 Welcome. Thank you all for joining us. You are here for our session, our panel on community and professional theater, and we're going to be talking about, we'll define those terms, talk about some of the differences between them. And also talk about what both can learn from each other and maybe. Yeah, I'll let the panel go in its own direction from there. But my name is Derek Schwartz and the program officer for theater at NIFA. And I will be facilitating this conversation. I am a white man with stubble and some kind of poofy brown short brown hair and wearing clear rimmed glasses. And I am calling in from the land of the Massachusetts Wampanoag and the people in NIFA's office. And what is now known as Boston, Massachusetts. And I'm using he him pronouns. And I'm really excited to introduce our panelists today. We're joined by Jacob Padrone, Julia Rosenblatt and Bronwyn Sims. And in just a moment, I will hand it off to them to introduce themselves and we will launch into this exciting conversation. I did just want to offer an access note that Leilani just posted the captioning link in the tea in the zoom chat. So if you want to follow along with captions, you can do that by clicking that link, or by clicking live transcript at the bottom of your zoom screen. With that, I will pass it off to our panelists. If you could just introduce yourself with your name if you want to share your pronouns where you're calling in from a visual description and a little bit about your work. And I guess I can start it. I'll pass it to Jacob. Hi everyone, can you hear me okay. Yeah, great. Hi, I'm Jacob Padrone. I use he him pronouns. I am the artistic director of Longworth theater here in New Haven, and I'm also the founder and artistic director of the soul project based in New York. I am calling in from the ancestral lands of the Quinnipiac Wapinger and Pugasa peoples new Haven. I am a brown skin Latin X man. I have brown eyes, dark brown hair. I'm wearing a white v-neck t-shirt and a flannel, because it's cold. Behind me are some of my favorite pieces of art, and also next to me is a bookcase of books that provide inspiration, and some are from grad school, some I kept from grad school. And just really happy to be here with all of you as we talk about kind of the evolving landscape of the American theater relative to community centered programming community center theater. Thank you. Thanks Jacob Julia, do you want to go. Sure, I'm Julia Rosenblatt. I am in Hartford, Connecticut, and I am, let's see, I am the, I'm a co founder of heartbeat ensemble here in Hartford. And I'm still an ensemble member there but I have moved on to start a the theater program at Capital Community College, also in Hartford. I am wearing a purplish shirt with a with a turtleneck type thing, I've, I'm white, I have hair, little above my shoulders, wearing earrings, I'm in my bedroom which hopefully looks okay enough because today I don't teach so I am home and working from home today. Thanks Julia and Bronwyn. Hi everybody, my name is Bronwyn Sims, I go by she her pronouns. I don't have a video today I'm sorry my camera is broken, but I will describe myself. I'm a white Caucasian woman, medium length hair with bangs, brown blonde hazel eyes. I live in Nelson, New Hampshire, land of the Abenaki, and I am a devised theater artist independent artist right now I don't work with a specific company, and I'm also a visual artist and an athlete. Thank you. Thanks so much. So I'm going to start with a really broad question and any of you can take a stab at it. But I would love if we could define the terms that we're using today so I'd love to hear kind of the definitions that you use for community theater and professional theater. And then also if you could just speak a little bit for around where you see the importance of both of those within our theater landscape. I'll start yep or Jacob do you want to start. No, please go ahead, go ahead, Julia. Great so depth defining. So to me there's three different categories here community theater. I think, I think, refers to non professional theater people who are doing it as a hobby, or, you know, studying certainly, and professional theater being those that are in the profession and paid, and then a another term that heartbeat often uses community which we use as that we are a professional theater company that is based in the community of Hartford and and responsible for serving that community. So that that's how I would define those three. What was the second part of the question. If you could just speak to where you see the position of each of those the importance of each of those within the landscape. Gotcha, gotcha. Okay. Yeah, I think, well, hopefully it goes out saying that all three are I think really essential to the landscape and also acknowledging that the landscape is changing drastically as we speak. So, for better and for worse, I think with a lot of different factors in there. So community theater, non professional theater. It's what I grew up doing. It's what felt brought me to love theater. And also, I met some of the most wonderful people from all over the state weren't doing it. And that's exactly what I think it, it provides. It's a, it's a wonderful, wonderful opportunity to create theater and still have a career that pays you better than for one thing. So, so that's absolutely. It's a it's also a training base I think for a lot of a lot a lot of actors. I think for a lot of students community based theater. I see a lot also I should sort of the other term is not always ensemble but but a lot of community based theaters. There's also that define ourselves as an ensemble as well. So, a body of artists a group of artists who work together over a long period of time to create a body of work. And that would be my definition of ensemble I don't know where I got that Sabrina. So that that I think is, I mean, the, our place in terms of the ecosystem is often creating new work for heartbeat is almost entirely new work. It is a lot of interview based work, a lot of research based work. And the goal is always to be listening to the people who live right around the theater, and hearing what they want to hear stories about and, and, you know, finding those stories or working with them to find stories maybe we do a lot of that type of work through interview theater. And also to be able to take some, some risks, I think that like Lord a and b theaters don't necessarily always get to take, because we are smaller in terms of budget. And, yes, that was what I was referring to network of ensemble theaters. So, yeah, so I think I think there's a lot of, there's place where we can take have more risk taking in terms of the type of work we do and the way we do it and the way we engage with our community. And then of course regional theater, you know, talking about Lord houses or, you know, is is a solid season of work that I think is great, wonderful for for a community to have in terms of you know, coming back each month or each every other month and understanding a vision of, for instance, Hart Hartford stage. For instance understanding the artistic directors vision and seeing that over a season of time, and then also being able to, you know, have audience members compare and, you know, really bring those shows together and in their minds and think about how they relate to each other. Thanks so much Julia does anyone else have any reflections. Any different opinions on any of that. No, I, I, I got cosine on on all of that in terms of the definitions and you know Julia is when you were sharing something that I was thinking about is that when I think about sort of the definitions and sort of and how, how we work when we think about community theater, professional theater, theater that is rooted in community I was thinking about systems that the systems that we have to use in a community context are different than the systems we have to use in a professional context. One of the things that we're trying to think about it long war theater as a, you know, as a Lord as a historically Lord professional regional theater is there's a difference between being a community theater, which I came up from. I, you know, I have a life in the theater because of El Teatro Campesino where we were making theater on the flatbed trucks in the fields of California versus a professional theater you know I I I think you can be, you can be you can still be a professional theater that is rooted in the community and I think that's the distinction that I think we have to make and I think that's the, I think the work that I think you're doing Julia and that you're you're talking about is community based is so important actually to the ecosystem. And I just think that you know we talked about this a little bit yesterday when we were on our prep call with Derek is like how do we as a as a come as a larger community and as a field, begin to really disrupt the mythologies that we have when we think about what it means to be a community based theater, or even a theater that's rooted in community. Maybe the word community is the wrong word. You know, because we don't often define what that means. One of the other intentional shifts that we're trying to make it longer theater is to is to use the word in a plural sense, not community, but communities. And that also has, you know that that also has to be a part of our work how do we interrogate that and talk about that. So those are just some reflections that are coming up as I, as I hear Julia's terrific reflections. Thanks so much Jacob Bronwyn did you want to add anything to that. I don't have anything new to add except that in our talk the other day. I come from a device theater background. I went to pig iron and a lot of the work that we did in our the second half of our of the graduation year was based in community. So it was working with other artists and others in the local community area, different communities. And creating theater that in our minds I believe we didn't think there were any less professional than like a full pig iron production that was done say at the fringe festival. So I think in what Julia and Jacob have stated, I agree with the definitions that Julia spoke of. But thinking about a different way of discussing like, quote unquote, community theater or theater that's based in the community like coming up with a different way of talking about it. So it doesn't necessarily polarize like, OK, this is professional and this is a community theater and this is community based where I've seen many productions that don't have the same budget as a professional theater that in my mind are just as professional as like a theater done at the public. Or it's just the what you garner from it is is a different takeaway. And I think even finding other spaces that that one can perform in someone who's a performer, it takes away that idea of professional, even though I'm not I'm not saying that's a bad word. But like if you were going to do theater in in an obscure type of a space, somebody might consider that to be less professional. But the quality of the work may be way better than what you might see production in an actual professional theater. So I think it's like breaking down those barriers somehow and how we talk about it because I know even in my own community here there are performers who don't want to engage with a certain type of organization because they can't get paid. And I know that that's a big issue for performers, but it doesn't mean that the work has to be any less, I guess, is is is what I'm sort of trying to get at. Yeah, that really that really resonates for me just to just to jump in because as you as you were sharing I was also just thinking about, you know, as we as we. I think the invitation to disrupt I think some of the mythologies that we have when we hear sort of community based theater or community theater. You know, I wonder if the invitation is also about how we think about output that that when we that when we center community, or that when we center a community based context and how we make the work. That it's, it's about relationships when we center a community context I think it's about relationships. It's about process over product. I think it's about inviting more questions. I think it's about really interrogating the thing of like what does artistic excellence mean like I think that's like really right we hear that all the time we value artistic excellence we value artistic rigor. And I just wonder if like we have to really think about those things relative to these new models that I think we're trying to pilot as we move as we try to move the field forward. Yeah, on that same line in terms in terms of I just wanted to agree wholeheartedly with Jacobs definition of community versus communities right in Hartford which is a midsize city geographically it's a fairly small city. And we have many communities and they're overlapping communities, people belong to more than one, but you know neighborhood alone is is it can be a very divisive. It's not a barrier but a line right a line in the sand and so we talk about that a lot. And that's really, that's real to because we're also talking about who gets funding, right what what neighborhood gets the, the influx of money that it needs and so I yeah I just wanted to back that up in terms of, I don't know maybe, maybe we need to stop using the word community at all because it's becoming a euphemism and and sort of. And I think it also involves like code switching and you know, like things that white people are afraid to say and so forth so it's a concept that maybe maybe has had its time. I want to pull out a question that it seems like we've kind of been dancing around a little bit and Jacob you brought this up, which is around this idea of artistic excellence and I'm curious in hearing you reflect on kind of how that phrase has been used, but also in thinking about new ways to use it and what we're really looking for when we talk about excellence and yeah. I mean, I think it's something that I'm that I'm just really thinking deeply about as as we transition. You know the organization that I'm honored to be a part of which is long war if you know we've some may or may not know this but so I long war theater has been in a building on the outskirts of the city for almost 60 years. And earlier this year our board of directors made the decision to leave the building. So to no longer be anchored by one space and instead to become an itinerant theater company to create and make work in spaces all around the region and and in the city of New Haven. So the idea that the idea is that you don't necessarily need a stage and four walls to tell great stories and to have an impact and and the kind of larger idea animating our decision is that theater belongs to everyone. Oscar uses at the public theater talks about culture belongs to everyone. And so we feel like we can really manifest that by not being anchored to a space any longer. And if there was ever a moment to really rethink our models, and to try to push the American theater forward we also felt like, you know this is the this is the moment. I remember during the pandemic we had an artistic Congress where we brought together leaders from across the country to talk about the state of the American theater and what are, what is our responsibility to the field in terms of moving us forward and the great playwright said the great pause has become the great possibility. And so we really took that as a real charge like how can we use this pause to lean into imagination and possibility. So as you can imagine not being tied to a building this question of well what about artistic excellence. I feel like the works not going to be as good if I see something in a library, or outside in a park. And what I say, or what I've been saying to those folks is give us a chance. Give us a chance to figure this out let's let's let's together in community. Let's redefine what artistic excellence means for for our theater company and for our city and for our region. I'm also thinking about, you know, I was a producer at the public theater and the best art that we made was when we took professionals and non professionals together to make a musical, which is a part of the public works program where we would adapt Shakespeare and do there were these massive participatory pageants at the Delacorte theater and not only was it the kind of the right thing to do but it was the best art we made. I think as a theater company. So another again another way to disrupt maybe some of the mythologies about how we think about community based theater. Yeah, and I absolutely agree and I think also we can. One thing that we can sort of siphon off from artistic excellence is is the discussion of production values. So production values being one thing meaning literally how big your budget is to make to make this work and aside from from paying the actors we're talking about design and tech and and a lot of times that gets. And it is part of artistic excellence, but it doesn't have to be at a certain level of financed that a certain level to be to be artistically excellent, or to, you know, have rigor. I think something that going back to art that's that's probing, you know, artists that are committed, and also not just committed to the work that they're doing but committed to communicating with the audience, both in the moment and after. And, and, yeah, in terms of that pause, I think we're, you know, asking a lot of questions a lot of good questions that should have come up a long time ago about what theater is and why we need it. You know, I teach theater history. And the whole, you know, I start the course by saying there's been theater as long as there's been humans, because we've we need it. That's basically what I try to come back to throughout the whole course. And, and so defining theater from that point starting with ritual starting with storytelling. So, you know, I think all of those things contribute to artistic excellence in a way that just maybe isn't always recognized. I think a question that I have is, I think something that I'm hearing in from all of you is, I think there's a lot of value in, you know, meeting people where they are, whether that's physically or, you know, culturally, whatever that is, and I'm wondering, you know, I think in some ways, community theaters are at an advantage in that or theaters that don't have a space like you were talking about Jacob, you know, can like physically move in that way. But I'm wondering, and sorry I'm realizing I'm talking really fast. I'm wondering what a regional theater or a commercial theater and I'm already steering away from using the word professional theater. But I'm wondering what lessons they can learn or how they can do that work as well. One of the things that I think smaller companies in general have out of necessity that maybe is agility. And I think that's something, you know, the larger you are, whether it be budget or building or numbers of staff, it maybe becomes a little less hard to stay agile. And the, you know, if you are, if you, if you don't have as much, whether it is to carry around with you, or a lot of other things, whatever, where your board is and so forth. Heartbeat has been able to be really agile in our 20 years and respond not only to, you know, what our audiences wanted, but what we needed, what was going on with us, what was going on, you know, during the recession, for instance. And we've had to hate this word now because it's an edge you speak word pivot. But it's in used in education of like, no, don't worry about it, you just got to pivot and do something differently. But we have been able to turn another direction and do something a little different than we have been easier, I think, than larger companies. But the other thing is like learning a certain amount of resourcefulness that you have to have I'm thinking about, you know, there were heartbeat has a theater, but we didn't always for the last 10 years we have. And we, one, we used to do a series of a show called Ebenezer Hartford holiday Carol based on a Christmas Carol, and we went to each neighborhood and performed and so our theaters were, you know, the West Indian Social Club, and the charter cultural center and a union hall and so forth. But that it just, that brings up a whole other slew of questions and things that we have to figure out of doing theater in a non theater space. So figuring out those day to day whether it's like, is there a toilet in this space for the actors, you know, those are things that I think we get we get used to, and maybe could. Yeah, that it could be learned from. Yeah, thank you. I'd love to hear your perspective on this Bronwyn has an independent artist. Um, can you just repeat the question one more time Derek so I can clarify. Yeah, no problem. I'm wondering, you know, a lot of our conversation has been around. I think meeting people where they are and I'm wondering, you know, what it looks like for theater, regional theater or commercial theater. Or a theater that has its own space. How can they still meet the community where they are? Yeah. Um, so I guess as an independent artist. For me, I don't know the kind of work that I'm most interested in creating probably comes from a more of a devised place. And sometimes I find that with professional, I'll say equity theaters that are, and I'll just state like in the area that I'm located in. There's a tendency to not use local performers. And I find that a bit disgruntling. There's a tendency to think that the better performers come from New York City or Boston or somewhere else. Uh, and I'm not quite sure I understand why that is, even though I know that things have, the climate has changed slightly. But it still appears to me that when you go to audition for a company that is quote unquote professional or an equity theater, the tendency seems to be not to look locally. And that to me is a turn off, I guess, because I feel like there's a lot of local people who, whether they have a professional resume or not, doesn't matter. I mean, it really depends on what happens when you show up with the audition. I guess the other thing in that realm, as someone who still goes out and auditions and performs, whether I'm creating my own material, which has its own dilemmas. Because when you're creating your own work from a devised place, a lot of times you don't have a big budget. You do have to be resourceful. You do have to find things in your own way in order to produce that piece. So that requires, like an individual artist like myself, if I'm creating original material, I have to work with my community. There's really no if ands or buts about it. You are community based and you are working with your community because you probably don't have a space and you don't have all of the resources exactly in your back pocket. And I haven't seen as much outreach from professional theaters when I've actually tried to engage in creating work and maybe reach out to a bigger company that might be willing to, like, can I use their space or make connections in that way. There hasn't really been a hand across the aisle, like saying, yeah, come here, we can use our space for free, or maybe you could do a work in progress performance here. That hasn't really, I have not seen that sort of present itself, at least in my understanding. So I feel like there's a disconnect a little bit. You know, a community theater is usually more open to something of that. Even if they have a space, they may be more willing to let a small group or an individual artist come in and and use the space they seem a little less Intimidate is not the right word, but they seem a little less confined to their concern about being an equity theater or professional theater. So there's sort of, for me, at least as a person who prefers to devise theater and create it from an original place. You're relied, you're reliant upon applying for grants or finding money outside of yourself unless you happen to be independently wealthy to create your own work. And it's been frustrating that other professional, whether they're companies or organizations are less willing to help like an individual artist or without applying for a grant or getting donations or what have you. And then if I go and audition for a community theater and I have an equity card, there's a problem there. And then if you go to an equity theater, at least in more rural areas, like in Vermont or in New Hampshire, there's this, there's also a stigma around casting local actors. Now, these are things that weren't necessarily talked about earlier, but as a person, as an individual artist, I've found frustration in all of those avenues. So I don't have an answer for it, except that the type of work that interests me the most is how to create original work using my community, my neighbors, my creating theater that might be, doesn't have to be in a traditional space. In fact, I prefer work that isn't in a traditional space, but all of that requires income or resources that sometimes are not as easy to find. I don't know, that's sort of a long winded answer to your question, but I'm just kind of speaking from a place for myself in my own frustration around creating work and how to help others in my community who want to create work and or maybe audition for a company that might strictly want to hire actors, for some reason, out of a bigger city than their local actors. I don't know if anybody who could speak to that but Bronwyn, I think that what you're raising I just I just want to like just amplify and just like I think all the points are so poignant and powerful I think this the point that you're also making about like, you know that we say that we want to be in relationship to our city to our region to our community but we then we don't even start there in terms of the treasure chest that is right in front of us. You know I think when you put that stake in the ground to say, you know we want to be in relationship to our communities that it like opens up, I think possibility. And I think that it's it's one of the it's that in itself is one of the ways that we can be a more community centered professional theater even if that's something you know I still want to be a Lord theater I still want to be an Broadway theater. Great. Do that. But what are the values that are sort of guiding your work what are the stakes in the ground that allow you to still center your communities and the people that you say you want to serve in a more intentional way I think that that's just really powerful and it's something that it's an active shift that we are trying to make and that I think we have made at Longworth theater do we have more work to do absolutely have we gotten it right always know what we're learning and we're growing and we're evolving and and also trying to really think about the you know the value of emergence how can we be emergent in our process. The other thing that that Derek I think you asked us to reflect on is just like the whole idea of meeting audiences where they are man oh man is that just so powerful, especially as we think about I think for Longworth again. This transition. It's been y'all it's been really hard for folks to wrap their heads around wait what itinerant theater, leaving your building. You're asking me to imagine something different and new, you know changes hard, I think for for folks, not not all folks but for many folks. The idea of like come on the journey with us. Part of the reason why we made this change is because we do actually want to be around for the next 60 years I think about the thing that tied to foe, you know said to me I think about the thing Delena studio said to me which is if you're not thinking seven generations ahead, you're talking about so help us think seven generations ahead if we would have stayed in that building. Then I think the legacy of the company would have really been in jeopardy and we wouldn't have been able to imagine the possibility seven generations ahead. So we have to keep amplifying that message. Yeah. I just also want to bring up to two things that come out of what Bronwyn was saying. And one is in terms of that the act the local actor versus the actor from New York, or so forth one of the ways I think that one of the things that that works well against that is ensemble. So having a having a set ensemble, however you define your ensemble right it could be five people it could be 20 people it could be only people that live in your city or it can be people from throughout the country. But when you are committing to working with a specific ensemble that that often is a stake in the ground. You're working together and you're saying okay well we have this project we go to this person because they're an ensemble member that's looking to do something and then the other thing is that there's that there be that there's a very clear way into the ensemble for us. And that you know many of our ensemble. We have several members who started with us as youth in our youth play Institute and and came up and and are now are now ensemble members so those two things together I think, put that stake in the ground in the community where you're in or the communities were here in. The other thing that I think to bring up and you mentioned it a little bit Bronwyn is is how the Union is changing, or and what they need to do to change so you know actors equity was there was you and a lot of light shown on it in terms of its inequity and who it's serving in terms of its Union members and so I think we need to keep pushing that and and there's a flexibility there. You know, of of so that so that the barrier of an equity house or not a great house isn't the thing that's going to keep people out. One way or the other now that's there's always been that option heartbeat always has you know we're not an equity house but we have, we always have, you know, at least half our contracts or equity contracts and so that's always been there, but there's always been a way as well that we can open up those those sort of silos of definitions of of working artist. Yeah, thank you so much Julie I did anyone have any other reflections on the actors equity questions complexities around that. I will pivot us a little bit and it's not really a pivot, but I think something that again we've touched on a few times. And I've heard some examples and I'm wondering if I can just push us to go even deeper is, you know this question of working in community gets thrown around a lot. I think it can be kind of a buzzword. And I'm wondering like, what does that really look like what does it look like to do that right. I would just love to hear examples or philosophies around that that you might have. For, I mean, for heartbeat I think it's always been about representation of our city. You know we have a predominantly black and brown city, 85%. And, and so we want that to be reflected in in our audience that you know we want to make sure that we are not just creating theater for the white theater for the others who have been doing it for a long time. That's a big part of it for us, really. The other, the other thing that we look at is how many people who who in the audience, how, if they've ever been to a theater before, how often they go to a theater if they go once a year if they go to multiple theaters, right we want to we want to reflect our community in that way our city in that way to in terms of bringing in new theater those are two ways I mean there's multiple but those are two ways that I think we just literally look around and, and, you know, can get a sense start to get a sense of what we're doing. I would just offer it just so at Longworth Theater we try to organize our work around three core pillars. The pillars are artistic innovation, radical inclusion, and kaleidoscopic partnerships. And it's that last, it's that last pillar of partnership that we really are trying to lean into especially as we do this, this, this transition. But I also think that when I think about the future of the American theater, I think more and more is going to rely on like revolutionary partnerships people coming together to actually make the work and be in relationship to communities so I think the way that the way that we sort of are trying to do it at Longworth is like to actually go into the community like who are the, who are the community organizations that are have real relationships with the different neighborhoods all across New Haven. So like one partnership that we have that's been going on for going on a decade is with the New Haven Free Public Library, which has branches and all of the neighborhoods across the city of New Haven. So, when we say that we want to be in community, or in right relationship with our community, rather than us, rather than us knowing what that looks like, or us thinking that we know what the community wants. We have to actually rely on the folks that are actually in the community, like the library, or like junta, which is specifically supporting our Latinx population here in New Haven, or the Pride Center, which is supporting primarily our BIPOC community, our transgender community. So that's how we're, and so it's a formal and informal network. But, but again it's that it's that it's, you know, of our three pillars that last pillar of partnership is really the piece that we're trying to, you know, lean into as we think about what it means to be in community. Yeah. Yeah, just to read, sorry, bring that you're absolutely right I mean if there aren't partnerships with institutions that are already in, in the various communities that you're in, then there's then there's something missing there's a piece missing right. And some, a lot of times I think those the best partnerships come from work that's created, you know, with that in partnership with, with whatever organization it is so, you know, doing, we had an ongoing project with SCI you 1199 workers for of, of telling stories of certified nurses assistants. And so we, you know is over the course of a couple of years and we've done that with both with literally just with streets, but then also also with other organizations that have a specific, you know, people reaching out to us to that have a specific story that they want to get a message that they want to get out there or questions that they want to push, and will come to heartbeat and say, you know, can we work on something together to get that out there. That's always, you know, incredibly rich. Karen I see your question but I want to make sure I make we make space for Bronwyn. Thanks Jacob. Well I'll just speak to two projects in relation to partnership. As a, as the individual creator I, I find it really enriching and important to reach out to different communities to work with them and one in particular that, or there's two that I'll speak to but when I was at the end of my graduate program in Philadelphia, myself and another graduate we worked with an elderly home, not far from the school, and we met with them several times, and the discussions were about what they needed, not what we wanted to do. And what was really exciting was posing those questions to not just the director of the elderly home, but we actually sat down with elders and had discussions about what would interest them. And if we were to create a project, what what they need, rather than us imposing our idea upon them. And actually, it was really simple. A lot of the elders wanted to talk about their community in, in Philly in Fishtown area, or what's called Fishtown. I think it's Kensington and West Kensington, I don't know, I can't remember the exact names, but it was Fishtown. And how their community had changed, but they wanted to do it by, they also wanted to get exercise, so they like to walk. And they, we decided that we would do like a walking conversation, start out with doing walking and conversing with one another. So in groups, we would take walks. And we did it once a week, and we were taking notes and they were telling stories. So when they were walking, they would look at a building or look at an area or a park that maybe had changed or had transitioned into something else. And for some of them, that was a nostalgic memory and they were either sad or maybe they were upset about it or whatever, but there was a story behind it. And so there were all these stories that came out of these walking. And then, invariably, they'd want to stop and have coffee. So there was that element to it. But we took these stories and then started to create them not just as theatrical pieces, but as a visual art. So then they were also drawing and painting from these stories. So, and what I found so exciting about that was that we didn't come in and push our thought or idea upon them. They sort of, we sat down and had several conversations and it was in those conversations that the most rich material sort of came and then hearing them reflecting their stories as we were walking. And it was almost like as if, gee, I felt like we were kind of already doing theater as we were walking down the street. And that is like theater in its own little way. Then the other real quick project that I had a chance to work with a good friend of mine who unfortunately recently passed away. But he's a visual, excuse me, he's a visual artist. He only died like a week ago. So I'm sorry if I'm crying. But he wrote a book and he had worked with children in Nepal, in India, and he was working with them on Zoom doing visual art. Based on the book that he had written with the story was the Nepali story. And so I, it was all on Zoom and it was during COVID. So I was working with them, not just on Charles story and illustrations of visual art, but we were also creating theater from that book. And then we sort of extended our work together and I started working with the students. And these are all young kids anywhere from eight to 16, 17, maybe the oldest. And we started talking about COVID and how COVID had affected them and created stories and movement through Zoom. And when we were talking about COVID, I really wanted to hear it from their standpoint in their country and in Nepal, not placing my ideas from the Americans. My views of COVID. So, and that's still in the works, but just how to engage in partnerships in a different way and sort of asking the question of like, what do you need? As opposed to the artist coming in and saying, well, this is my idea and this is what I want to do or whether you're with an ensemble or an individual artist and sort of how to really make it a partnership and a conversation from there coming from them, not from the artist. Sorry for crying. Thank you so much, Bronwyn. And please apologize for that. And thank you for being vulnerable and bring me that. And I would love if you could share that artist name so that we could recognize her. Sure. His name was Charles Norris Brown. And he was in his 70s. I'm so sorry for your loss. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks. In our last five minutes, I would love to field some questions that have been coming up in the chat. And I think the first one that I see and I'm sorry I know I'm probably missing some from earlier in the call but I see. Can you talk more about the idea of colitis topic partnerships and what does that mean to you. I'm sure. I think that, you know, New Haven is a really like racially diverse city. And so we intentionally have made the decision that when we think about like kaleidoscope seen the diversity of our city on our stages I think we're specifically focused on racial diversity. So, going back to what I was saying earlier how do we engage partners that serve the different communities in the different populations. So, you know, who are the partners that are specifically focused on our black and brown community, who is the partner that's like junta that's focused on really serving the next community. And, and I think we are but we are trying to expand I really appreciate the question Karen like like trying to expand the definition of kaleidoscope because we know that there are many communities that need to be a part of that definition. Like I'm thinking about how are we supporting like the narrow diverse community. How are we supporting. I mean we're, we will likely do a play next season by disabled artists who has cerebral palsy. So how are we how are we really in really in partnership and in deep relationship with our disabled community. So it's a it's it's it's an emergent definition. Yeah, I'm really grateful though for the question. Thanks so much and I'm sorry to kind of be rushing us along but I also really wanted to make time for this other question from Claudia which is, can anyone speak to using digital platforms in your community producing. I can speak to that in terms of some things as things I've been grappling with, because as we're in year three here of the pandemic my gut is to be like no, I don't want the virtual platform, you know because I felt feel so isolated and felt so too dimensional and yet when I think about things that have, whether it's meetings or talks like this or or theater pieces that have happened on a virtual platform, you can't help but notice the reach in terms of geography. And that's like that's been really wonderful and and also just eye opening in terms of of how how set we get in our geographic mindset right of you know this is where I am this is what we think this is what we do. So having people from all over the world be able to tune in, obviously opens that up and so I don't have. All I know is that I've been really thinking to myself okay so where. So obviously, this is the virtual run is a place where theater needs to keep being and but how does that work. I actually think Nifa has done a very interesting job with it in terms of this conference, in terms of mixing up the in person and virtual but I think it's something that's like just we're just starting to explore. And also just just jump in just to give you another example Claudia that one of the things that Longworth theater is doing we have a we're doing a program called the New Haven play project, thanks to the support of doors Duke where we are creating a film with our Muslim community and the idea is how do we create bridges between Muslim communities and non Muslim communities. So we're going to create a film and also a series of short films. And then we're going to then use a virtual platform to share that to share these stories of the Muslim community across the state of Connecticut. So that's, that's just one, one example of how we're trying to engage as many communities as possible using a virtual platform. Thank you so much. We are running out of time but I want to invite any final reflections if you have it before we wrap up. And if not that's okay too. I would just say thank you for this conversation. It's, it's really nice to have. It's nice to check in. We're talking about this ecosystem it's it's nice to check in with the different parts of that system so I'm appreciative. I'm glad I was part of it. Awesome. Well thank you all so much I wish we had another hour or two for this conversation but of course we don't. We do have another session coming up at 215. So look at my agenda here. That will be a performance from the ensemble of color. So I'm super excited about that. I would love to see you all in the chat in 15 minutes. Thank you all so much. Thank you so much to our panelists, especially this was such a great conversation. Thank you everyone. It's been a great conversation to have with you all thank you so much. Thank you everyone. Thanks so much.