magic wand, like Kathy said, it should be everywhere. It shouldn't, they shouldn't, they shouldn't have to pay to go see things. Or just because you pay $200 to go see, you know, this show that everybody's talking about, does, is it necessarily good? I don't know. You know, and the project that the students create at schools, those things are amazing. And it just is exactly what it's supposed to be. So I absolutely loved what you said, Miki. And yeah, I think that's the magic of theater. It doesn't have to be this way or that, you know, and yes, and Manny said, access, everybody has access to create and the right to create and to be part of it. And jumping on, on your concept, your words of the magic of theater, right? When we think about the potential of theater, like stories, you're right, it's all about stories. I've read 30 stories today on the news. I got on the phone and I talked about a variety of different stories. I heard stories, but the potential of theater is when you take a story and you have an intention around it, right? And so therefore, really, the curation of story, the, the community gathering community around a story to take us to some place, to a level of thinking, maybe not to, maybe not to direct the outcome of our thinking, but to open our minds for us to think about it and to have our own outcome or for us to discover how it resonates on us. And, and I think that's where, you know, when we start talking about art and theater at the heart of civic life is the fact that, you know, a lot of civics is really organized, organized around addressing problems or having a vision or, you know, evolving community. Well, and that's where the power and the potential of theater is, is like, let's do that with intention, right? I'm telling you, I encountered a lot of stories today. Most of it will not stick with me for the rest of the day, right? Some of the news stories definitely will. But, you know, but the random stories that I encountered today, it was just, it was in the moment, it was just random, it kind of crossed my path. But it's, it's the intentional story that really takes me someplace that, that I grew from, that opened my eyes to something that built a bridge to me, to an idea to a person that made, that opened up my heart to have more level of compassion about something that, that I've had a blockade over, you know, that that's where, where theater can have, have massive, always holds massive potential. And that's the creativity and the art of the artist, right? It's the artist who, who crafts that in a way that it sticks with people as a lifelong experience. Yes, to everything everybody said. And very explicitly, I'd like to see an American theater that's divested from the white supremacist transactional culture that it's currently embedded in. One that prioritizes access for all people, especially for Black, Indigenous, POC folks, non-binary trans folks, to also see an American theater that is not primarily in English would be dope. Like, why isn't it mandatory for our regional theaters to be at least bilingual? Not even, I mean, like, we need to have closed captions. We got to have ASL interpreters, right? I also think that having an American theater that's divested from capitalism would be pretty dope, too. We have these main stage seasons, which are the cornerstone in terms of these institutional programming. And we have educational departments getting all this grant money, largely being bodied by Black, Indigenous, POC folks in the educational department who are reaching, like, the youth demographic that theater needs to be accessible to. And often, those employees are underworked and underpaid. I also would love to see an American theater that's really invested in new work and local artists. An American theater that is divested from an East Coast, New York, Broadway, great white way pedestal, that'd be pretty great. I would also like to see an American theater that puts accessibility at the forefront, when we also think about space as a commodity. What it means for our theaters right now to be empty because of COVID, but even pre-COVID, they were largely empty most of the time, right? Besides, like, Thursday through Sundays when the audience was there. What happens when we make a creative theatrical space a community space first? Oh, my goodness. Thank you for speaking my language. Yeah, absolutely. I want to, I guess, inject. I think all those things you said were really amazing. And you mentioned something about catering to the youth and being a student. I do want to add on. I think it's really an important and great point about the whole concept of engaging young people, whether it be in civics or theater. I'm a volunteer for the Washington bus. I should have said so earlier. But a lot of the work that the Washington bus does is engaging young people in politics and civics across Washington state. And the reason why there's such a huge emphasis on young people is because young people, students, myself included, were very impressionable. The things that happen during our adolescence, we're going to carry throughout our entire lives. And when we talk about politics and policy making, it's so easy to ignore young people just because we can't vote or whatnot. But I think there has to be this focus on young people because the impact that you have on students now, it's going to shape the culture around civics and theater for the next 50 years. And I think that's an important intersection to realize between, I guess, both of these spheres, civics and theater because to engage the youth is to really shape the next generation of our citizens. So that's also why I just think classrooms are such an important space for that because it's not just about young people, it's about this upcoming generation. Yeah. Thank you, Miki. Yeah, in a lot of ways, what I'm hearing you say and you speak so much truth, whatever you are the change we're going to see, you all are the folks who are going to implement whatever those of us who are currently in a position to invite change or demand it. Whatever we talk about, you all are going to make happen in a lot of ways. So thank you for that. Thank you for that call out. Cristiana, we haven't heard from you yet. What are your thoughts on what you would like the theater landscape to look like? Yeah, thank you. I'm sorry. I'm realizing I had to be a little bit faster with this and getting in. I wanted to, yes, everything that's been said, what I wanted to share was when I think about civic theater and where this could go, I think about my personal heritage in indigeneity and what that means in terms of decolonizing how we see theater. Theater doesn't necessarily have to be something for consumption and it also doesn't necessarily have to be something in a certain space. It doesn't even have to necessarily be something that's constructed to me in a certain framework or even storytelling and how we see it. And it can perhaps be a formal communication that we infuse into our work as people are saying in certain spaces like the classroom, but I'm even thinking in political space. There are certain aspects where if you're to go to give public comment and you are trying to explain, for example, hey, we continue to have an eviction moratorium for a year, how are we going to pay our rent without rent forgiveness? And you can have your two, three minute public comment for that, but even as much as having finger puppets, I lost my job in March. We still have to pay the rent. Even if we start doing that, it's going to not only elicit a difference with the story, but also it's going to hit a different part. So as I've been doing some of my heritage research, one of the indigenous identities that I hold is that I'm Ebo, which is from Nigeria. And so I was looking through some of the old pictures of the Ebo, and it was some 100 years ago where they would have these times where people would come and they would create these grand masks and they would go to the community and they would have these presentations here, but it was communicating messaging. So even some 100 years ago, seeing a mask of a person where it is this four foot depiction of an anthropologist with the pith helmet and the jacket and the writing pad, I could tell what that story was about. And even today, I think about what it, you know, I'm originally from Philadelphia as a Black person, but this is the seventh state I've lived in. And so I think about even in my culture, their theater, when they come in like, let me tell you what happened because this person said, whoop, whoop, whoop, and then this happened. And you're telling a story in a way that is still theater and you're providing messaging because in that is either a call to action and ask for help. And what do you think for advice? And then you can respond back like, yeah, that reminds me of this time I had this and you go through your, your storytelling, what would it mean for this to be part of performance reviews for employees? What would this mean for this to be part of our trainings in terms of, of, you know, psychodrama in, in processing how we speak with each other in the world? What would this mean to have this be part of the way that people can provide a public comment as a community? What would this mean in terms of folks, you know, who say have barriers to articulation, whether it's because of being neurodivergent or whatever have you can still lead this conversation forward through theater. And so what does that look like in the radical imaginary of what is possible to have theater go back to a form of communication? And, and I think the last thing I'll say too is one of the things that I of why I'm in the field that I am is I'm obsessed with humans. I'm obsessed with why humans human and why humans human with other humans humaning together. And so one of those things I think is so interesting about humans humaning together is that this sort of spoken language aspect is relatively new in terms of humans being in society with each other. Before we had other forms of communication and theater and acting out in depictions one of them. So what would it look like in our decolonization work especially, you know, not not just from the Enlightenment period was my least favorite period but just in decolonization throughout. Would it look like to go back to our roots in those different sort of ways? Well, I want to add on a little bit about Christian, you said theater has a form of communication and that just sparked something in here. I think that was so cool because, you know, when you when you think about policy making, you know, in government, a lot of it is so much about communication, right? It's how do you communicate the ideas and the needs of citizen to make sure politicians carry that out. And that's a very hard thing to do. I think oftentimes policy making is done through such a through numbers in a sense, you know, like look at let's look at the numbers, the percentages, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I think it oftentimes overlooks the fact that, you know, government and policy is all about the people. And I think theater can really be a form of communication to really speak to maybe these politicians or community leaders. And what I mean by that is, I think theater, you know, Christian, I think you had a really cool point. I think theater brings empathy to communication. Numbers don't, but stories do. So I think theater can be a really important tool in allowing, you know, public policymakers and community leaders to understand the feelings and the experiences of people in the community, because that's ultimately what government should be about to listen and to react to the voices in this in our state. So I think to inject theater as a form of as a tool into in the policy making process in the process of government is going to be really changing. I think really, really important. Yeah. I love what both of you have shared there. A lot of people don't know this. But my first job with the city was actually a long time ago for the Seattle Police Department, believe it or not, for the domestic violence unit. And we were a group of theater artists, and we were actually working with the domestic violence unit to actually try to create a greater awareness of police officers and the public defenders around what is actually happening in that situation. Because lots of times we get called into a scene. And abusers who do tend to be more predominantly male, they they are very charming. And they would charm the police officers. And of course, oftentimes the person who has been affected and impacted by the violence is might be have like physically hurt emotionally hurt going through a lot of emotion. And so police officers who are predominantly male as well, we only see one side of the situation. So we actually use theater as a way to really show all the psyche and what goes on internally and what the pre leading to when they show up came. And then we also did it for all the public defenders in terms of how people oftentimes just stereotype and prejudge the situation, which led to really huge inequities and disparities, especially in communities of color, when it comes to domestic violence. So theater was a way that we use to change things. And actually from that experience, when I started working for the Office of Arts and Culture, we actually were trying to figure out ways that we could change policies around racial equity and instill more anti racism across all the different sectors that we work with. And starting with internally with city employees and hiring practices, and the micro aggressions and direct racism that a lot of people of the global majority working for the city were experiencing. And so we actually hired Sarah to come in and help us. We collected stories from city employees who had been experiencing trauma in the workplace and and brought in Sarah to actually curate these stories. So it was the words of actual employees and and to actually create trainings from that. And then we built on that over several years to actually just to use it as a basis and foundation for a whole curriculum for city employees to because then if city employees are really addressing institutionalized racism, then the policies and practices that we then carry out with community can expand that as well. So those are some of the places where we're already starting to do that work with artists in partnership. You know, when I think about theater, I think of the the storytelling in the event itself, but then I also think about the creative process and the role of creative process and civic practice. And Kathy, I've I've known a number of folks who've done similar work to what you're describing with the police department in the medical field, assisting doctors with trying to better understand how their patients might be responding. But I'm also curious about all of your thoughts around the role of artists and particularly those with experience and theatrical settings in civic practice, in community organizing, in the way in which our businesses function and our communities grow. What's what's the what's the role that theater can play in our greater I think community huge and an equity summit about six years ago. I actually presented and this is a national equity summit on the fact that we actually need artists in every city department in every working in transportation office. That's actually something that our office is doing. But we actually were trying to convince like across our country, the federal government in every single kind of sector, climate change, food justice, wherever we need more artists because artists like scientists start off oftentimes of the question of trying to explore some concept and use artistic practice to open up that exploration, inviting an audience to participate in that exploration together. So most great art doesn't actually give answers. It actually opens up questions and minds so that we can all explore collectively in community. And I think too, with what's going on in the world, art is essential. And I think we have to look at artists as essential workers for healing toward, and, you know, changing the system that's going on. And I love this quote from Torney Morrison. This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There's no time for despair, no place for self pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal. And I think that's one of my favorite quotes. And especially when the times are tough, and because of the pandemic, you know, double pandemic of health, public health crisis and racial inequity and injustice. This is really the time I think we need to do stuff and we can do things to communicate, to tell stories and to, you know, appeal to people about the stories of who we are. And as, you know, Kathy said, we need to see more global majority represented in those storytelling. And, you know, as Sarah said, this is being sort of created as in the white dominant culture. This is what theater should be. But really, this is really the time to say, you know what, this is also our work as artists is essential workers to heal and to transform what's going on in response to all the things that's happening. And in so many parts of the world, theater and storytelling is a community activity, right? It's not for a certain subset of the community. It is for all of the community. And it's done by not folks who are exclusively committed to this work, but are involved in various aspects of the community and the society. So I love this idea of utilizing these theatrical techniques or this creative process that we're also committed to, to improve our, to improve our world, to make, to ask those big questions. And not just in a presentational way, but in a participatory way, like we're all involved in this. I think about Teatro Camposino. And I think about the ways in which theater has been used for community organizing in this country. And I'm interested to hear more from all of you about what we can do right now with the big questions that we are all facing. You know, this connects to a conversation I had today about what artists can be doing right now. And I give full credit to my partner, Julie Baker, who heads the Arts Advocacy and Cultural Advocacy Organization in California. She introduced the concept of artists as second responders in the very beginning of the pandemic, right? And now, she said she had a fever dream and she woke up and she was like, oh my gosh, it could be a piece of legislation. So she's created a piece of legislation called artists as second responders. And the concept of it is that embedding artists as a way of responding to the pandemic. So therefore, and she's still trying to figure out how this works, but I want to give her total credit for this. This is not my idea, but I will likely copy it once she gets it really going. For example, when there's a hurricane, when there's a catastrophe that part of FEMA funding is dedicated to creative practice within responding to it, right? However, and of course, letting the community decide what that creative practice will be to respond to it. And but it really recognizes that in that moment when there's trauma, when there's confusion, that theater can inspire hope and direction and can also capture the stories of what's happening right there because this is also we're making history. So I think you're right, we need to embed artists in all of these things in every movement in every civic practice. I often kind of like, you know, one thing that I recently have a volunteer look doing right now is, is we have to step up and also push ourselves into these rooms, right? And we also have to, as theater artists, make sure that when we are when we are stepping into these rooms, that we are stepping in really reflective of the diverse community that we are, right? And so therefore, you know, all public commissions, you know, the city has a bunch of room, the county has a bunch of room, the state has a bunch of room, we need to be on every one. And not the ones that we always think, well, that's the one that makes most sense. No, every single one, the utility district, right? Like that theater and creativity and cultural programming, a person who understands that is always there to because one were people, we have thoughts about all of these things, but also we can be the one to interject and say, you know, this is how, you know, creativity can address that or theater can address that, you know, that's, we have to be more engaged, you know? Yeah, I would, I would say that what is, what's exciting for me in this time is when people ask that question, which I get asked this question a lot as a consultant, well, what am I supposed to do? What, what do I do next? And what I always tell folks is that our impact frackles out, and there's, there's a part of our body that thinks, there's a part of our body that thinks about what we think. And the part of our body that thinks is the part of our body that drives the primary parts of our action. And so in doing the work that we need to in getting in touch with who we are, intro personally, I think as theater artists in particular, but artists nonetheless, we have more tools that are flipped as I heard some examples here of being able to do that intro personal work. I, I have both monologues and entire theaters in my head. I, I also feel that in my experience of identifying as a person with a psychiatric disability or identifying as a mad person, that there's also an opportunity to hone in those experiences that I have into an artistic creative process to grapple not only with what that means for me, but also what are they saying? And I think it brings in my indigenous spirituality of speaking to my ancestors or speaking to the universe of having those sort of internal pieces. It also creates a framework and a template for how I continue to do this work. So I think that as we are moving forward and thinking of how we are going to change the system, we also have to think about the ways in which we're having those checkings with ourselves, whether it's monologues or whether it is talking to all aspects of our psyche. And I think as we prepare to go into space, I think we also really important, like I said, to consider the ways in which we see this journey as a relay, perhaps a marathon, definitely not a sprint, but perhaps more like a relay that we're doing the both and let me, for example, we talk about the civil rights movement as if it's all the way back in history, but it was only 57 years ago. And I, I, I would be surprised if there wasn't someone either listening or on this panel that's at least 57, which means yours as old as our country designating itself. And if you get to the 88, it's only 30 years. So this is within living memory. We are, we are only just at the very, very beginning of a century's long issue. I think that part of getting ready to pass on that baton is in standing on the shoulders of giants is also to start to hold what it looks like to really expand our artist community to folks who it's been historically and disproportionately banned, banned from them. I, here in Seattle, there's the Onyx, well, there was the Onyx Gallery in one, and I went there during the soft opening in one of the most again, stories, the difficult sort of stories I heard is that they started the Onyx Gallery specifically for black visual artists. And as they were receiving of people who are sitting in their art, it were people who are like, Oh, yeah, well, I've had these canvases in my garage for 20, 30 years, because I never thought I was ever going to get a showing. And, you know, it's, there's, I forget who I think it was telecard to show them, I forgive my, my Jesuits, but someone had said that the worst possible thing that can happen is for a person to die with their song still inside them. And so while we are preparing to pass that baton on to the next generation, we also have to hold what it looks like to amplify not just the voices and the art, artistry, but the leadership and what that looks like in all various forms for the people who are here within living memory who have not been able to get a chance because they are here. While there are some issues that we have 100 plus years old or some issues that we have that people were grown adults, I mean, you know, we have a choice, for example, next week between a person who was 19 and 21, respectively, when the Civil Rights Act was passed. I don't know about you, by the time I was 19, 21 years old, I was already socialized and conditioned to what I thought the world was supposed to be. So we have a lot of work to do. And it's, and it's imminent, but it also is, is we should expect that it's going to take longer than 60 years to address. So really moving into that radical imaginary of what it looks like to see theater not just in its current form and how we can infuse it into our society, but also to see and consider what we could possibly imagine, what was formally considered theater, perhaps it's a different word in the future, and how that plays a part as a society. So much of what you all are saying is leading me to think about how we define theater and what that really means. And I think that might be too big a question to answer in the next 10 minutes, but I pose it to you. Like, what is, what is theater? And I think that's the, you know, question. And I think we all need to question, like, because we are all socialized to believe or, you know, to think of what theater is supposed to be. And, you know, we all went to some sort of educational or some kind of institution to learn how to do this or this is how the blocking happens. And this is what the director does. And this is what the kids do. I mean, the actors do. And I was doing a workshop with a group of teaching artists, and we were having conversation about, you know, liberating the space and allowing students to be able to explore and be an artist and then do there is a conversation like at the same time, you have to teach them, you know, what a blocking is and what, you know, what they're supposed to do when the director tells you to do something. And I said, or do we, right? Do we, I mean, whose notion is that? Whose standard are we following? Most of these institutions and the way that we learn theater is supposed to be, as Sarah pointed out, is coming from a very white dominant institutional idea of what theater should be. And that's what we learned. That's what I learned. And that's what, you know, as an educator, I have to consciously undo what I learned or what I think should be the right way. And, you know, as a mother and going through these online learnings and education system, who said you are supposed to know these multi digit multiplication and past this test by the time you're in fourth grade? Who made that decision? People who's sitting in the room making those, you know, test standard. But not everybody goes through that. Not everybody will make it. That's not how my child learns, you know. So I think changing the challenge in the idea of what theater is, I think is, this is, I think this is exciting decolonizing the way we think of theater and what is that? You know, and undoing what I learned to be, to try and spread that unlearning process for all of us is important, I think. I think you had a really interesting point about, you know, changing what education should look like. And I personally think that the notion of storytelling can really be a powerful tool in rethinking what it means to teach in schools. And I see this in my own life. I take a government class at U-Port, AP Gov, and I love the class. It's really engaging. It's really fun. But it's not the dates and it's not memorizing the textbook that's interesting. For example, when I learned about Marbury versus Madison, one of the most famous Supreme Court cases ever in the United States, it's not the legal legalities and the technicals that pull me into it. It's the story behind it. I mean, there is an entire novel, novel's worth of story behind Marbury versus Madison. And to explore that in the classroom is what keeps me going back to learning about government. And so I think storytelling is really underappreciated in the classrooms and to be able to, I think storytelling can be a vehicle through which we can kind of analyze and reimagine again what teaching should look like. And I think another really interesting point of what storytelling can do is I think it can evoke a lot of dialogue in the classroom. One of the great things about, I think, you know, that theater, Angie, I think you said something about how it's very engaging, how it's a two-way street. It's not a one-way street. It's a two-way street. And I think classrooms are ought to be more like that. When it's a one-way, one-way street, a teacher just talking, lecturing, like this didactic stream of information coming at you, it's boring. It's not fun and I don't learn. So I think through storytelling, it really opens up this opportunity for students and teachers alike to really challenge ideas and to bring their own experiences into the content of learning. So yeah, I think it really can amplify the educational process. And I agree. I think we are ought to kind of rethink what learning should look like because it's not always a textbook thing. It's not always a memorizing a day type of thing. I think bringing theater into the classrooms can fundamentally overhaul and make it a much more engaging and equitable process for students to go through public education. I love what you just said, Miki, because, okay, when I was little, my dream was actually to redesign the entire education system in the United States. Of course it was, Cathy. Of that. And it was because I was actually very fortunate in middle school, I was part of an experimental class where there was an educator who was trying to experiment with how you actually center not the didactic like lecture, but it was actually, we actually role played in every single core subject. So we learned about, basically we did role playing where we had to convince why should this electrical system, train system come through this town instead of that town. So we had to learn everything about that town and the geography and everything like that. And then we actually played roles and other people were the UN people who had to make the decision like, so everything we did, we learned. And I still remember everything I learned in that year of being in that experimental class. And I thought this is how education should be. But most, then I spent seven years touring the whole country as an educator theater artist and realize most education systems are not that and talking with the students. So I love that. And I actually think the reason why when we started with the first question about the magic wand, and I framed it the way I did about what it can be as opposed to what we're trying to move away from is because lots of times right now we're so stuck in a white supremacy culture that has set up systems and structures that are not healthy for 99% of us that it's hard for us to move away from that if we keep talking about what we don't want or how things are that we're trying to get away from because then that's always the elephant in the room. And so what I love how Mickey's thinking, because I want us to talk about like, what do we want? Like just start from what do we want and create that so that we're no longer centering white supremacy culture and the things that don't work, but we're actually centering the imaginations and creativity of our young people with great ideas and how to create what we actually want and the world that we want to exist in. I also wanted to say to you because I just say exactly like what when I think about like what exactly is theater. So like as I shared like I I'm multiply disabled one of the the first disability of course that was born with an autistic and perhaps that's this is part of it in that I don't know about y'all but I very much feel like I'm performing all the time. It's the reason why I really centered social constructs as perhaps like a life philosophy. Social construction is essentially when a bunch of humans come together and say this is what it is and then we continue that way. Sometimes we're forced to continue in that way or sometimes we're part of the decision-making of continuing that way. And so if you think about different sort of social constructs that we just sort of take for granted are super conscious where we become descentatized to it like professionalism. But at least like conversation around manners, beauty, altruism, what exactly is that? Like so at the end of the day we are performing these these expectations that we've been conditioned and socialized into for folks who come from different backgrounds or different nationalities or cultures and also perhaps can field the the extent to which we have to the visual extent to which we have to perform and perhaps we take it for granted because we've also sort of been conditioned to a construct that that's well that's just the way things are. There's just the way that you're supposed to be in this space. There's a way you're supposed to be in that space. But we are getting into a space in the 21st century where we're starting to look at how to deconstruct that. We talk about this in terms of the gender binary. We talk about this in terms of things like currency and money and anti-capitalism. We talk about this in a lot of sort of different ways. And so I think with theater one of the first things we need to do is really think about the constructs of it. The constructs not only is creating the building blocks of it and the histories of it but the constructs that are surrounding it like white supremacy culture. Whiteness is such a fluid identity that when I was growing up on the east coast there's a lot of people who are second third generation Americans who talked about when their parents came over or their grandparents came over they weren't considered white. Whiteness was a very specific thing that if you didn't match it naturally you had to go to court and argue and win your court case to actually be considered white. It's a construct. So there's a lot of this I really truly think perhaps not optimistically but hopefully that if we can construct an inequitable society then we can reconstruct an equitable one. I think part of that is getting to that place like in the matrix where we take the red pill and we actually see it for the building blocks that are the atomizing of inequity in our society that it is. Then everything perhaps you know another way of calling myself as an absurdist but everything is absurd and there's so much this that we have as part of the human experience of trying to understand life but in so many ways how is that not theater? I want to say sometimes your idea of construct is so cool to me because actually in my English class right now I'm learning about critical theories. So you know I read stuff about feminist theory, Marxist theory, critical race theory and you can look at pieces of literature, you can look at pieces of art through lenses like putting on the new pair of glasses and you look at something and this whole realm of these different facets of ideas just totally jump out so you know you read you read something and you don't realize it and then you put on this pair like let's think of it through the eyes of critical feminist theory and then suddenly these social inequities the patriarchy and all these things start to jump out on the paper and I think if we and that's something that is really eye-opening literally because you can put on these new pairs of glasses and you go whoa whoa I did not think of my life like this I you know I learned it I when I first my teacher introduced Marxist theory and I like Marxist theory we're in a you know it's kind of I've never thought about I think you know looking at things through a Marxist lens you know through a through a critical lens of economics and you start to look at literature and then you and then you start to look at your own life like why did I just make that decision why did I go do that in my life and you go oh you walk back the steps and you realize that you really are I am living through these preconceived lenses of what society should be and so I think if we can look theater in that same way through these different lenses I think it can really reveal what theater can be in the future so I think christiana had a really like amazing point about like how to look at things like this. It's really hard to be on this panel because as a panelist I'm just so caught up in just listening to all of you with your smart ideas and inspiring ideas like that's right I'm supposed to say something but oh my god that's really all of that I mean it's exciting too that even something as as old and ancient as theater still has so many places to go right I mean and that's and that should really that that's what's so exciting right is that we can still reinvent it and and make it more relevant you know some of the things I wrote down about that question about what is theater is you know theater is story theater shares human experience theater is collaborative and and participatory I know that sometimes we get some wrap like where are we you sitting you watch no I don't I gasp I feel I answer questions I agree I disagree I mean all of those things and then I'm gonna and then I have to process it and think about it and I spread that and and it also and in the role of theater is that it you know it inspires people and it spotlights situations and it humanizes something it humanizes it right like you you know Mickey when you're talking about you know sitting in class and you hear this information and it's and it's set up to just be like I tell you something you memorize it right or you understand it right well but but when we lean in you know you know Kathy's idea of reinventing the education system is to make it relevant to you to make to make sure to provide an education way that you care right it promotes curiosity and it's and it's participates and it's and again it's participatory and and and those are all and what's great about all of those things is it does it doesn't necessarily put it in a box sure we're all theater artists and we're gonna you know sometimes I direct to show and I love to use a lot of silk right we're all gonna have our specific way I'm putting on that show but but it does all of that and and we as artists get to put our own imprint by doing it a certain way and one thing that I didn't want to let go because I it's just really sad on me ever since we talked about it earlier is we're talking about measuring things and and you're right we just we we want to understand impact and the only way we understand that is by numbers apparently right because we you know number of people that saw the show number of this or this or that but but I and but theater can be really measured how do we measure the impact of a theater experience right and uh and when we were talking about that earlier these are the things that came to mind is is is um that that when I think about a moment where somebody had to push against um it was somebody had to express their their their passion and their thoughts I remember theater moments right like I think about Kathy and in letters to student revolution I stand in that stage with that with that red cloth and you know and and and I'm telling you Sarah I've been in a number of family parties where where I see the the generations of women in that room you know and I think about your beautiful work I mean like I think of theater experience how do we measure what how do we measure a story on stage how that makes an impact not based off of the number of people that that saw the show but the way that it actually inspires someone's life that's the thing that we can't really capture but maybe we should maybe all of our theaters should ask those questions about like what did you see we're going to take you back five seasons ago what show did you see and and is there a way you can tell us a story about how that show made an impact recently you know what did you reflect on that did it change something in your life did it inspire you to get over a fear something how do we measure that that that theater experience I think that's how we really start to to that's how we should really measure how we how we make that human impact I love that Manny one of the things I was just joking about this was someone the other day um cis productions we started with creating this episodic show about Asian-American women and relationships it was a romantic comedy this is 20 years ago before Crazy Rich Asians um and and we actually measured our success by how many people came to our show and uh and actually ended up um uh breaking like not being afraid to tell the person that they liked that they liked them and then being able to connect with each other from that like that was one of our measurements the other measurement we had designed it for Asian-Americans but we actually saw dramatic numbers of immigrant Asians and immigrant um South Americans and um even East Europe um East African Americans coming to the show and we asked them like what is it about the show that you appreciate and it's because they were trying to learn English but the English that they learned in English classes was very formal professional English and it didn't allow them to actually have real relationships with people so they wanted to actually hear how people really talk and engage in relationships with each other so they were coming to our show to practice their English and be able to learn colloquial terms of how people actually interact with people of different races and so so I mean that's where like theater it's so many different kinds of theater right people engage with it because there's different things that create awareness for them and the measures are not about like did this make you understand world history you know whatever that is um um in those very specific rigid ways I think so many people think about and they think that's the whole you know notion of like this is still within the institution because the funders are asking for numbers you know this is what we're going to put on our annual report those are still measured in the very white dominant places you know this is how you get the funding you pack the house you didn't pack the house we sold this much ticket and I think that's where you know the magic one question like if we didn't have to do all of these things that we have to report to you know going back to education do we need to know the multiplication table does it mean something you know or did the student learn about history through these kind of interactive you know playing right and it's still and I think that's where we have to start to dismantle and question and tackle how we measure the impact of our art and then for it to be a norm different norm for measuring impact of art it's not just numbers that the funders are going to see right it's the people it's the relationship and yeah I think I think that's a really interesting idea that you know um the the concept of measuring like how do you measure things and I think it's important to again like be a little introspective about our society that even even the fundamental concept of one plus one equals two is nothing more than an ideology right it's a way we perceive the world around us it's not it's only true because we say so so the even something that seems so blatantly true like one plus one equals two I think it's still important for us to to really think about like how how does how does that affect the way we think right how does the fact that we value these numbers or how many people showed up to this show like raw numbers like that like how does that affect the society around us and how can we measure the success of theater and civic engagement in new ways and I think we are to move may perhaps move away from these these uh this number oriented form of measurement because you know just you know again like numbers are no nothing more than ideology um and I think measuring success in new and different ways can really open open our eyes to a whole different um like tones of tones of like how can interpret interpret success um and it I had this I had this sticky note um that I wrote this idea on before I came here um and I really want to um just say that I really like the question about the magic wand because this is something that I it's it's it's a statement that I carry with me whenever I have any conversation about progress um and it's and it's to dream with idealism and to move with pragmatism um and that I think it's important to really have big dreams have a vision but it's and it's also important to to really understand what steps it's going to take to get there and and you know I think that balance is going to be really important in how we can imagine where theater can take society yeah thank you I think that's a perfect thing to transition us to sharing to inviting the audience to join the conversation and gaining just some more thoughts on this um what I'm also hearing is um to connect this idea of measurement to our earlier conversations that when theater becomes uh more integrally a part of public life um we won't need we won't need these measures because the the what Manny was sharing about its impact on our lives is going to to be clear in all parts of civic life um so we're transitioning to a community conversation portion of the event um right now our zoom audience is joining our conversation and don't worry you're muted and your cameras are off so you don't have to join the conversation if you don't want to you won't be live streamed unless you choose to um but we are inviting you so that we can can ask these questions to you you are the civic life uh the public life that we are hoping to um to invite into uh what theater is and vice versa so we would love to um kind of throw these questions back at you um um I would love to ask the audience if anyone would be willing to share and and you can share and you can also ask questions if you would like um I was wondering if you have any thoughts of what the role of an artist should be in the community that you want to live in um the role of theater as we've been talking about as this idea but I'm also thinking about about the role of the artist um right now we we are at a disconnect from artists and we've talked a little bit about how arts and artists can are already infused into our civic life and public life um so I'd love to throw that question to the audience how do you want theater art and artists to be a part of your community um in your vision of the ideal community and you can either unmute yourself or put in the chat that you want to talk or just jump on um you can turn on your camera if you'd like I'd also love to uh as the audience is thinking about their responses to that I'd love to invite the um panelists who have been chatting and sharing so much of their information if you'd like to take a break you can feel free to turn off your camera um if you want to become more of listeners and foreground that community voice or just you know go get some water and take a little bit of a break feel free to do that if so I'd like to invite that if that's of interest to the panelists um yeah so anybody who is now in the zoom room do you have thoughts that you'd like to contribute kind of burning ideas um we would love love love to hear from you hi oh can I start my video oh you can hi a c peterson pronouns are she and her hi everyone just so many thoughts came into my mind I appreciate everyone's really thoughtful comments thank you um and as someone who has found my way into theater through choreography it's one of those things I've always been aware of these sort of I want to say artificial uh boundaries that have just that exist in western text-based theater um I remember one time somebody on the panel invited me to do movement for a play that wasn't even a musical and I was like wow how cool um thank you many um the other thing that just um coming coming at it from a choreographer point of view in the very beginning um I'm just I've always been aware of spaces rehearsal spaces performance spaces and there's space there that sits empty all the time you go through a park and there's a piano and there's a scientist do not play the piano and you go to a mall there's a stage they do not use the stage and you're like and they'll say oh it's insurance but it's like how can we you know how can we let little kids starting very young just start expressing themselves anyway and then the other thing was um you know how about evenings that are more like open mic or um it's theater it's dance it's music it's it's whatever and it just goes on and on and whoever's whoever performs that week invites two or three people for the next week like who says that the people who are the artistic directors are choosing these people thank you thank you so much for joining for sharing that ac you're absolutely right about this that I that's a perfect image of that stage that says do not go on stage or the piano that says do not play of these con societal constructs that we've created to separate theater from public life um and yeah why can't theater happen on that stage why can't performance happen on that piano and why can't performance happen outside of that stage as well that can also be considered theater yeah just this idea of redefining what theater is is so powerful in and of itself yeah turn that piano into a drum bam that's what we're doing today do your performance in front of that stage I love that thank you ac that's really beautiful and it so reminds me of the magic wand vision that Kathy started us out with this like open-ended anything is possible anywhere it's possible for us to work collaboratively around telling a story or examining a question and actually I just want to share that that that that image was actually inspired by I'd spent some time in the small town in South America and on Saturday afternoon by their market they just had this open stage in this open central area and everyone with their families of all ages came and people would some people would be reciting poetry some would be doing speeches other people would be playing music people were conversed it was beautiful and that that that is what I still hold is a vision of what can be possible other thoughts from folks I'll also offer ask the question this brought to mind where have you seen the audience where have you seen theater at the heart of public life or theater integral integrated into civic practice or vice versa my name is Heisem I use he him pronouns and to me theater is really at its essence a relationship and a conversation and those two things are actually what moves people to change and so what I have always seen as the value of theater is that artists have a skill set to impact and influence people in a meaningful way that causes significant transformable transformable change and people who otherwise would be close to the idea or concept and that's what I think we offer uniquely especially in this era of extreme bipartisanship is a way of connecting across those who are different from us based upon values that we can both agree upon to really make change happen for those people who are disenfranchised and less unfortunate and what I'm really hoping that the artistic and theater community does now in the mix of the covid pandemic is to come up with thousands of ideas to try different things to try to make this happen knowing that only one or two of them will will make the change that we're looking for but for us to be the driving force and energy of that movement thank you so much Heisem yes all I have to say to that is yes other thoughts from the audience this is Laura and I would say a place where I have seen theater more integrated would be Canada so in Canada I think first there's a lot more funding for theater and it's a lot more inclusive where you can have a theater company that's doing main stage productions and has a touring children's show and is working with the elders in their community and is working with the indigenous population of their community creating pieces on the bus creating pieces outside it because there's so much funding they're not bound by ticket sales they're not bound by you know four-week rehearsal periods and they can create a lot more interesting programs that go out into the community in a lot of different ways so there are some of the things that you were talking before about how can we bring theater to people who can't afford to come in well they're doing that that's a really good point Laura and and there want two people here to speak about a little bit about some aspects of that because funding also came up in our previous panel in this series reimagined black theater where black leaders shared a lot of incredible insight if you haven't seen that panel and the idea of equitable funding came up today and it came up last time as well and is so crucial so i'd love for mani to share a little bit about what's happening in his world as well as this idea of equity in theater we haven't talked about the public works program but that's why ng is facilitating the philosophy of the public works program at Seattle rep and across the nation and internationally um i feel like speaks to that what you just brought up as well Laura's um yeah mani would you can you share a little bit sure well you know i mean one thing we we all know is that these are really challenging times i mean my gosh i don't i feel like i have to find a whole new dictionary to find the words that really capture what we're going through because i use words i feel like gosh no it's it's there's another nuance there these are challenging times and our organizations are really struggling theaters museums orchestra symphonies all of the music bands um individual artists are creative all of our creative folks and um and uh and right now um in a crisis and in a global pandemic i mean that shut all of us down we you know uh you know somebody said it another partner said the other day the only place really where there's money that will give us the support that we need are the people that print it it's federal government right um because no one's doing well no one is healthy financially and um but and i know that that it has been very disheartening to see the lack of agreement on a on any more covid relief but i think that we just we got to get through this we will now get through this we look with great anticipation to the election next week everyone vote and um and then uh and uh and then resources will start to you know conversations to start again the federal government and resources will start to pour in and here's where this thing could really flip that um the you know the silver lining is is that things are so dire that there's a that there could be a lot of different ways that resources will come to the creative sector um there's a great proposal not just tpp funds and unemployment which is really super important literally our priorities right now um but also money that could pour in from the state government right maybe even from the city and from the county because all those will all be recipients of federal aid and um and there'll be a real focus on on trying to inspire all the things that make theater happen which is like people getting out of their homes people wanting to connect with each other right um and um uh you know and right now there's a few ideas around how to put creative workers to work and maybe the way that we take a look at it on the americans for the arts website there's a putting creative workers to work proposal and but imagine that maybe how do we do that here in washington how do we put creative workers to work with whatever this new wpa kind of program is maybe what we do is we make sure that we get that those creative people and we embed them in all this in in every aspect of civic life right we get them on the utility boards we get them in every neighborhood every neighborhood as artists and residents i you know how do we put creative people to work this is our opportunity when there are new resources on my optimistic cap right now when there are new resources that we make transformative change we put artists in really different places we we we push open doors we climb in through the window you know and we make sure that creativity is you know is part of the solution and again if we do it in a way that is relevant to our communities because the artists that are involved the communities we are speaking to fully reflect our society you know and with a real emphasis also uh uh to redistribute wealth by recognizing that you know black indigenous people of color communities artists have not had their resources and and um and this is how we can turn that around so um so nothing really specific now but i just say um you know there's we're at a precipice um again we have to look to the federal government because they print money and therefore we got to make sure that the people who print that money are really thinking big and broad and are going to lean forward with resources for us to invest in it so um yeah it just sucks that we need money you know what else is social construct that money is social construct also and you know i wish there was different ways to do things and change the way we look at money somehow it's back to what yeah sarah said which is we we actually we actually need to move away from a capitalistic society where everything is geared on money yeah but just as of right here right now i mean people have rent a pain they're an artist you know and we want to keep our artists and and and people need you know so yeah um but i agree with you i think this conversation actually um makes me think of some of the work that you're doing kathy um and have done for quite some time and i know we're running low on time but can you speak a little bit about the the racial equity work that you've been doing with grant makers and funders i just feel like that's such critical work to this part of the discussion yeah i mean there's so much that in a nutshell um when i when i was put into the position i am in now which is to manage the grant funding programs for the office of arts and culture i knew that i could i was not willing to accept the job unless we could redo it through a racial equity lens so part of the logic model for our funding um for the last decade has really been how do we use our funding as leverage to create a more anti-racist arts and cultural sector and that starts with self-interrogation of each and every organization um in order to qualify to even get funding they actually need to do a racial equity self-assessment and then work with our office in terms of really developing out how they actually move the needle for themselves um their staff their board their artists um who they're even hiring as artists and the kind of work that they're putting on stage of course everyone's starting from a different place so the goal was to first just help people move more towards being that this next year we're we just sign up the letter today in fact um moving even more intentionally that way um including our funding we've been bridging this the old hierarchy of funding which is basically how long people had been funded and now we're moving completely to just the scores that they're getting because i've been able to shift enough stuff where the scoring actually does reflect all the organizations representing people of the global majority are getting the highest scores now um because of our shift in criteria and and and centering in the the racial equity trainings we've been doing for the whole community um that we can now move to that model of funding so uh we're we're and i'm working with a lot of national leaders as well as canadian leaders in terms of how we can all do this together because if we're the only office who's doing this um there's so much more funding out there for everybody than what we can provide it's not going to be enough leverage so we actually need to partner with everyone in the community to really make this shift but it's it's for the intention of if we become more anti-racist which is really about how we become more relational and center human beings like what mickey was talking about before how do we center people over systems and profit um um and and that's really what being anti-racist means it's where we can all show up as authentically as possible where we're not privileging some over everybody but by centering those who have not um had as much access or resources or um anything before which the protests have been daylighting um it actually makes things better for everybody it's just like with access ADA access if you center people with disabilities and what is preventing people from having access to events and spaces then actually those spaces become accessible for everybody regardless of if it's because you have a disability or because you're elderly or because of whatever issue right so the more we can actually really create um uh focus on who has had the least access and whatever for whatever reason and make things better for them than everybody benefits um and that's what we need to do as a country now and it's been daylighted and we cannot go back like this has opened up our as mickey was talking about um and as christiana was talking about we now have a lens to what has true in our society we cannot step back from that again because and and we can only move forward and we have to so vote thank you Kathy that is such a great way to wrap up this conversation i i feel like there are so many more ideas in the um among the attendees continue those conversations um with your with your family and friends and communities please um uh our next conversation as part of this panel is reimagine indigenous theater where indigenous leaders will be joining us um to share their thoughts and before that as part of Seattle Reps Kilroy's club which is our play reading club we will be reading Larissa fast horses what would crazy horse do uh so two events to look forward to um but especially your invent to look forward to is november 3rd make sure to vote please make a voting plan um and um let's make this vision of theater happen thank you all so much for joining us uh thank you attendees and thank you panelists