 with Grace Galu and Baba Israel and we're part of the heart program at the Hero Arts Center and I'm just interviewing a lot of the heart artists and asking them about their projects and thanks for joining us. So you two why don't you tell us about your project first so that we can get into details. Okay sure I'll jump in and just give a little context and then pass it to my collaborator Grace Galu in the house writer and composer of the piece. So I wanted to the piece began there's a book called Smoke Signals written by an author named Martin Lee and this book is the Social Cultural History of Cannabis and I was in touch with Martin when I was making my last piece The Spinning Wheel which was about my late father Steve Ben Israel who was a member of the Living Theater and I'd gotten in touch with Martin and you know he was a longtime friend of my dad's and he turned me on to this book that he had written and it just it's a book that explores the history of cannabis but through cultural figures, political movements, social movements and when I read the book I just started to dream of it as a performance because there were so many rich stories whether it was you know cannabis and its connection to the beat generation in Allen Ginsberg or cannabis and the connection to the jazz age and to Louis Armstrong or Ella Fitzgerald or Bob Marley and reggae culture or hip hop culture and Cypress Hill and you know or the Mexican Revolution or you know cannabis coming to the Americas on slave ships actually that's one of the ways that it got here it's not indigenous to this part of the world and one of the ways that it came to the Americas was actually on as part of the middle passage you know so there was just so many you know and then there was also exploration of the racist roots of prohibition and why the plant was made illegal in the first place and you know the first place it was made illegal was in El Paso, Texas in around 1913 and it was a way of criminalizing Mexicans who were and you know and had a lot to do with the Mexican Revolution and Mexicans coming into America and the border and you know it just felt like it there was so much rich material and so much rich music that was being referenced and so many iconic cultural figures and then lesser known people like Dennis Perrone who was an incredible AIDS activist in the Bay Area and you know one of the first catalysts for cannabis becoming medically legal was in a response to the AIDS epidemic because the Munchies were literally saving people's lives and you know so there you know and then Brownie Mary who you know Grace does a beautiful song in the piece. Oh really? Yeah it's a beautiful song about this grandmother named Brownie Mary who was this woman in her late 70s who would make marijuana brownies and bring them to AIDS patients and sneak them into there and she was arrested many times and you know there was just all this activism and spirit and environments and so I just felt like this is a show there's a show here there's a story to be told this book should come to life. I started to write for the you know write songs and lyrics and poems and raps and I knew that I didn't want this just to be a solo piece. This is like too big a story and I knew that I wanted song to drive the show and not just what I do which is rap and poetry that I really wanted melody and and all these beautiful genres from you know old-school jazz to soul and rock and hip-hop and reggae to come to life and so I was looking for a collaborator to to be a composer and to be a song to really bring the songs to life and Grace is someone that I had collaborated with in the past on a previous project and was someone who was really connected to other people in our band and Grace came into the studio on one wintery night and I gave her some lyrics and she just made magic happen and I just I just was blown away by what she did and how she really brought these words just emotion and vitality through her voice and her and then as we and I and we just started to collaborate and what I learned about Grace was that she could use her voice to really invoke any time period and that she had a very unique skill as a singer and it's the composer to to really make make you time travel through song and through voice and and so then Grace ended up becoming part of our our band and joining our band and we've been working on this project for a bunch of years and I'm going to pass it to Grace to add your thoughts. Thank you Bob and thank you for bringing up my skills and how talented you think I am. Can I just say you really are. You have an extraordinary range. Thank you. You basically do anything with your voice and so just I'll just throw I'll throw a little of that too. And on that note I'd like to say I do feel like this project uniquely suits my talents and my creative sort of desires to go to travel through time bring in different voices different styles sort of do caricatures in a way of what the voices were to me and sort of amplify those sounds and bring soundscape into the play in a way that has a more like film like feel. It's been wonderful to do that and also as a cannabis user for recreation and for a medicinal purposes and I think you know as Bob says all all reasons are medicinal. It's it's so important to me. It's so important and I feel very just I feel so indebted to the project and also invested in the project in that it's telling my own story and I'm so grateful that you know we have a platform for it because before I just felt so much shame. So yeah what and what is that what is that process of releasing that shame and grabbing hold of what the culture calls shameful and saying and flipping it what is that process for you too? Oh it's been painful and it's looked it's looked it's arrived in different ways you know Bob and I have had to like sort out some things around race and misogyny as the project was predominantly male for a while and you know I had to sort out sort of like how was I going to appear in this project as Grace and not as like a fetishized black woman pot leaf you know which I see a lot too um so we're still trying to suss that out and it's it's you know bringing in urban bush women I think the conversation has to become larger and we can even sort of I didn't know that you're working with urban bush women? Yes yes yeah we're working with with with several members of urban bush women. Oh wonderful that I love. Yeah yeah yeah I mean I think it's interesting I mean just to pick up I think Grace and I grew up it was very different experiences around cannabis I grew up in a in a cannabis family and you know in the living theater kind of community where cannabis was like if you weren't smoking you were kind of odd you know I grew up you know in Passover ceremonies with a hundred artists and you know Allen Ginsberg poetry being woven into the Haggadah and people passing you know the the man of Shevitt's wine and joints around and I think Grace had a very different history but I think I still had a lot of internalized shame I you know I work a lot in schools and work with young people and like cannabis has been so demonized and so shamed and there's been but and you know but what Grace mentions around race is so powerful and important to explore too because you know my experience is very different than hers uh and you know just in general that's the truth like you know in New York for many years the statistics were 90 percent of cannabis arrests in the city were were black and brown folks you know and that was a pretty consistent data point you know right yeah and it's probably a little premature the question because you haven't actually you've done workshops at the show but you haven't presented that the premiere right is that correct so so when that happens we should revisit this conversation to see if something's flipped from the perspective you know with the audience yeah for the workshops have you found that it's primarily people that are kind of on board with uh with supporting cannabis or have you found it mixed or what's the audience for you've been like so far as you as you as you have been developing yeah it's funny a New York audience is like always going to be open to cannabis you know because like statistically the New York audiences just are and then usually it's our friends and other artists which you know those those communities really support cannabis I think that in arguing if anything or those sort of confrontations have been around who is more invested in making sure that this is legal and free and that people are unimprisoned and who is just doing this because it's like a fun party thing and who are like the white boys who are making money and then who are like the real you know fighters like the real freedom fighters and to get the both of those groups in the same room and say okay it's you're both okay both are okay both are fine and one doesn't take away from the other but we still have to have these conversations around inequity so I feel that's usually what's happening in the room is like who is here and for what reason and are you here just because you watch Sheech and Chong and think it's cute or are you here because you're a freedom fighter and there it has been attention around that even within the bands like some of the things that the band is wanting to look what that's some Cheech and Chong shit that's some white boy you know I can't so no it's a good point and that there was actually one organization that I had reached out to who is a cannabis organization and you know I sent them some information they're like oh we don't think this is a fit for us and you know I think it was because they were coming much more from a sort of capitalistic you know you know there's a lot of people from this sort of hedge fund world and the you know the sort of startup worlds who are moving into cannabis you know and so you have this really strange mix where as Grace mentions there's been freedom fighters you know black brown and white you know across age and gender and sexuality who've been fighting for social equity and and you know against mass incarceration for generations and there's people who've been you know on a psychedelic sort of playful trip both beautiful and crazy and weird and and then there's other people really moving into it because of the economic opportunity and I think you know I'm I think I think that's that is one of the tensions that that in the room in the room you know but I would also say that I'm looking forward to when we have a space where the tension is just like should we exist or not like is it the devil's plants or not we haven't been in that space but that's gonna be cool too yeah eventually when you tour you'll get in that space or even if you're like work at any of the you know off Broadway theaters in New York City it's true it's gonna come and judge you no it's true I mean it's interesting we did we did do some works in progress in legal states which was interesting we did we did a performance in Colorado uh in Telluride actually which is a very you know specific part of Colorado um and then we also did a performance in Seattle uh at a at a very kind of important gathering that happens out there called Seattle Hempfest uh which is you know a long-standing cannabis uh sort of activist performance rally um and then we also did a work in progress on in a dispensary in northern California and we were actually did a little residency on this beautiful dispensary called Campbell Farms and that and so there there people were actually you know using cannabis out in the open and I remember Grace you pointing this out that there were you know there were people there were their families there was grandparents there was babies there was kids and it was just sort of natural and nor I'm like you know it was there wasn't a stigma and that was a very we were all sort of like in New York we're so used to being like tense about it you know and so that was really that was kind of inspiring but but it was also very white because it was you know it was like northern it was like really northern Cali up in Santa Rosa kind of area you know so but um yeah I think I think I I'm curious to see I think I think that the piece will um you know we do want to get it in front of audiences who are not necessarily you know who maybe have misgivings or questions about cannabis I think I think there is opportunity for this piece to create dialogue and to maybe illuminate and challenge misconceptions um you know Grace and I both have a passion and how do you balance that yeah well just how do you balance that um that desire to um to change people and their attitudes about cannabis and and to enlighten people about the history of it while at the same time making art you know and and so how do you how do you juggle those things uh I mean I know that I know that you do it's not a question of can you but I but I'm curious how you do it yeah I feel like overtly trying to change someone's opinion never really works and it creates a a confrontation where people sort of become stalwarts and there's no I believe what I believe more um but the associations do change opinions so you know my father never knew that Louis Armstrong was a cannabis user and he's a big Louis Armstrong fan having heard the music and then understanding that through that prolific career that men was using cannabis every day did change his association with the plant so I don't know if it's going to be a like a really stark confrontation in the piece and we've even discussed that I don't know if it works I don't know if it works for me like that sounds kind of scary putting myself in an environment with a bunch of people who don't believe in what I believe in and I just like my existence confronts them as I don't know if that's like yeah I don't know if that's safe for me I wouldn't go to a concert to listen to music that I hate so I kind of feel like we can appeal to audiences that like us there's nothing wrong with that yeah yeah absolutely I mean and if we change anybody's mind awesome yeah I think I think I mean I do show in San Francisco and all these queens show up you know you're just like oh family oh I can relax I don't have to work so hard you know everyone's going to get all the jokes it's okay I think maybe that's maybe that's all I want to do I mean I think I think that's a great a great point and I think you know I think there you know as the piece develops and we're still finding the form of the piece like we have you know a lot of songs written a lot of music composed a lot of you know beginnings of choreography and movement but I think in terms of like the shape of the show I mean one of the things that that really inspires me is there was this place in San Francisco called the San Francisco cannabis buyers club and it was an illegal cannabis dispensary hangout you know started by Dennis Perron and a bunch of his co-conspirators and it was a very you know and it was there was a place called the island which was this vegetarian restaurant in San Francisco and you know you and and you know the above the restaurant was this illegal dispensary and they but they were operating completely out in the open and they they were just sort of challenging the police to take action because they said this is so immediate there are so many people dying right now cannabis is literally saving folks with AIDS lives and so they just sort of created this rebel space and I think that you know and it was a space of healing and one of the reasons that you know Dennis Perron who is this was his activist who's passed away now you know he he really had a vision for this space not to be a place where people just came and got their herb and then left but you know healing is so much about community and not being isolated and so one of the things that he really had was you know this has to be a hangout this has to be a people were come they come get their medicine but then they they spend time together and so I think I I sort of feel I would love for this show to feel like a underground cannabis club in some way you know a place where you're coming and you it is a it is a sanctuary you know we do have a song that's called sanctuary you know uh which grace came up with a great sort of this is our sanctuary our place where we are free yeah and so I think I think the piece does want to be a celebration of kind of you know sort of rebel spaces sanctuaries hideouts kind of you know and you know we want we want to sort of feel like we'll welcome the audience like there is a big craving for that and then how we weave in people who might not be into it I don't know we'll have to see I mean one yeah you know one thing that that's interesting I just say that like a song like that does two things it invites the audience into a sanctuary but it also says leave your shit at the door it's a sanctuary it also says this is ours this is our sanctuary okay so you're entering our you're entering our chapel you're entering our church that's behaved this is ours you're welcome so in terms of like the conversation about how do we draw people in that aren't cannabis people I think it's going to be the people that bring them right how does a non-cannabis person come to this show is it someone's mom who's like oh I smoke the joint once but you know it's not free through health like who are these people that are on the the undecideds I find them to be unicorns I've never really met them um but I'm I'm curious about that person who's like okay I have these misconceptions about cannabis but I have a connection to someone who doesn't I think that's how they come to the show otherwise I have no idea how they get there I don't know I mean I don't I don't do other drugs but I don't do cannabis and I uh and I but I would want to come see it just because you guys are so amazing it sounds like a big hang right who doesn't want to hang out and listen to amazing music so so I think there's probably that element too yeah I remember one one great moment we had in Colorado is we were we went we went we were like going sledding you know we were like had a day off and we we got the band together we said let's go sledding and we're like in this sledding place and we made we're connecting with the woman there who gives us these beautiful uh remember the remember the the red velvet vegan donuts I'll never forget and and then all of a sudden these two older ladies come up to us they're probably in their 70s and they're like oh you guys are doing the Canada show tonight we're coming and they were so excited to be coming and you know it was so sweet and and they were like you know and it was like so great to see these two older white ladies like pump to come to the Canada show and I think part of the reason was that you know we had advertised we were going to be doing the Beatles and Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong and so you know I think that they they were sort of this musical pathway but then I think also you know with see with sort of the emergence of CBD and the more mainstream reporting on cannabis I think there is this shift and there is this there is a new community out there who's intrigued I mean I just got off the phone with the doctor at my mom's you know I did I unfortunately just had to make the difficult choice to put my mom in a nursing home you know and after caring for her for eight years you know and and you know she has dementia and cannabis has been such a part of her well-being you know it you know we we started giving her a tincture I mean my mother was a smoker a pot smoker for decades but we started to give her a tincture and you know we saw her behavior just changed so much you know and and so I've been really struggling with the fact that you know that I that I can't continue that now that she's in the nursing home but I but I talked to her doctor today and I was very relieved that the doctor was like very open you know and and said you know I don't know what I can do because there may be legal restrictions but I'm not prude I know that this can be really beneficial for seniors you know let's see what we can do and I don't think that conversation would have gone down like that even two or three years ago I don't think a doctor in a nursing home would have would have you know had that conversation with me necessarily and so you would have had to hunt down the the specific doctor that would yeah exactly so the fact that just the you know the doctor at this nursing home was able to have that dialogue with me and I was I have to admit I was nervous to bring it up I felt like I was going to get in trouble you know you know it's so ridiculous I was nervous about it in the context that we had been giving his mother this cannabis tincture and she can't really consent she has dementia so I was just worried about like I saw a whole lawn order episode it was going to be some weird thing where we were going to be the example of like cannabis persecution well luckily for the record I've got a healthcare proxy and she's got a medical marijuana card so anyway we're going to interview it right now right what's happening but that's amazing this is what the people want you know I think one other one other area you know one other area that I think is really interesting for me and it's there's a song that that that I wrote that Grace just brought to life in such a beautiful way is a song called no more drug war and this is a song that was particularly inspired by a talk that I that I'd seen at in Seattle's Seattle Hemfest and it was a talk done by veterans and and and I've you know I've I've interviewed some veterans I've I watched this talk and you know veterans who are suffering with PTSD are tremendously helped by cannabis it is profound the level of healing it can it can have I mean other there's other things happening with MDMA and with psilocybin as well which are really important and I think all these conversations about you know so-called drugs or ethnogens or plant medicine it's just very important right now because we're in a mental health crisis we're in a you know we're in a global pandemic we're in a moment where there's just you know huge opioid abuse and you know there's the research shows that when veterans get on cannabis their opioid usage just drops and you know and and there were you know veterans talking about they were on 25 pills and now they're just on cannabis and and there are so many ways that that knocks because so many you know some pharmaceuticals can be really helpful I'm not going to be dogmatic about that but some of them can be really debilitative and you know have bad side effects and and I felt like that was an important story to explore because I mean veterans are you know within American sort of mythology they are you know they are held up in this great regard but when it comes to access to medicine in many cases they are being denied access and until recently the VA could not even talk about cannabis and and so that you know that felt like a an interesting way to sort of talk to an audience that that you know that that might be a little bit you know that might be outside of our own sort of world because I think veterans cut across all kinds of different cultures and backgrounds and and political views too and so I think you know that's that that's I think quite a quite an important piece and also you know brings in along with the playfulness and the and the and the celebration also brings in a sort of emotional depth because it's a song written from the perspective of a mother yeah and and do you have a recording of that song that I do share with us or is there another yeah no I do have recording this brought something up for me before you show it this actually brought up a context around misogyny and like toxic masculinity and how it's not about necessarily not revering veterans but this idea that a strong good veteran suffers in silence doesn't need medical care especially when it comes to mental health and why would a strong capable veteran male machismo guy need cannabis cannabis is for those like frufru hippie people so I think there's that sort of you know that cultural backlash there as well so something to think about yeah all right let me see if I can uh effectively share this give me a second let me try to get ready hold on give me one second sure okay here we go going through it okay can you guys see the screen yes oh I look good I'm gonna make sure I want to I want to make sure the sound is is the share sound feature is happening we get a nice sound so give me one second okay you guys can see me here we go yes yes He can find himself who I can't hold with his eyes red But I saw my boy smart, I hadn't seen it in a while So I held him near, he's smoking a reefer Such a stunt, but I love him and that's enough Got busted thrown in jail, now he's locked up in a cell Trapped in hell, I'm praying for his survival And that's Shannan, did Shannan, Justin did she choreograph that or was it? Yeah, it's actually, yeah, we've been collaborating with, we did like a series of workshop residencies with music and movement And we worked with Camille Brown on a couple of pieces, but that piece actually was choreographed by Shannan Yeah, you've picked it And so, you know, obviously cannabis can be a meditative drug, but it also can be pretty social Yeah And so one of the things I see you're doing there is, you know, we talked about it earlier that you're creating a hang, you know And so the audience is kind of wrapped around with a band kind of wrapped around Everyone can kind of see each other and be part of that Is that something you're going to continue and assuming that everyone's vaccinated Is that, and then also, how is the social aspect of this, how it relates to the drug, but also to your piece and the art that you're making How is it changing because we've all been in isolation? I think that's a great question and, you know, I love that, no, it's wonderful And I think it builds on a conversation that me and you had a while back when we met in a little coffee shop, you know, in your Irving Plaza And you were talking about how when you create a piece, you were saying that, you know, you'll let the sort of, the theme sort of help you find the form And I think cannabis is such a social, and so that partly came out of our conversation and that thought of like, what should this space be? What should the environment be? And we've done two works in progress. One, we had everybody up on their feet and we had a standing audience And we had a thrust that came right into the audience and we sort of had more of like a dancing audience And then this time we tried in the round and we really wanted to feel that sense of a cipher and of a ritual where everyone was together I think it needs, for me, I feel like we want to have audience interaction and we want to have the audience as co-conspirators We want to improvise, there'll be, you know, songs which are written and choreographed and all of that, but I think it does want to feel like a happening in some way And so we haven't figured out all those techniques yet, but I definitely want, we want it to be a social experience. I think that's important to the piece And so what, you know, what the final shape takes we're still finding, but I think that that's that sense of the audience is witnessing themselves and they are part of the action has always been part of the impulse And I think even more so now, like, gathering I think is going to, you know, have so much meaning and if someone was talking, I read an article, like the beginning of an article about the roaring 20s and sort of how that came after the, you know, the Spanish flu and this This sense of people just wanting nightlife and wanting connection and wanting socialization and so I have a feeling that there will be this profound sense and appreciation for human connection and physical proximity and, you know, so I think that I hope that the piece will be a healing space for people post pandemic. Yeah. Yeah, I did like it when we had the thrust that came out into the audience because it created like this sense of soul train, and I saw everyone doing like their little thing down the thrust and like us bringing up audience members into that but it actually intimidated people, and it really delineated us from them and so I think the cipher was better and more natural to like hip hop more natural to like song rounds and all the spiritual aspects that we wanted to bring in and then also more natural to weed. So I think keeping the cipher is good it's intimidating for me, I think as a performer when I'm like my back. I don't know what to do with my back. That means we're getting a lot of pass. That's okay too, that's what I'm looking at too. I think maybe there's ways that we can, and I think also there's always those practical challenges of what do you do when you're in a proscenium theater and maybe there's ways of bringing people up onto the stage and lots to be, I think there will be different morphs of the piece, but I think that circle really resonated with us and in the beginning the dancers, members of urban Bush women and Tati Tatiana who works with Camille Brown and a wonderful dancer, Rocker James, we started with kind of creating the feeling of an old school juke joint and we were setting up a story about Louis Armstrong and the dancers all just come from the audience and do these explosive solos in the center to like a New Orleans groove and it really felt like it just felt like okay we're starting to create the world here and we're giving a sense of what liberation can feel like. And so I think that you know that and that we you know so we want that's important to the piece and like we're going to keep finding that we're going to keep finding that. I mean so I guess two things is, are you making a piece that can be viewed from any angle or be performed in any theater or you know I mean do you see an outdoor performance in the arena at some point or as well as a black box. Yeah I think we want to do this be able to do this piece and in many forms as a concert as a you know in a festival environment you know there's all these cannabis festivals around the country. And I went and scoped out of a few of them and there's ones in California where there's 25,000 people and and there's bands and there's music and there's talks and there's presentations and there's cannabis contests and so we want to we want to we want to bring this show to those kinds of environments as well as theaters and outdoor places and you know so I think I think that it will we will create it in a way that's flexible. You know we also want to have talks and like we you know after that clip you just saw then we brought up we had a panel discussion afterwards and we brought up this wonderful activist Leo Bridgewater. He was a veteran and you know a cannabis advocate and then we had a great dialogue and then he was able to really talk about that song. And you know it was amazing to hear from him how he really felt like that piece sort of brought his story on to the stage and so I think you know we imagine. We'd love the show to sit sort of in front in a festival environment, you know where there's the piece but then there's local artists that get woven in. You know there's you know we want to find ways to honor local cannabis activists in this place that we travel to and maybe even have like a community choir. You know where we like create a song Grace is one of the best people I've ever seen be able to make a song with a group of people in like an hour. You know, that sounds like it's been written over months. So you know I imagine we go into a town we workshop with a local activist group we create like a song celebrating a local activist and then and then at some point. And then the art isn't just the art isn't just the show the art exactly. Exactly. Yeah, community that you're grading while you make it. And we got we got the need for grant we got the need for grant. It's so helpful. Oh my god. And also, we should maybe say a couple things about here in terms of like the process here at being our artists has allowed you to have these workshops to figure out what do we want them do we want to have a runway and do we want it in the right. Yeah, let's let's let's be clear we have to give praise to here because here has been. And as you know, you know the whole team there they are just the real deal. They are the real deal. They showed up for us in both great that make oh my gosh, they showed up for us in a way that I cannot describe I don't think anyone, any community has sincerely supported me in a time of adversity in the way that here has. And that was after going to school for 15 years. Oh yes, Bob, please. I mean, grace and I both had coven in March. And it was very intense, and it took me out for like three weeks and it was kind of got a little scary there at one point. And we need you know we were living with my mother and we had to isolate here helped us find an apartment so we could quarantine. They helped me apply for SBA loans, they helped us get all kinds of emergency grants, I mean, they just, they were they helped they helped pivot the organization so that they could support artists to create online content when they were all the work disappeared. You know, they just they just really showed up and you know we're proactively calling like on a weekly basis how are you how's it going what can we do to help. It really is a phenomenal it really is a community experience and there's also so much support to experiment, you know to do these to do a lot of iterations and works in progress and try things and do things well and mess things up and, you know, try thing and also do works in progress in different venues they supported us doing you know work in progress in a nightclub. Everyone came through I was so surprised. The whole team showed up to a nightclub and we like did a great set, you know, work in progress and a new blue on the lower side and you know what theater like supports a work in progress in a nightclub like it just. Yeah, well yeah exactly, but they all should be. They should be absolutely. You know, and so I think it's just it's and then you know the community at here has also been, you know, you know, people artists like Mia witherspoon and, you know, other folks, you know, you know that we, that's amazing. She's amazing. That's the woman. Yeah, so you know her and I'm on a Zuri who's coming back into the fold with us and, you know, it's just been great to have folks to bounce off. I love who we love who's you know just so many artists. Yes, our fellow, our fellow heartbeats. Kelsey who's a newer a newer member of our team so it's just it just it feels like a real community and a space where we're supported to you know and and also like, you know some days I would just go into the office in a panic, and just like meet with each team and like leave, you know, breathing steadily. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean Kristen. I won't go on too much about my own stuff but Christian was that one of the only love, really. Mark, Russell and Kristen were the only two artistic directors in the entire city who would come and see like my little show in off off off off off Broadway not off Broadway it wasn't it was that bar. And they were the ones that braved it to come see it, to see the show, and I mean, I wouldn't have a career if it weren't for Krista Marni, so I love that woman. All praises to her, all love to her, and the hope for her. I think that we've gone over our tone. Yeah, that's good. Do you guys have anything else you want to say or any hope or anything you need from the larger community to make this happen? I just want to say thank you, Taylor, for your time and for asking us questions that really opened up a wonderful conversation and gave us insight. And this is a great place to just sort of give our praise to hear and acknowledgement of what they've done for us and what they've done for this project. So we're so glad to be here. Thank you. Yeah, I would say that, you know, just thank you as well for, you know, being a role model as an artist who is like, you know, really honors your truth and creates spaces of liberation and transcendence and just has helped to break open the theater world, you know, for people who come from different contexts, you know, and we don't come from the same context that you, but we really relate to you and your intentions as an artist. And so thank you for breaking open space and expanding what people can imagine. Yeah, you know, we really appreciate that. And then, you know, we'd love to at some point have another meeting with you because we'd love to bounce some of our audience interaction thoughts with you. Oh, sure. You know, I really respect the way, I don't know, I really respect the way you approach that and the way you are really playful but very political at the same time and irreverent but reverent. And so I think that you balance those things in a beautiful way and we'd love to at some point have a follow-up conversation with you. Oh, sure, sure, sure. Anytime. All right. Thank you all very much and thanks to HowlRound. Bye. I can't wait to see it. I really can't wait to see it.