 the convening and and some other things. If you have any questions please tweet in make sure to hashtag New Play. That way we can read the question. So Karen. Sir Travis. So you're a player. What are you working on right now? What's going on in your world? Well it's interesting. I'm a playwright that has not wanted to be defined by any one form of play. So I just wrote a children's musical that's going to be at La Jolla Playhouse that we open on Tuesday and it's going to go around touring to 16,000 different public school children. Frida Kahlo is a child. So that's the one project I'm working on there. And then I am starting a new play hopefully next two or three weeks. I'm also Legacy of Life. It's Having a Life which is very exciting and I've just finished a big rewrite on the book club play. I've gone back to revisit some of the plays I've written and taken what I've learned from those productions and kind of internalized that and written a new version of a lot of these plays. So I'm working on the book club play and How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and doing a rewrite of that play. And some people think it's odd to do such a big reworking after they've been produced or had several productions but I think productions are essential in learning what the strength of the play is and what I need to learn more. So I've been working a lot on making what I have better and then I hope to come up with something new to wow that's a lot that you're working on. I'm also adapting Just Like Us which is a book written by Helen Thorpe about immigration. That's amazing. Karen is one of the resident playwrights here at Arena and like you said you're going through a lot of your plays and reworking them. Why did you decide to do that? To spend some of your time in your residency and some of your resources as a resident to do that? Well I was really fortunate to be picked for the residency. I lived here in Washington DC and to be able to live at home and suddenly given the time to really go back and revisit the work and what I've equaled it to is like going into a new marriage. It sometimes seems theaters always want to create the new work and they forget about the other body of work and I thought it was really nice to be in a setting where I could use resources and time to make my body of work that I've done before that I still have questions about to work on it to make it better. It wasn't like it was old I really wanted to go back and do that. So I feel like all my work has come to the table and it's not just about one play and if that play fails or succeeds it's about you know the work on that whole and it makes me think in a long range plan instead of just play the moment to moment kind of like oh this play fails so I could learn this here but now I'm going to go back and fix that play so it's even better. It's been very humbling but also very strengthening at the same time. This convening that we're at now is called from scarcity to abundance. How do you see this word abundance has been thrown out a lot? Do you see abundance? Are we in a moment of abundance and if so how do you view that? I feel like we are in a moment of abundance. Just this convening itself just the fact that this TV is going on just the fact that we're doing connecting all the new plays just the fact that we feel that all of us as a profession need to have a voice and talk about it and talk about it in a positive not let's just talk about the past but how are we going to proactively make changes I think is very exciting. I think the fact that arena stage has put five playwrights on payroll is hopefully not just the only theater that's going to be doing that. I think we're starting a trend of kicking that idea of the starving artist to the curb and saying you know it's okay for everyone to be fed they will feed the theater. If we're trying to you know if the theater's trying to live off starving artists it will eventually die and so I think it's a really smart investment to start going back to where the art is and I hope the same is happening for directors etc it's scary especially in this economy but I think in the long range it's really going to provide bounty and what I know what it's doing for all of us who are here is we're starting to think big it's like oh we can do this we can try something you know it's the idea of breathing and I feeling it reverberate with all the theaters I'm working with my my work with arena or the resources that I'm giving an arena has helped every single theater that I've been working with because it gives strength to all of us there is a good people that's awesome okay I have one more question for you okay okay so we started the convening with big thoughts was a massive thinker okay and the question was what do you see the future here so you can ask that question in any way you would like but what do you see or what are some of the things that you hope will change and say the next 10 years what does that look like for me honestly I hope that the public school systems all incorporate drama and playwriting they realize that arts are not the cherry on top that they're part of the flower that keeps the cake together and the sense that the inspire child is a child who learns yeah I really think that if you start you know every time like the life of the theater if we get kids excited to find their voice to see you know both classic productions and productions that are relevant to what's going on in their neighborhoods we'll be you know really fostering a strong new audience but I really I mean my thought is beyond the theater it's etc and it goes back to my advocacy work with children in children's place I think I mean we've gotten the DC public schools who incorporated playwriting in all 11th grades and I think that would be really great for that to be a national model because especially now with the talk about closing the NEA etc we really need to make people understand that the dialogue around the arts that it's not just for theater people and that's why I'm really excited about the theater TV and us being connected outside of it is that the third grader out in Iowa going to school is part of our community as well his mother is part of our community you know there you know next door neighbor who came from Missouri you know that's all part of the theatrical community and I think we need to make our community what's great about this meeting is seeing how much how exciting and how much partnership we can do I think now we've got to get the other people on board who haven't even thought of theater as a part of their lives that's my big thought that's a great thought that's a brilliant thought thank you so much Karen join us for next up with uh player at katori hall and then we'll be speaking with uh co-director of the institute jamie galoo to talk about the behind the scenes so Karen and and uh david have given you some great thoughts on what this thing is the spirit of it all now we're going to find out like how did it actually come together so we'll see you in a moment thank you oh thank you thank you