 The first one for Monday was promotion and protection of a musical. Last night was the development of a musical. And tonight we have diversity and equality in musical theater. So we have a great panel lined up for you guys tonight. Just a few things I want to talk about. Tomorrow we have our last panel, which is a new form of musical theater, which is not going to be at our office if the address is below. And then afterwards we're so excited. It's our first Samuel French produced concert at 54 Below. We've got an amazing lineup. We have, oh my gosh, so many people. Now I'm like, Charles Strauss, Amanda Green is hosting for us. We have Joe Iconis. We have Larry O'Keefe and Kate Chindle and Emily Skaggs. A huge lineup. Look at 54Below.com for the full lineup. And you can also buy tickets there with our little promo code that we have for you all. French 35, that is the 35% off. So definitely check that out. We love seeing there. It's our first one and it benefits the dramatist skill fund. So it's a great cause. So be there. Let's see. Oh, this lovely lady in the front is live tweeting with us right now. And not being rude. She's not being rude. I'm just joining in the conversation by following us on Twitter at Mr. Samuel French. And also the hashtag MusicalsWeek. And speaking about live tweeting, we also are live streaming. So hello everybody who's live streaming right there. It's Howround. Howround is provided for us. And you can check out the video after this one's done. You can share it with everybody. It's like, oh, it's on this great panel. So share it. Spread the word. Keep the conversation going. And let's see here. Please silence yourself. Once you can join in the conversation for tweeting, but make sure they're silent tweeting. And please, please don't text or, you know, check your Facebook and all those things. So let's see. Anything else? Oh, hold your questions at the end. We will have a Q&A, 10 minute Q&A at the end. So keep them together. And then I'm going to now pass on the speaking baton to our wonderful moderator. Sarah Schleschlinger from, she's the chair of the Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program and associate dean of the Institute of Performing Arts at NYU to Ish. And she's also an amazing lyricist and lyricist. So Sarah, thank you so much. Thank you. We're going to just take a few minutes for everybody in the audience to just say their name. And if you want to say you're a writer or an actor, fine. If you don't, fine. But I really think we have a subject to discuss that's really helpful to understand where everybody in the room is. And you don't have to be coming from any particular place without the subject. But I just think it would be nice if we knew each other. So would you start for us? Sure. My name is Nick Spindler. I'm the associate director of the Palace Theater in Stanford, New York. Great. My name is Laura. I'm a graduate student at the Plight Theater in CUNY SPS. I'm Sam Strum. I'm the executive assistant to Mark Rao, prep has at the Barclay Asia, and producer with Richard Bennell. I'm Julia Hope. I'm a freelance writer. Hi. I'm Rachel Liepins. I'm a freelance dramaturg and primarily on the new plays and musicals. Of course, you can choose a professional tweeter. And Samuel French. I'm Ryan Kedav. I am a writer and performer with cerebral palsy. And I am a licensed representative at Samuel French. Jeff Backstein. I'm a producer and an orchestral opera conductor. Mark Carboy. I'm a songwriter and I've written my first musical. Carlson Bush. I'm a movie girl. I'm a journalist. Danielle Boyden. I'm a writer and actor. I work in marketing for theater at theater mama. I'm Melissa Huber. I'm the managing director of Prospect Theater Company. Kara Reichel. I'm the producing artistic director of Prospect Theater Company. I'm Jesse Kearney. I'm an entertainment attorney, writer, and also worked at Samuel French. I'm Francesca Dawes. I'm a student from Stanford's interning with the National Asian American Theater Company this fall. I'm Lawrence Lesher. I'm an associate director of the Stage Door Manor in the Catskills. I'm Terry Stratton. I'm the director of education and outreach from the drama school. I'm Shaquina. I'm a transgender performance artist and an artistic director of the School Theater Factory. I'm Ryan McVeigh. I'm a performer at Bobbi.com. I'm Rosworth. I'm the membership director of the National Alliance for Musical Theater. I'm Ray Wilbur. I'm the executive director of Prospect Theater Company. I'm Keith Sherman. I'm the offices for Samuel French. Hi. Ask about it. My goodness. Happy ministry director of program communications, Samuel French. I'm Beth Brown. I'm a pianist and music director. I'm Ryan Pointer. I'm the RGU director of your Samuel French. Great. All right. So we really have a room for most people who come from a variety of backgrounds and have all kinds of great skills in the paper at the table. So one of the first things I think we need to say is about language. I think it's always a changing palette of how we describe the thing we're about to talk about. And Robert was saying to me the other day that the phrase now that's more trending is color-conscious. And yet that doesn't do anything for Al. So I think I would like to use the phrase inclusive. How do we become a theater of inclusion? And that will also transfer to other issues such as gender and age and all the other ways in which people may differ from each other. There is a very good piece of writing on HowlRound that I came across that was done in 2013 by Carla Stiller. And in that article she said that we should realize that diversity is a noun. It is not a verb. And that it is a state of being and that we are not really talking about something we can do. It's about how are we? How can we be? And so we want to try to look tonight at the idea of what state of being are we in? I don't think there's any point in going back in history. We all agree that things have not been what they should have been. But we can't change that. So what we have to do is figure out where we are and how we go forward. And one of the other things that she mentioned in that blog post was the whole question of point of view. And I think that for me is one of the biggest issues. She's saying that it's really about who has point of view comes from power. Point of view comes from decision making. And that it filters down. And that just many times with the sense of being that conversation only about casting. And I think it's very important that this is not a conversation only about casting. It's a conversation about how we change people in power. It's a conversation about the directors, producers. And I think it's also about thinking about the whole variety of people who contribute to the creative chemistry. And that includes very much from my perspective writers and directors. All people who are making choices of various kinds along the way. Actually, by the time it gets to Justin who will introduce it in a minute is like he's in casting. Justin doesn't get to decide what goes on Broadway. He doesn't get to decide what's at LaMama. He doesn't get to decide what's at Lowell Way. Somebody else is making those decisions. So we have to look at this in a much broader sense I think than Justin. So I'd like you to meet our panelists before we go any further. And Justin is a casting director at Telsea. And he's been involved in casting numerous projects for Broadway and national tours. And perhaps most significant to our conversation has been involved in both productions of Color Purple, the original and the new. And also this season On Your Feet. And he has a background in musical theater. I'm not going to list all the shows that he's been involved with for a theater all night. But he was actually in study musical theater at Milliken University and at Endham. So he's coming from that perspective. So Allie Stroper is an actress and a singer and a dancer and an advocate for people with different abilities. She's currently making history as the first person in a wheelchair to perform in a Broadway musical in Springway today. That's very, very exciting. And I've known her since she was a student and just been so excited to watch the progress that she has been able to make as, you know, because of her artistry and not letting, as she says at the end of her resume, she believes that any, that limitation can be an opportunity. And I think you're really living that. And we should say that you also have been involved with Lee and that she is in Iowa and perhaps this will come out in our conversation involved in many, as an activist in many social causes as well. Okay, Michael Jackson who is not the Michael Jackson. Why am he Michael Jackson? He is. And when he was in the graduate musical theater program we used to call him Living Michael Jackson. But in any case, he has both a BFA and an MFA playwriting and musical theater from Tish. And as a songwriter, his work has been performed at Barrington Stage, Merck and Hall, and Laurie Beachman, Ars Nova, Joseph Spock, Vicky Portillo, and on and on. And he is the 2009 recipient of the U.S. Psycho-Assist Trust Award. A member of Ars Nova's Uncharted Writers Group and the Johnny Mercer's writer colony and a terrific writer. And this is Robert Lee, who is a lyricist and the reddest. And his musicals with Leon Boe including Heading East, Chinese Hell and a stage version of Gene Kerr's Please Don't Eat the Daisies, which was developed by East of Bahamie and the Huawei Playhouse. And his original music Takeaway opened in 2011 at London's Theatre Royals Stratford East and it was the first major musical production in the U.K. that dealt with the British East Asian experience. He is on the faculty at the NYU Graduate Musical Theater Program and he's also an artistic associate at Stratford East where he is one of the leaders of this musical theater writing workshop. So we have a group of people with widely diverse backgrounds and we want to try the look now. And I would just like to say before we launch into this that I hope everybody is aware of the work that TCG is doing in this area and if you're not, you should go on the TCG website and really look at it because it's a long multi-year plan to examine diversity to make some real changes and they're also doing what I think is really important is they're establishing baseline statistics. They're really looking at where is the power centered so that there is an accurate way of saying this is where we are and then also from there hoping to go forward and doing a lot of work with something that I think we will touch on which is audience development and we're not talking about this in the vacuum and the impact of what we're talking about on audience development but you should all be paying attention to what TCG is doing because they have the resources and they have really felt a deep commitment to move in this area. So we're going to get started with our questions and I think the last thing I'd like to say before we do that is that I was listening to a replay of Viola Davis accepting our Emmy and I don't know how many of you heard that but she said you know I'm the first person of color in my category and the only reason for that is because the others didn't have the opportunity and all we need is the opportunity so I think that's the kind of launch that I'd like to give. So this panel is expressly about the issue of inclusion in musical theater and all that that means is there a difference in the way musical theater has dealt with issues of inclusion do you think that the theater at large Well I think he asked in a huge way I mean part of just from a writing perspective just from a writer's perspective and I think that it's I think part of what we have to deal with today specifically is that we live in a time where no music is neutral where every piece of music that you listen to has all of these associations that come along with it societal expectations of resonances and history behind it and so I think part of the thing that's really tricky about musical theater I would say arguably more so than any other medium is because we're faced with being in a medium where music is such an inherent part of it I mean that's such an inherent part of the DNA and music is not neutral especially if you're working in a popular music idiom it's not neutral it has all these associations and so the minute that you put I actually think that this is part of the issue of musical theater the minute that you put a person who looks a particular way on stage you start raising issues of well what kind of music is that person going to sing and what does that person sound like or the instant that you have like an older show and you start listening to that music well what kind of mouth does that music sound like it should come out of so I think because of that I think it's possibly musical theater is possibly more problematic than other mediums just in terms of getting it right or whatever it is that that means is there even a right in terms of casting in terms of writing but also I think that the problems that are inherent in all of the different mediums is particularly exposed in musical theater possibly because of that fact I mean just to start off I would say I would also say that it seems to me that like musical theater has also comes from such a strong tradition that like the norms and the practices and the people and the practitioners of those norms and practices sort of carry that on from generation to generation to generation even as the musical idioms may change or not change whether we are getting the same revivals that we're always getting or if it's new shows and rock music is being sort of infused into things but at the heart of it you still have that same sort of infrastructure of tradition sort of threaded through all of it and I think that that can really run you into trouble in terms of inclusivity because then you have like a ton of populations that are going to be excluded because of that sort of history and also dance dance is a huge part of musicals and I speak more specifically around disability I think that that brings up issues around how someone with a disability would manage the dance part of musical and so that's where I see that musicals sort of differ in this bigger scope of theatre I agree and just, I mean it's interesting hearing you talk about that it also makes me realize this is a part of what I'm saying too I think is that musical theatre because music is such a visceral thing it's like musical theatre engages the body in a way that I think most of the other mediums don't and that can be incredibly powerful but that can also be incredibly scary for an audience right if there's some sort of a disconnect between what they feel is appropriate for their body as an audience as it relates to what they're seeing on stage Yeah and to piggyback on that the expectation the expectation that a musical and this tradition of like the tap dancing and the big musical number and the movement that is expected in what we've sort of placed on the American musical and so that's sort of an interesting piece And schematically it's also the fact that you know we're always faced I think everybody who works in musical theatre in any capacity with the question how could that be a musical and you know my position is anything that has something to say can be a musical but that expectation how can that be a musical that automatically kind of springs out certain subject matters that might produce more openness to more possibilities So what does it seem like right now at the state of being of musical theatre in terms of inclusiveness is I mean let's just be as honest as we can you know it's great great but if it's not you know but how do you where do you feel we are on the curb I mean like there's this recent Times article about the shows on Broadway this year and you know here we go and so then we want to ask next year at this time is there another article I mean what else is in the hopper is this truly a trend is this convergence of when things just happen to have financing arrive but what is really the state the true state of being of musical theatre in terms of inclusiveness I think it's interesting because I think this season is unlike probably many seasons in that you have shows like The Colour Purple or On Your Feet or Hamilton which in some ways are in many ways they celebrate a certain culture and so then you have other shows where whatever phrase we're using Colour Blind Casting is part of the fabric of the show where it includes all types of people all races and it's not about particularly celebrating one demographic like those two shows specifically are and you know it's to quote if I can Tommy Kahler the director of Hamilton Hamilton is colour intentional casting like it was that was all intentional it was part of the fabric of creating that show it wasn't something that happened stance and so I think from the casting perspective I can only speak from my personal perspective and my office's perspective which is it's something it's an envelope that we are constantly trying to push as much as we can in whatever way we can whether it's ignoring the directive that we've been given and trying to do something anyways or trying to be outside the box as many times as we can to see what the reaction is but I would like to I would like to believe and think that we're moving you know as fast as I would like in a direction that feels more inclusive than we have in the past I think that I think that we're seeing like in regards to that kind of article and there was another one that just came out in time out in New York today I think that we're seeing a lot on stage we're seeing a shift perhaps more into whatever your understanding of diverse might mean in terms of what's being represented on the stage but what we're not seeing from my perspective is a shift off stage with the writers that are being produced directors I mean I haven't done a count on that sort of thing but I definitely think like the directors like there's so many people who are involved in putting on a musical and like and I wish there was some like a count the representation within those categories of people because and particularly with the writers which is my bias because I'm a writer but because I feel like what happens is yes we have these spaces on stage but like from my point of view they might not always match up with the sort of narrative that we create around what is considered diversity or whatever that means to you I'd like to add something to that with the revival of spring weekend I'm a part of we get to have well a lot of the shows now get to have really cool conversations with people through Twitter and someone mentioned that there was such a lack of diversity in our show and it took me a minute because I was like oh my gosh what's happening is that disability is not even seen as diversity yet and it's right now a color thing or colorblind or blah blah blah you know that that is what we associate that's what the younger generation associates with diversity that disability is not even on the spectrum yet and I really try to be a positive presence on Twitter but I really really wanted to reach out to this individual and say listen if you're passionate about diversity you need to educate yourself on what diversity actually even means because it's not just about race it's about ability as well and so for me that was a shocking moment because I live in a world I've been in a chair in my entire life so I live in a world where I'm very aware of this kind of stuff and I don't like to blame people that aren't because if you don't interact and don't have a disability maybe it's not even on your radar but if we're if we're going to try to push ourselves into this new place of being inclusive you know I think it's a perfect time that Deaf West's production of spring awakening is on Broadway and I think that it's a perfect time that someone or myself is making history with being the first person in a chair Broadway and there needs to be more because we're not even aware of the fact that that is that is part of the equation yeah I mean I mean to me I feel like we're at a point now where the industry is being very diligent about treating the symptoms but that the industry still has a lot of work to do in terms of actually trying to to cure the disease meaning that I think that there is a lot of I mean it's a step in the right direction I think that there is a huge amount of consciousness right now about how the cast for example of a show will look and trying to get beyond the more traditional notions of casting for shows but I think I mean I think what Michael is saying I think that the real problem the real disease is the fact that there's not a huge amount of inclusion on that deep level of stuff that's going on not just backstage but just even in the conceiving of shows and I feel like as long as those as long as the writers as long as the producers as long as all of those people were making the decisions you know don't make up an incredibly inclusive group you're always going to be chasing after the particular definition of diversity at the moment right and ultimately I think you start trying to put out a fire here and put out a fire there and put out a fire you know wherever but new fires keep burning I may think there's a point of view that's one of the things you started on talking about that like I happen to be a person who and like I'm very conscious of the fact that with Asian-American actors that they're just far more Asian-American actors now visible in a way that they never used to be particularly when you turn on the TV and you watch commercials and things there's just so many more Asian-American people and it's great that there's so many more Asian-American people that are working on Broadway right now than normal I have to say that with a lot of the theater that I go to I see the Asian-American people on stage but as an Asian-American person I don't necessarily feel that my point of view as an Asian-American person is being represented you know and so personally you know I have a very I have a odd relationship with seeing a lot of theater that happens in the city I'm not just talking about in general where I see the progress and at the same time I don't necessarily feel the progress because I don't necessarily have somebody who is not on stage I don't necessarily feel that I am included in that experience despite the fact that people on stage look like thousands of people on stage Can I piggyback that a little bit because I totally agree with you and the sort of example that I've been giving is that I had an opposite experience of that a season or two ago when I went to go see Ed and I worked at Playwrights Horizons and he got me a comp to see Robert O'Hara's Moody Candy which is not a musical but in 9-12 it's like I saw it four times so like but like the experience I had of it there was two things that happened the first time I went to see it I went in there, we walked in there I lived in New York now for like 16 years I did the Playwrights Horizons I used to have a membership there I've been there a million times since wall-to-wall black people everywhere hanging from the chandeliers and all the time that I went to Playwrights Horizons this has never ever happened and I was like oh that's weird and the person I was with was like oh we never had this many African-Americans in our theater and I was like well you build it we will come then I sit down and like watch the play and like from the minute it starts to the minute and I'm like this is like the first thing I saw was at least one particular scene it was like eerily like run my life and I had never ever had that experience ever and so I came back to see it three more times and every single time I came to see it wall-to-wall like hanging from the chandelier and I just thought that was like really really remarkable because in part because the writer who was also the director wrote something that was so specific and it wasn't and it wasn't a diverse piece at all it was like all black people except for one white actor and yet the story that he was telling the way he was telling it was something that could reach so many different populations and I think that for me in this discussion about diversity sometimes it feels like if we just sort of have this sort of like just sort of surface sort of multiculturalism about it that that's enough but no it's actually have to sort of go into the form and the content the marriage of those two things to really sort of get at to me a really meaningful diversity and that's something that I'm really seeking and so Booty Candy is like after the fourth time I saw it and I went to Symposium and I Facebook friended and I met him and I scripted in space and I couldn't believe he brought my life like that was like and I would have paid Hamilton ticket prices at each and every time just for that experience so like I think that that's for me when I think about diversity I'm like always trying to really ask myself what is diversity it's not just like individual shows it's like a whole experience there's a whole ecosystem there really quickly just to talk about you know it's also something that we're very conscious of within the casting community is you know everyone has a different point of view but to have different people of abilities or a race to have a point of view in that conversation as well because you know I don't know many people in casting who are not white I'll be completely honest it doesn't exist and through our intern program and we try so hard to each season with our interns find someone to give them an opportunity to experience what it is to be in casting because I think you know when I go to colleges a lot and talk with students and one thing I say is if this is not what you like them doing this being performing there are so many other careers within our industry that you can partake in so please find out what's interesting to you and pursue that because that's an opportunity to touch someone who maybe thinks oh I don't want to be an actor maybe there's something else out there that you can do and so it's something that I think we're conscious of within the casting community as well we try to find other people from other backgrounds who are interested in casting and want to be part of the conversation from our point of view behind the table can I ask you something? I think casting in itself is a very weird thing you can't go to college to become a casting director so how does one become a casting director it's a very odd thing I think it's on the job training most of us are performers or we're directors and so it comes from people who stop pursuing part of their career that still want to be involved in some way and for me it was like it satisfied an OCD part of me that putting a puzzle together was interesting and so that's why I became a casting director it allowed me to use both parts of my brain creative and business oriented I would think that it's also linked to maybe I'm jumping right on this but I would think that it also really all of this I think is linked ultimately to who is coming who is being inspired you know who can afford to come see shows yeah that's a part of it and it's also who feels welcome it has an audience in the theater I feel like all of us up here are literally people who at the time that we all became interested in musical theater we were not the demographic it was the typical demographic to be in musical theater and yet we all felt this need was to be a part of this industry and I think that we were all probably lucky enough at some point to have had an experience in the theater where we saw somebody who either was like us or saw somebody who or watched something that spoke to us that made us feel like we being who we are belonged in that place right but you know and that didn't happen to me but it did not happen that often right in the childhood of a young adult going to the theater and you know I just on some basic level I feel like if there were more people who had that experience there would probably be more people you know of a more here we use the word diverse but I feel like that you could have a much more diverse pool of people who would be interested in the theater period and if you had a bigger pool of people who would be interested in the theater you probably would have people who would get excited about being a casting director to me it all comes down to that I think it's very important in this conversation not to blame anybody for the fact that there is not the sort of inclusiveness that we would all like I think it is human nature maybe this is not something that's a popular thing to admit but I think it is human nature to characters and stories that relate directly to their experience I think that's just natural I don't think that's all that people are interested in but I feel like even though people may not like to admit it I just feel like that's true when I see Asian-American people on stage or an Asian-American story I do naturally gravitate towards those characters I identify with those characters so I feel like I feel like in the end you can only blame you can only blame the industry so much because if you look at the demographic of the people sitting in the audience that is not a hugely inclusive demographic there's a part of us that have to start creating things that draws an audience that doesn't gravitate whether that comes from producers or writers I think we have to start creating things so that they have something to come rather than coming to things and then we create things for them so it all has to happen at the same time and that's the thing I think that's so overwhelming because you realize that the issue is a huge systemic issue that has to do with it but we are at a point in time when the audience is aging and disappearing and so hopefully a new audience is going to take their place so there are practical reasons why helping to create a new audience becomes an economic reality so what's the role of economics in all of this? I think unfortunately it's the business part of the show business at the end of the day those have to be paid people have to be paid that's the unfortunate part of it it's not just about creating art there's that part of it that's also the other part and that's not my forte so I can't really speak too much about that but it's something that's but it's not necessarily an unfortunate thing I mean I know what you're saying but at the same time it is a huge opportunity if you were able to get like I always feel this way if I were able to just snap my fingers and all of a sudden Asian American people all decided they loved going to musical theater and all of a sudden they started buying tickets things would change like that and that's the power of the commercial side of things because if that audience where they are producers would realize there's money to be made here let's find some artists let's find some projects that speak to those people I mean how to get those people to come is a huge question I think what's exciting about this new generation of writers and actors and producers and creators is that because of the internet and youtube and all of these new opportunities to create and the level of exposure that now is out there I think that that is going to change because a kid knows that they have the power to create something put it on the internet and then possibly there is a possibility to get for it to go viral and all of a sudden they are making tons of money because they are getting placements and there is that possibility now for somebody young to create something so I like to believe and this is what my experience has been that my peers have always been on board first like in school or when I was in college I always felt like a support for my peers before I felt it from this not to blame an older generation but the people that were older than me and so I would like to believe that actually there is going to be a huge change in the voices and the stories that are being told because now it's just acceptable to make a video and your voice is heard and what you have to say is important and now we have all these opportunities to do it on Twitter and Instagram and those social media outlets are influencing this generation so greatly so I really do believe that there is going to we're going to see this a huge shift in what is being created I think it's a little bit of that and a little bit of what you've said is well I think in many ways let's be realistic we all live in a bubble in some ways in this city and there's a whole lot of the rest of this country that doesn't know that a musical about Gloria Stephan exists right now in Broadway or that a musical about the book, The Color Purple written by Alice Walker exists on Broadway now so it's about how do you reach those people we even let them know that it exists so then they have the opportunity to say oh I'd like to see that or it's not interesting to me but they get to at least the amount of it exists and then they can make a choice based off of that I think it's not just about New York City where you can you know a New York Times article or something on Playbill.com but it's about reaching other communities and other areas of this country that don't know things even exist for them that they might be interested in and just sort of tying a lot of that together like I've been thinking a lot about this issue in my own sort of selfish way which is that I was actually speaking about this on another panel that I did or the top that I was in a couple of days ago because like in my own work like okay I have like a downtown sensibility with like uptown ambitions but what's tricky about this is that I think about like the economics of all of that and like the producers and the audiences and the odd thing about it is that I ultimately want and I want all audiences but I especially warm the title Perry audience and the title Perry audience is clearly an audience that like Hollywood's capitalized on there's a ton of money there but the title Perry audience might not appreciate the downtown sensibility with the uptown ambitions and so I struggle with that because I know that my sensibility has a broad appeal though it also has a little bite to it and so but then when you sort of have to work in a let's say Broadway model I've never been in a Broadway model I just admire it from afar there's I can only imagine a producer's sort of know or think that they know what works and what doesn't work or what they'll take a chance on or what is in and so what I said like it just makes me wonder like does it just take one person sort of taking a chance on like the risky thing which is what producing kind of is anyway or is it more nuanced than that and so I don't have an answer to that but that's something that I think about just within my own experience. I'd like to throw out just one notion and I don't know what we do with this exactly but because in my life I see things in a much more global sense and I think we're still talking about the island that is America and we're not even beginning to think about all the people in other countries who are writing musicals and who want to be reflected and we have a huge group of Korean alums. They just did an evening at Joe's public hall the Soul of Soul which was just done by Korean alums and they fuse with American writers and they create something that will mean something in Seoul and in New York and we're sort of far behind in ways that we're talking about this because we're not thinking about the fact that it's a question of how do we embrace that including that much more that I think it really has to do with and it's also I guess I'd like to ask this as a question do you think that there is a point to striving for universality or is it about striving for the particular which is an important part of reaching a level of inclusion you know what I mean by universal themes that don't exclude anyone and kind of include the casting of anyone but that can reach beyond the borders of the country that can reach and you know why isn't that these things are all things but what is there something else that says how do we reach from and I agree with you Ali but I think there is a step that we have to take to get from there into the hands of people with enough money or enough power even at a regional theater to say let's take this thing and make it into something where the delivery system exists or we have to invent a new delivery system and that's the place where the hold up is for me is how do we make that crossover but also going back to the question is what we want is what's going to lead us to where we want to get to opening up and doing things that are including more people more audiences or narrowing in on specific audiences well I think first I think first of all I think that there is like there's a choice to be made in terms of deciding like I happen to believe that most audiences will relate to almost anything like I feel like I feel like there are two different philosophies right there's the philosophy that says the audience buys tickets to this and therefore if we want that audience we need to give them this there's the other philosophy that says you know what actually all audiences want is they want to see a story that is a genuine human story that that makes sense to them is in some way moving and that they are open to far more than than the sort of the industry you know pundits or whatever give them credit for right like I happen to believe that and so for me like I feel like all sort of I feel like sometimes that all the audience needs to do is to be exposed to something that's new right like the way that I put it is this if all you've ever fed is McDonald's then of course you'll love McDonald's that doesn't mean that somebody who has been fed a steady diet of McDonald's isn't going to like some more main meal and I feel like sometimes we fall into the trap of believing that those people who love McDonald's will always only love McDonald's and that that ends up driving so many of the major choices without people even being that aware that they're making that assumption I think with the diversity in that analogy is though is that you're choosing what that person needs whereas the ticket buyer chooses what they want to go see so like you know in any theater experience that's what you get you know you as a ticket buyer get to choose what you want to see anything at all or what's available what you want to see and so I think that I think I would like to say I'd love to see us move towards the word global bigger idea I think that that's like an ender, I think there's a lot of staff we have to take to get there and whether it's starting to include stories that speak to demographics that we're not speaking to right now or telling stories that we're not telling right now that someone can relate to and it's producers and writers taking a chance and putting themselves out there to create work that hopefully someone will take a chance on and allow us to expose people to I spent one horrible summer working at TKTS as wiring for rock amazes and it was an interesting experience because I literally was just on that train with all of these tourists and they were like coming and like what am I going to see today, what's 80% off what's 20% off, whatever and my job for wiring for rock amazes was to get them to go see rock amazes and so I implied every trick I had with my sleeve to try to get them to do that sometimes they did, they did and sometimes they didn't if they didn't then we were normally encouraged to try to get them, what else do you want to see and it was fascinating to me to talk to people because some people will be like what's rock amazes oh that's a little too racy for me then you say okay but what about things on the opera and you go oh I don't know about that and so I started to lose a sense of like the thing I started to become very aware of is that everyone people there's all the shows that they could possibly see but those are all the shows that they could possibly see so they just have to pick one but like who determines what are the shows they can see like and and I don't have anything super eloquent to say well we don't we're going to take two minutes we're going to take questions ideally you have a system where you have a system where you have both sides you have both the things that are where you're giving the audience a certain amount of it is giving the audience what they want a certain amount of it is exposing them to new things I think that the problem one of the huge problems we have in this country is that we don't have both sides in it our public funding for the arts is ridiculously bad and it's interesting my experience working with a theater that I've worked with in London like I've been working with that theater since 1999 so during that time in 1999 the state of public funding for arts in London in the UK was far better than it is now I have seen in the time between then and now like I have seen the same thing start to happen in the UK that was happening that happened here decades ago which is basically the government saying artists don't need this kind of public money anymore and we're going to start cutting it and thinking the whole line of thinking that says if something can generate an audience without our help like if there is a healthy Broadway then why do we need a not-for-profit theater and when I first started working with that theater in 1999 the thing that that theater did that was so extraordinary is that the artistic director at the time decided this theater is in a district of London that is the most diverse district in London one of the poorest districts in London and in East London what the director decided was it's ridiculous that there is so much music that is out there in the community and none of it is finding its way onto these stages so we need to get those people interested in writing musical theater and so they applied for this arts council funding for this huge initiative to basically go out into that community and find the people who are the hip-hop artists find the people who are the pop songwriters the poets the novelists that were actually really working and succeeding in their medium and to invite them in to learn how to write musical theater and along with that to bring in all of these directors to learn alongside those writers and they started building this program for musical theater development which has continued to today where they're bringing a whole like new kind of story that nobody in London had really ever seen before onto the stage with the kind of music that nobody had really heard before and they're able to keep doing that just because they've been doing it since 1999 they're an institution now that the arts council recognizes and so they continue to fund them but like an organization that was trying to do that today and trying to start from scratch they would have a really really hard time so I feel like I've seen in my own little sliver of experience I've seen the difference that public money makes it makes a huge difference and that theater was able to to really build an audience for the kind of work they do they were able to transfer at least a couple of shows to the West End that never would have made it to the West End including a one show which was the first show in the history of the West End to really deal with the Black British experience which was like in the early 2000s that's a little shocking it's the first one in the early 2000s right again, I mean I don't think we're all we're coming up with the solution but I think that all of these pieces are a part of what needs to happen to start making that difference so does some of you have questions that we have not touched upon? specifically towards Michael and we're referring to some of what Robert said if you're looking for the title of Harry Audings which is more or less built in theater along the Chitlin circuit and given your experience with the bootie candy why doesn't that translate it and more importantly delivering the work to the audience build the audience and why doesn't Playwrights Horizons have a whole slate of those types of shows now? well that's a really interesting question I don't, well this is a really interesting question because the thing that I when I saw the candy which is absolutely a play that like the title of Harry Audings could absolutely enjoy and probably does you know and yet the question I had when I saw the person I saw with who works at Pirates Horizons I was like well would you do another one can you do two like there's this really interesting story that I read in the Wall Street Journal about what's that play that's at the public right now that looks like an eclipse there's this really interesting story that that play has been sort of in the ether for a while and I guess it got passed on early on because of Bruent and the reasoning sort of in the ether with the artistic directors was like oh we can't have two plays about Africa like and that was like in one of the I'm not calling that out because he was named was like he's like yeah we did that and I was like we did that but we said we can't have two and so then I met there and I'm wondering to myself prior to this is before even ever reading that article I was like oh this is so great and look at the audience they had and they opened up a whole new thing for them would they do another one or will another one have to be the black slot three seasons later will it seem too much like repetition will it not like and the thing about that that I find curious as a theater person who's seen a lot of shows is that someone will say we've seen these two black shows or two whatever you want to say but they will never say oh we already did a show where they're these sort of like disaffected white teams you know they do it a lot and like on some sort of like messy stage like they'll do an Adam Rath play next to a Sarah Cain play to suburb you reliable next to and like all of those plays from my point of view my very biased point of view are populated by the same kinds of characters that I see and not only that because because that happens it becomes a tradition or a brand that is marketable that you can make money off of so I why I'm not like pointing a finger at players that are rising to do another one of those plays because clearly all these black people came out to see it and they would clearly all come out again to see something else that was even the same thing or similar or just as long as it was just as good or just as funny or just as moving or the music was just as great or whatever I think that's like a real a real consideration that these gamekeepers need to contend with Do you have a Twitter person in the game? I do and this person This person had this question from the beginning actually and it's gotten involved so they said commuterous racism and musicals specifically the instances of yellow face and recent musicals but then on top of that they said when does remaining faithful to the original material drum instances of racism Should I ask that person to unpack their definition of racism that's just my own goal I think they're watching through live streaming What do you mean by racism? That's a great question That's a question in hand So what is the actual question? It's two parts It's asking if we can address yellow face musicals but then when does I think the real question here is when does remaining faithful to the original material drum instances of racism So is that like Isn't that like Because I've been bringing a lot about the issue in the micado I've never seen it so I don't have a context for it so like does anyone who's seen it can talk to that Yeah I mean I've seen the micado I have seen the micado The micado is a really Someone said that the micado is racist which is that The micado is such I mean it's interesting because the micado is sort of unlike anything else that exists I think right now The micado is really hard to talk about I feel this is my personal opinion because of the fact that the micado is essentially if you strip away the the surfacey you know Japanese culture that's in the micado the micado is basically about all these British people right? That's kind of how they're written I would say that for me the thing that's that's offensive about the micado as far as the writing goes like casting is different but as far as the writing goes it's the fact that they have very jokey very jokey pseudo Asian names right so that's kind of offensive I suppose and what else that some of the music has a little bit of pentatonic-y stuff that's going on but other than that this is a very very personal opinion other than that I don't find that much that's offensive in terms of the writing now the production of the micado is another matter at the time that the micado was originally produced people you know British performers or American performers who would do a production of it who are predominantly white would just get to yellow face and that was what was acceptable I feel like today really it's not acceptable I don't think the most audience is going to accept that so I do think that that anybody who wants to produce the show really has to consider that very deeply like are you going to do a production of it with that traditional you know make up or not again Gilbert and Sullivan is a very specific thing because the thing with Gilbert and Sullivan is that there is a whole tradition of doing Gilbert and Sullivan as closely as humanly possible to what the original production was the original productions were in terms of traditions so so it's very very complicated I think the best thing for me to say is it is its own thing and I think that if the micado I don't happen to believe that the micado should be banned a period I think that there is a way of doing a production and people have done productions of the micado where they have been sensitive to all of these issues and that they discovered new dimensions to the work by setting a period or you know it's a whole another area of concern that we're not getting into which is the reproduction of historical work and we always try to say that we look at the historical work at the program so that we can understand where we came from and not where we're going and I think that you've cut people a wide kind of path when you're looking at historical work and the decision whether to do the historical work as revisionist or as originally done I don't think necessarily as racist I think it's an aesthetic choice but I don't think it's really thinking about what we do with the past and what we need to do is stop reviving things and start producing new stuff and then we wouldn't have to worry about this Can I say one thing I just thought of this in regards to the question I think part of my I think part of what my initial response to the question about how do you deal with racism is that for me I think that whether something is racist or not sort of has to come to themselves I mean I think there are things that we all at least say that we all can agree that are racist but I think that that word is something that like is filled with so many things in it that like comes as danger sort of shorthand so like the only way that I can talk about that question is in regards to musical theater is in relationships with specific things that has always bothered me it's from a show and I'm only calling this out from my own because it's someone who I can talk about it and so I think the language is really important is that I remember I went to see Avenue Q whenever it came out and then I heard the song Everybody's a Little Bit Racist and I remember sitting in the audience smoke coming out of my ears hearing that song because I didn't have the language to express it at that time but I do now because of something important it's because to me that song felt like something that only a white person could write and I did not know how to as a person of color digest and I understood but as a musical theater writer I understood how that song worked and like what was what was clever about it and all those things but as a citizen I was like oh this is bullshit I really really really hate that song it has nothing to do with those writers or anything like that but that song really like stuffed my prom but then I think about could that song be written today in today's climate and I don't think that it could because we recognize white supremacy for what it is and that idea that Everyone's a Little Bit Racist comes out of that white supremacy which is not a way of saying you're a racist but it is saying you have a certain privilege and that privilege is also the same privilege that put you on Broadway and just really quickly going to what Sarah is saying the thing is that if there were like Asian American casts and shows about Asian American people or Asian people coming out of everybody's ears in New York I don't think anybody would really be that sensitive about the micado I think that part of the issue is the micado is there as an issue that keeps coming up partly because it is one of the only things that continuously gets produced that has Asian characters yeah so first of all I want to ask you if you've seen Barbara Cutie yet I've seen it on Tuesday I saw a reading of it last fall I've seen like a week before or after I saw Booty Candy and I was like wow this is so great it's not the same but the S that you feel like oh yeah he's doing it it's brilliant and great and he's doing it at two different theaters and perhaps that was a choice of his that he wanted to spread his wings and go back to the public where he started his career and opt not to go back to play Red Turrides and then I saw Booty Candy and I went up to him and I got just like you did so great equally great and I think you'll really enjoy it I want to talk about disability drink because it's the thing that happens all the time and it's not a thing that people get as offended about there are pockets of people who get offended about buy it and all the industry in general they have an answer for you and the answer is we want the celebrity to sell the tickets so we put the celebrity in a wheelchair your wheelchair is not the first wheelchair to be on Broadway you were the first actress to be in a wheelchair that is on Broadway and I get it and I've heard it from casting directors I've heard it from producers I've heard them saying you need to sell tickets well the understudy is I had this or that but not the headliner and I go back to Viola Davis' Emmy speech which was if you don't give us the opportunity how are we going to prove to you that we can do something or that we can fill a house or that we can be a major star if we're relegated only to small roles or no roles at all so I wondered what Allie has to say about that and just in general I want to think about why it isn't as I don't want to say important because I think it's a very important issue but why isn't our people's radar nearly as much it comes down to what people are comfortable with what I've experienced in being in a wheelchair my entire life is that there is something that disability does for people that like it um it like it just makes them question their own privilege it makes them maybe a little bit uncomfortable that somebody might walk differently or speak differently and that slight discomfort is enough of a reason for a producer to not want to take a risk that's part of why I think it's happened it also has to do with history and the fact that the history of our culture in public 60 years ago I mean there's a huge issue there in my opinion and also like I feel like I can admit this here in this small room even though I've been streaming I'm sorry no no you can't but like it's a part of me that feels like I can't be in that and I can't get upset about it because if I do what's that? I know I know but that's also like I also feel like I also feel like there's a part of me that feels like if I get pissed about you know the fact that like the character of Artie was in a wheelchair and is not actually in a chair then it puts me in the category of being a bitch like oh god I don't want to hurt her again so maybe I won't work with her so I feel this pressure to be okay with what's happened and just but very clearly put on my blinders about what I'm headed to do and now being in this position is sort of like okay now I've done this like okay we've got somebody who's actually in a wheelchair on Broadway now I feel like I can speak up to people you know actually that's not appropriate and I want to offer this you know people at this teacher break the like actually I won't say that to you and I was like wait a minute that's actually offensive you guys like you know you can say break the like to somebody who's in a wheelchair you know and it's about educating and I always run that I'm talking a lot I run that fine line of like of wanting to be positive but also like okay now we must educate and we must expose ourselves to new things and one of them being disability and those stories need to be told now because what's happening is that our community is getting more and more angry and anger never is going to get us anywhere so I mean and the excuse that I hear you know you're talking about like oh we need we need to start what I hear is we don't know where we don't have anybody coming in you know we don't know where they are we don't know where they exist and we now have the internet so there's no excuse so for those people who have disabilities that are watching that I always say this and I say this girls and women and I say this to people with disabilities but I'm going to say it to everybody make your voice heard your stories need to be heard you need to be seen and I don't mean that like take pictures of it your truth needs to be seen and because people are ready and people want it they just don't know it I'm done because like I'll be honest that like like what you said earlier like these issues are not like seen along the spectrum of diversity so like it isn't something that I typically think about actively along that spectrum though I've recognized and just known it now and from now on I will correct so like the question is like if say you are a performer with a disability within this industry who is say equity does equity give performers with a disability like a voice in any sort of way or not are there like what are the not just the laws but like it seems like they're must I'm making that they did must not be are they encouraging are they are there groups within groups and then so are those groups able to advocate or to push visibility to like I don't know but I'm just curious does that exist because then there's that if you are say a performer who is in a union but then if you're let's say like non-equity disabled performer like I don't who can be an ally to you and for you within this industry like I just wonder if those to what extent those things exist yes they do exist and are they helpful there's a committee after a committee called IMP LED I'm going to try to create more opportunities for people with different abilities and then there's Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts which is like an organization that works to find work for people with disabilities but the part of it that I feel like is needs to have more is those groups are working especially Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts like what they do is incredible they are somebody that you can turn to but you know they email they email us these opportunities they're all disabled specific opportunities and so you know I I think it's great for somebody who hasn't had a lot of like let's just talk about like work like for somebody who hasn't had a lot of experience I think it's great to go in for law and order and play a victim but I have no interest in doing that and that's not my ego talking like I really want to I want to do role I want to do roles you know and I I want to because those roles are sort of these smaller kinds of things and to me I think what needs to continue to happen is these conversations about cool you're going to cast a project we have I think this is just an idea of mine but like we have somebody to come in and have a conversation with your director team about how can we include people with different abilities in this project and it doesn't mean it doesn't necessarily has to be on stage because what you're saying like bring in interns that have different abilities it's the exposure of the team of the industry of the audiences that we exist and that we have something really I think cool to offer because when you have a disability your other abilities are then heightened so what kind of magic can we bring to a project so we heard the town hall thing that happened like a week or so ago I mean so the casting community CSA had a town hall meeting with I had a show but I there was a big town hall meeting where the cast community came together with the disabled community to have a conversation about you know how just tell us about your community like tell us how we're able to what's politically correct to say how can we start to include you in things to start a dialogue with that community because it's something that I think as a cast community at large we don't have a lot of information about and so just educating ourselves was the first step that we're trying to it's huge and it's awesome and I wasn't there unfortunately I was in LA for work but I think it's things like that we just start to say listen I don't know about you tell me about you just getting to know about you will allow me to understand where you come from and how we can work together maybe so do we have other questions in the audience because I think people need to leave leave is that okay? we're actually we're at time we have to I hate to go outside but we can actually everybody has a Twitter handle I think Courtney has everybody we can keep the conversation going if you go on Twitter like we don't want to end but we have to have time but keep it going on Twitter keep it going and Courtney will keep the record of it and it will all be on breaking character online magazine so thank you guys so much it's such an amazing and it was an incredible conversation all of us are doing a 2pm talk and hashtag how round it's about the new form of musical theater which can easily be continuing this conversation so hashtag how round 2pm it's from 2-3 it's going to be awesome so we can continue all of this wonderfulness thank you guys so much thank you for coming tonight and thank you again keep the conversation going thank you