 Welcome everybody back here on Segal Talks at the Segal Theater Center in Mittel, Manhattan, the Graduate Center CUNY, and it's a little coldish grayish day out here. And I think we are, as everybody else, recovering from that bombshell news that our president got the coronavirus, you know. And the changes I will bring to all of this. And as you all know, we have talked for months about the impact of this virus onto the art scene, especially theater in performance for four months. We talked daily in the week to theater artists from around the world to get an insight how they experience the moment this time of corona, this time of uncertainty, and this time of most probably radical change and the numbers in America compared to all the other countries we had, about 90 talks with 150 artists from 50 countries here were so devastating. And one of the reasons was the poor handling of the government, especially of the president, his outrageous claims to self-infect with disinfectant. I wonder if he's doing that now. And now it got to him. And I think as everybody has said, it doesn't know politics, it doesn't care about ideology this virus, it's something just to handle. And it's a lot, yeah, research science in fact. So we'll see. It has impacted so very, very strongly the performing art scenes and the TDR issue that Richard Shackner and also Carol Martin that came out of view of the scene, the Segal Talks that was MIT Press and the PHA performing arts journal came out, 30 excerpts of our talk, Letter to the International in Berlin will actually also publish in translation part of the Segal Talks. So we really have looked at this time. And last week we started again after a little break and the first issue, the first round, first sessions in a way were really theater artists in the kind of old fashioned sense practitioners, writers, directors, choreographers, singers. But now we are opening up and, but for us in the sense, in large understanding of the arts in the sense of Joseph Boyce and so many artists, producers, curators, thinkers, academics, critics in a way, they all participate in making this art form happen. And with us today, we have a new generation of curators that is coming up and they are working at the moment on the prelude festival of hustle that exists now for over 15, 16 years and it was not being canceled, it will happen, but online. So we have with us Miranda Heyman and David Prune, both based in the way in New York. So you guys welcome on the Segal Talks and maybe say a little bit about yourself first. Hi, I'm Miranda. Like Frank said, I'm an artist based in New York City. I mostly work in New York as a director. I direct new plays. I'm also interested in revivals and devised work and adaptation as well. In addition to directing, I also identify as a producer and a curator, a writer and a performer. And I'm David Bruin. I work often as a dramaturge, a producer or a critic. In my day job, I'm a doctoral student at the Yale School of Drama, studying dramaturgy and dramatic criticism working on my dissertation, which is about scenes of pain and suffering and contemporary work, which I could say more about. And this is my second year at prelude. I co-curated last year's festival, Sanaz Kajar and super thrilled to be working with Miranda and back with Frank this year. Yeah, fantastic. Thank you. Thank you both in a way you represent what the work of the Segal Center is about, who bridge academia and professional theater. International and of course also American theater, but especially that place where we think it's our home that we really see theater as an art form, something you think about that is as a philosophical component that it makes a comment on the state of the world, on the state of the art and the state of the mankind. So David and also Miranda, especially when you signed up, nobody knew the beginning, what it will be online. So what's going on? How does that feel creating a festival online? How does that work? Sure, I mean, we can say a little bit about kind of the backstory of this year and then how we arrived at kind of our thinking process for this year. I mean, as you said, Frank, when the pandemic hit kind of full force in March, I just, the first thing I thought about was, okay, well, how can we adjust the prelude theme or respond to the moment? I didn't anticipate at all that it would be all online. But as that became clear, the pandemic began to, while it was acute and caused a lot of focus, of course, this uprising that has roots going back to Ferguson, going back to Rodney King, going back to reconstruction in the Civil War, I mean, as far back as 1619, began to emerge in full force. So when Miranda and I joined forces in the summer, we began to think kind of on two fronts. One, how do we translate the festival and the commitment the festival has to showcase artists who are working really at the forefront of theater performance and dance? How can we give them a platform and invitation to create work with the intention of it being made in these circumstances, i.e. online? And then also, how can we use the platform to respond to these wider questions of social significance? And this revolutionary moment, which is also a kind of reckoning with certain power structures and also individuals, maybe including the current executive branch of the government, but far beyond that. And then also, other certain sorts of reckonings, revolutions. So maybe I'll kick it over to Miranda to talk more about this year and how that came into focus. Maybe for our listeners a little bit about the festival, not everybody. Sure, I'll just say briefly, and then again, turn the reins over. Miranda, typically the Prelude Festival has been happening for almost two decades. It is typically at the beginning of the theatrical season, which in the United States is in October or September, October. And it's really a prelude to the season upcoming and beyond. So there's a chance for people who are interested in these very kind of risk-taking and interesting projects, working it somewhere along the frontier of theater performance dance to see each other's work to come together. And then because it sits with inside CUNY, is a chance for artistic practice and critical discourse and the work of academics to come into conversation. And increasingly there have been activists involved in Prelude as well. I just wanna say briefly a shout out to Jabari Brisport who was a panelist last year on Shrific panel about art and civil disobedience. He's going to be on the New York State Senate. Coming up soon, he ran a successful campaign in my district. He's my New York State Senator or incoming New York State Senator. So I just wanna put like a good vibe out there for Jabari. Right, yeah. And it's just for New York artists, everybody knows like New York theater artists, New York ensembles, companies to show work in progress, present what they are working on in an early stage and to share. Right. And what Prelude really, speaking to your point, Frank, about how art has the opportunity to comment on the state of the world. I think that for the first time, Prelude is yes, encompassing artists and holding space for artists who are doing just that. But also I think that Prelude as a festival itself is really commenting on the state of the world. David and I really wanted to be able to prioritize having Prelude be something that could potentially show and Prelude to the industry and to New York, the potential of work online. And what can happen when we are thinking about taking up a space that is using the resources that we have and has always been, all of our artists, yes are working in different mediums and mediums that are either running parallel or tangential or all of branches to their practices in general. But the opportunity that we have here is to be able to show what can happen when the first thought is this will be online as opposed to the adaptation that I feel our industry is going through with, oh, this used to be live. Now what does it look like? We're really giving artists the opportunity to ask those questions of the resources of the internet and online and of the moment and move from there. So you have that revolutionary theme and tell us a bit about it. I think that where we started was that, I mean, maybe not obviously, but there is a revolution and happening in our country and in our world. And also as David mentioned as well of a reckoning and the way that we actually came to our theme which is actually the full title is Sites of Revolution because as we are considering what's going on in the world and also as we knew that this festival was going to take place online, we came up with the idea of site, a site as a place or a space, but also a site as in a website, that the place that people will be coming to Prelude to interact with everything that Prelude 2020 has to offer would be a website. So how can we take that idea of site and what that means to plant different sites of revolution not just on our website, but also knowing that our artists are in all different sites around the country, even if they are connected to New York in some way and maybe even potentially, I can't think off the top of my head, but our artists are definitely currently situated all over the world, even if they do have, like I said ties to the New York City scene in some way. So the way we thought about it is how can we expand the notion of what site is this taking place and also what site does that mean from a global perspective? Like I said, from space and place and the difference between those two and also sites of the body, of the mind, of the process, where are all, how can we drop pins into all the different places and spaces that revolutions and reckonings are happening and then bring them together on one site, which is Prelude 2020 online. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the work, as Rand said, as an aperture, I mean, I love the pin image, which I hadn't quite thought about, but it also becomes this kind of lens that you can see where these things are happening, both whether you think of it spatially, but also temporarily, some of the work looks at family history and then long historical sweep. Some of it is very brief and compressed as a theme, as a form, as a thing to work against. And then some of it is looking at kind of future revolutionary, apocalyptic scenarios. So they're taking place on all really four dimensions in that kind of way. So hopefully the site animates that kind of dimensionality and allows you to travel through it in an interesting way. Mm-hmm. Do you guys first think it's a revolutionary moment here? Yes. I do. I think, well, I think that all moments are, I think that potentially our notion of revolutionary tends to be, we tend to think about it as more, as hyperbolic and bigger. So I believe that there's revolutions happening, every single day in a variety of ways and that there's a spectrum of revolution. But I do think that in terms of what we are asking ourselves of how we move through the world and how we interact with each other and how our processes unfold and how we talk to each other and how we think about each other and how we think about our own place in each other. I think there's a revolution of thought and process happening not just because of the pressure that's being put on the health concern and the pandemic of isolating us and then having to say, okay, now how do we relate to each other? That's a revolutionary act and also of course of the revolutionary act of folks looking within themselves and asking how they have been complicit in upholding white supremacy from all backgrounds and from all places and walks of life that everybody is asking themselves that question. So I would say at the very least there is revolutionary thought unfolding. Yeah, I would 100% agree. There's certainly also a counter revolutionary force as there almost always is. And I think because the current executive branch and legislative branch of the and also now judicial of the government take up so much airspace. It can be hard to see the real revolutionary moment and its impact, but just the fact that people are talking about defunding the police that that's in the atmosphere and in the public sphere that was unimaginable 10 years ago, I think, on a large scale. To me, it's very similar to the way that the global justice movement of 1999 which was taking a stand against these very brutal forms of sovereign debt began a long trajectory and kind of opened up into occupy around the world. I think you're seeing the seeds of so much of the activism that again could go back decades, but you can think of the movement for Black Lives Matter and the Ferguson uprising that has now become the largest social movement in the United States history. And if I can say one grandiose thing, which is always a risk and should be treated with suspicion when coming from a white college educated male US citizen able-bodied as myself, I will say that I think in the long stretch of world history you see the reformation as a moment really defining a rubric under which we can understand that shift. And then you can think of this revolutionary moment with the US revolution and the French revolution which was in some ways about protecting a certain kind of property, a right to own, a right to contain not only things but other people. And I think we will come to understand abolition as a movement as important and more as transformational as the reformation. And so all the systems of those revolutions, the French, the US around the world, those were designed, again, there was some liberatory potential but there were also prisons, universities, these other structures. And I think the movement toward abolition and what Fred Moten and Stefano Harney called the exodus from the university in that context. I think that will come to be understood in an extremely world historical way. So I'm very excited as an imaginative possibility of these linkages between abolition in the context in which it's usually situated, which is the 19th century in the United States and it's linkage to today. David, what you said as well as making me think about and the exodus of the university is making me think about a term that I use. A lot to describe this moment is like the great unlearning. Just as much as there is a reckoning which is the realization, like the light bulb going off, there was also an unlearning and almost moving backwards into your own brain about how did I even set up these systems? So it's interesting that we're talking about that I'm paralleling the exodus of the university and that structure of learning, also with a great unlearning of all that we've been taught about how our world should function and how we should function in relation to each other. Yeah, I think especially because the project of enlightenment was so invested in the production of knowledge and the production of subjects. I'll just say, Miranda, I'd love to hear what you think about the unlearning like in the theater and the industry in which we work because it seems like we built up these really prominent structures. I mean, if you look at the large nonprofits in New York, for example, or the Broadway League, right? There was a certain body of knowledge of best practices so-called that were really about a kind of singular CEO figure and some people have even adopted that corporatized chief executive officer into their thing. And some of the things I'm most excited about, I'd love to hear what you're excited about and Frank as well is like what seems to be resurgence or even insurgence of these new models of not only decision-making but who is able to put forward an artistic vision, different partnerships between artists as programmers and institutional leaders, that I feel like that's one place where the unlearning is really happening. Yeah, I think that that's a big question. So I'm trying to figure out how to best approach it. But I feel that where I should start is that I think that the epicenter of this unlearning has been so long theater, theater believes and has the potential to serve everyone. But I think what we have learned, what the industry has learned is that the population that it has been serving is that of a population that benefits from white supremacy. And I think that comes from class, gender, race, educational status, right? Our notion of the population that theater should be serving is that of the most banal, heteronormative, normative in general, identity. So I think what's happening is that theater is having a bit of an identity crisis when saying that their mission, theater at its best serves everyone, especially in the nonprofit sector, right? So I think what's happening is that theater is learning that, oh, we are not, we thought we were serving everyone. And in fact, this is the population that we are serving ergo all of our systems that were built to support this community are inherently flawed because they're supporting white cis men and their affiliates who are also usually white and cis and straight. So I think that there's a, like I said, I think there's an identity crisis happening. So I think what that means is that theater is having to, while also theaters are having to strip down their economic and financial structures in order to accommodate the moment, that means that they're also stripping down how they understand who they are serving. Again, especially the nonprofit sector. I really wanna highlight that, like, this is what's exciting to me is that so much of this reckoning is happening in the nonprofit sector because the nonprofit sector is built to serve the community. And in theory, you know, gets dollars and funding and support and has a board. But we're seeing that that community that they've been serving is siloed and is small. So I think what's exciting to me is that there's not only an opportunity to, there's not only the need to kind of start over and say, okay, how are we going to get audience back? How are we going to understand how to relate to our audience? While also asking, and who has that audience been and who do we want it to be? So Miranda, how does she or think it manifests in projects you select that change or that moment we have? What are you guys looking for? For me as a director, I don't think it's changed the kinds of projects that I'm interested in. I honestly, especially because, you know, as an artist, I do, I love talking about, you know, like August Wilson or Lorraine Hansberry just as much as I love talking about like Brecht or Ian Esco or any of those. That's part of my artistic identity. So I don't think that that element of the cultural capital that I feel that I take up as an artist has changed. But what is exciting is the opportunity to be able to be in dialogue about it from a variety of my identities as opposed to it, I feel that the choice of what I, the work that I put myself behind is already a political act because I am in a politicized body. So now it's become, and how am I going to align those politics with a place that can hold space for that and a place that can hold an audience for that as opposed to the work that I'm choosing? Like I think, yeah, I'm also speaking in draft and also having, I'm also having recognition, I'm having a revolution about it in my own mind. Like I'm literally having realizations about it. Live, but I think that the work that I'm interested in is still work that holds, I think no matter what the work that I'm interested in still is work that holds multiplicity and the opportunity for several points of entry from an aesthetic standpoint as well as from an identity standpoint. So I don't think my work, I don't think the nature of my work has changed. I can say a little bit about how this question might intersect with my thoughts on the festival and the kind of work. I mean, something I'm very interested in is, Miranda was talking about this term of unlearning, which for me, I'm really interested in work that frustrates a certain type of conventional or very disciplined spectatorship. I mean, I'm interested in mystery. I'm interested in, you know, how artists, I mean, Maggie Nelson calls, she says something in the Argonauts about how gender and learning to survive in a gender that's not normative is kind of finding a way to work the trap one is in. And I find so many artists, the work that inspires me is kind of an interesting escape act, a kind of magic, not because it's a toy or not real, but because it is absolutely material and real. And so I'm interested in not only people who have a kind of maximalist, you know, impulse, which maybe I had five, 10 years ago, the work I really loved was extremely loud, just all cylinders firing, extremely visually. And there's still a part of me that loves that. I mean, one of my dissertation chapters on Reza Abdo, I'll never not be inspired by that. But I think in this work in the festival, because people are experimenting with forms, I'm really interested in how, you know, there are uncertainties built into the work and unanswerable questions and things that are not explained to you or handed to you. It's not about just like a certain type of information, but about pursuing a kind of, you know, I'll call it a mystery. I mean, a flight, you know, something that you can't easily pin down. And I love that. So that's really inspiring me. And then in terms of the panel, something we're interested in is less about, you know, kind of talking to places saying, okay, this is how certain institutions should be run. This is how things should happen, but really looking at what are people doing now? What's exciting like right now? And so we have a panel, you know, we haven't confirmed all the participants, but I'll just say one panel is called Revolutionary Partnerships. And it's about theater institutions partnering with community-based grassroots organizations, or that's Mutual Aid, or that's theaters who are serving immigrant communities within New York City, not because they want to increase their access to their programming, but because they want to come to the table with someone else and say, how can we work together? How can we share resources? How can we build something and make something? And that is extremely inspiring to me, especially over the course of the last six months. David, you said something about how you're interested in work that, you know, still has that like flightness and what you can't predict. And I just want to say that I think that a lot of what unfortunately people are afraid of in this moment is that online performance does not have that, does not have that kind of entropy or spontaneity or, and yes, it's different than when you're in person because, you know, when we're in person, we're experiencing, as Erica Fisher-Lichter calls, like the auto-poetic feedback loop, like there is that like sizzle in the air of like someone breathes, I respond, someone, you know, like the character screams, I respond, right? There is that feedback loop. So while I can agree that the feedback loop is compromised in the online sphere and doesn't have that same potency, I do firmly agree and believe, and I just want to uplift the opportunity that we as artists have here is to still say yes, but online can still have those mess ups and that unpredictability and that entropy and that spontaneity and that kind of what's gonna happen next. And that's why I think that doing work online to an extent still is worth questioning and it's still worth something to be investigated, especially by artists who usually work in live performance because I think that we have those skills to understand, yes, the, like I said, where it's lacking but also the potential for, okay, but what is that that's keeping me engaged? It's the possibility that anything could happen in the next moment. It's the moment to moment, which I still think we can pursue online. Absolutely. I'll just shout out really quickly. I saw an academic talk recently, not a genre known for its innovation in which Sarah Bae Jung, who's a dean at York University in Toronto, absolutely terrific scholar was muted. She was talking and it went to mute. And then she was still like, she was holding up books and she got a Gertrude Stein puppet which was absolutely incredible. And people were freaking out. I mean, there are messages sending, trying to get her turn on her mute button. And of course, you realize afterwards, she had intentionally muted herself as a way to show the kind of like, glitch, this little opening of possibility where that predetermined script is thrown out the window. And now it's like, okay, well, what are we gonna do? How are we gonna respond to this? So that's just a very, very tiny example in a very, how shall we say, calcified performance practice known as the academic talk that can hold all sorts of possibilities. So, and Miranda said it beautifully, how it could take shape in the art form. So how do you guys approach this festival? Like structurally, what choice do you make? And your curation, tell us a bit about the process. How do you select? What do you think about? What inspires you? How do you choose? Well, we wanted to make sure, something that we did this year that hasn't been done in Prelude's past is that we had an open call for proposals. And that was something that was as much a question about accessibility and also being able to check our own biases of not just operating within our sphere of artists that we've heard about, even as expansive as that might be, that's still limited. So we wanted to open up the potential for a dialogue with us as curators and also folks who might be two degree two or four or five degrees of separation away, but also still providing an opportunity for like a real open call for proposals because ultimately we wanted to be able to also discover how people were thinking about this moment outside of who we know is thinking, who is in our sphere of knowledge about thinking about this moment. So that was something that we did that was very important and we had over a hundred proposals and many of our artists that are included in this year's Prelude are part of that call for proposals which feels really exciting and amazing. And then something else that we wanted to do as well is we wanted to make sure that at no point artists felt like they were pitching themselves. To us, we really wanted to make think about and brainstorm artists who we were interested in their response to this question and what that response would mean. What does work look like now? When you hear sites of revolution, where does that bring your artistic mind to? So I'll pass it on to David to talk about, yes, there are like smaller logistics but just off the bat, those are two things that I wanted to highlight that feel special about this Prelude, not just informed but also in terms of the moment we're in right now. Yeah, I think the first thing, just in terms of the work of ours, as Morena and I have said is that we want something that could feel exciting online, on the platform intentionally as opposed to something that was maybe a reading or something just translate, which are all great. I think people should continue to work on projects for the stage, but for this festival, we wanted to take the opportunity to make sure it was gonna live and breathe through the computer in some way. Although there are some analog components of people's work but in Prelude's past, we've really maximized the kind of work in progress structure which is three shows back to back, each of them are 15 to 20 minutes. And that's a great way to get people an opportunity to take some chances, take some risks to cross-pollinate audiences. And then we had a very few that were kind of larger, 25 to 45 minute works that were taking up the L of Ash. And this year we decided to maybe make it a little bit more even split. And we also raised the average honorarium for the artist a bit because we wanna recognize that they're doing more work on their provisional end. So about the festival is eight days, it takes place over 10, but it's really active in eight days. What are the dates? Yeah. It's October 20th, 10 to 30th. And then we'll have programming each night, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday of those dates. And that was to give people an opportunity to rest their eyes. It's just very hard to be at your computer for the length of time. For those who don't know, prelude is usually three very intense days of almost anywhere from five to 12 hours of programming. We felt that was unsustainable for this year for obvious reasons, perhaps. And so we wanted to give it a little bit more breath in between each one and capture people's attention on the weekdays, on the evenings, which we feel most people are available to kind of explore on their computers and things like that. Also it gives us a chance to respond to technical needs and other things. So each night, more or less, there'll be kind of a shorter work in progress or a short work. Then there'll be a kind of longer, more sustained work. And then there'll be some kind of panel or other curated events that is about creating a conversation or some kind of workshop that relates to the theme. So there's kind of a tripartite structure to each day. And we felt that really harmonized whole. Now, some works will be a little different. The full schedule and lineup will come out in the coming weeks. It'll be very visible and interactable on the website. But we wanted to give it a kind of breath while at the same time, harnessing the kind of momentum that a festival and that kind of compression on the calendar can also achieve, as opposed to maybe doing it, let's say every Friday for three months, that was an option. We felt it was better to marshal a kind of, feel like people are part of something that has a little force, a little gale wind behind it. So. And we're also, in our curation, we're also considering the kinds of work and what that means for us to be able to curate a schedule that allows for the audience to be able to catch stuff later and not feel like there's too much content coming out once. So, even if the work is prerecorded or live streamed or some combination of the two or taking place over Instagram or over Google Docs, whatever the work, however the work is going to take place in our scheduling of it, we're also making sure that we're providing audiences with a constant stream, but also not necessarily overflowing them, not just because of, because usually you would be, we're trying to give our audience to still the autonomy to pick and choose while also still providing a stream for folks who are going to be there on the schedule with us, but also for the folks who might discover Prelude in week two, but then still giving them time and space to be able to interact with work that has already happened, which doesn't take place. We usually don't have that opportunity to do a live performance. It happens and then it's over. So, we also work cognizant of making a schedule that yes, is over two weeks, but is ultimately eight days because we wanted to give that time for folks to discover it. Yeah. And as we've done with Prelude for over 10 years, it's going to be a live on HowlRound and also people can go back to the archived session from the week before then, so it will be available. So, what are you detecting? I mean, you have your ears close now to the ground and talking to so many people. What are you noticing? Is something surprising you? Is something different? It surprised me how many artists are creating work that has started in quarantine. David and I really thought that it was actually going to be a little more challenging to try to find artists who are interested in starting a project now with the resources now as opposed to something that was an idea in the past and then is being transformed in this moment. But I really, really am so excited by how many artists, when we asked them this question and said, and how do you feel about this question? Answering this question and answering this work, being online, I'm very surprised and really excited. So I think that artists, myself also included, are actually eager to, we're now in the stage of quarantine where I think that a lot of we still, there is still like the grief and the loss, not only from like the deaths of how many people we've lost from COVID, but also how many careers have ended or been paused or shows that will never happen again. So now I think that we're in the next stage of this process of emotional healing. So I think that artists are eager to ask what can they do in this moment and are no longer seeing it as a temporary, like just like something to do for the now, but now we're actually able to interrogate it as well, this is what we're doing and this is what we might be doing for quite some time. Yeah, I think I'm interested in extremes. So I'm gonna say one thing that I've been very inspired by and one thing that I find distressing. I completely agree with Miranda, I've been inspired by people's inventiveness and creativeness, not only just individually artists, but also for some on the institutional level, target margins started delivering mask via bicycle as a performance in itself. I love that idea. They're continuing to build on that work with some community partnerships this fall, performing in empty storefronts with windows where people can see the work. This is for community members in Sunset Park. Looks like a great program. And so I've been really inspired by that and I've been inspired by people self-organizing, trying to come up with what do we want this field to look like? I mean, what happened with the flea, which was a result of someone speaking out against injustice and saying this as Miranda said, this is an institution that is geared toward white supremacy. We need to fundamentally rethink this. That was built on years of people pointing out, the fleas hiring practices and compensation, but it achieved this moment of real change. That was utterly inspiring to me. The thing that has been distressing is I think the precarity that a lot of artists are in. And some people are able to navigate that and keep their lights on. And I'm absolutely blessed. I'm attached to a large university. I have healthcare. I have some baseline of income from the work I do. But for other people, that's not the case. I just saw yesterday, the New York Times broke a story that the healthcare coverage is changing for equity members that is horrifying. It's understandable from a purely balance sheet perspective, but from what the impact it will have, it's just really distressing. And I want to stand in solidarity. My heart goes out to everyone affected by that and so many other structural inequities. So I think there's obviously some major deep problems with the field and the profession as an industry, but the artistry and the imagination that have been thrilled by and humbled to be quite honest. Also, I'll give a quick shout out to any shout outs, maybe they're not worth it, but I know there are a lot of academics out there teaching theater and performance across the country. I think a lot of them have been patient and inventive on how to teach. It's very difficult. I'm not teaching this semester, but I am in conversation with people daily who are navigating that and then also people who are directing and finding ways to work with students in artistic capacity that animates their imagination and comes up with something that continues their study of what this work and the possibilities that it holds. So that's also been really interesting. And I think that may fundamentally shift in some way how theater is taught and studied at institutions of higher education. Let's say this is over. There is the TAC, as we said, the Time After Corona. We at the Seatle actually are thinking and preparing for a 2002 summer festival where we want to invite really all New York arts organization within three weeks to present work like the Great Avignon Festival that was done after World War II, but really also focusing on parks and communities already existing things, not just done by experts, but you who are so deeply involved in the field, what kind of change do you feel has to happen? What was wrong and what should change? What needs to change? I think that the quality of life presented to artists in exchange for the success or the platform of the awards is abysmal and desperately needs to change. I no longer, I never did, but part of what I had to do when I entered the field is say be okay with working six days a week, which always turns into seven, be okay with getting paid under minimum wage, but being happy about it because it was some fancy institution, right? 10 out of 12s, which in America means that you have a 12-hour tech day and you work 10 out of them and 10 hours out of the 12 and you have potentially up to five of those in a row that's on some shows. So I think that we as art, something that I receive a lot as feedback from my friends who aren't in the arts is I'll say like, yes, but I work every day and I'm very broke and I'm doing well, but I'm still strong, I'm doing well in that I have a certain number of credits on my phone. I mean, I'm a certain number of credits on my resume, but am I actually doing well? And they say, no, but you're an artist, you chose this, you're having so much fun and I no longer want to make the negotiation between just because I chose this life and I'm having a lot of fun and I love my work doesn't mean that my quality of life should be so bad. Like I should be able to have a weekend, I should be able to have days off, I should be able to not have to choose between do I make myself lunch today or do I get that extra 90 minutes of sleep? So I think that's something that I'm really looking forward to, continue to be in dialogue about and what a lot of people, what a lot of artists are learning about themselves in this moment is we don't have to work like we did before. We don't have to go back to the same schedules and hours and deadlines and pressure and working seven days a week. I'm just really, I don't want to go back. I don't want to go back to it. I'm not interested in it. I don't think it needs to happen. So, and it's going to be a big, big conversation with unions and producers. And it's going to have to, because the system has been built around this kind of, it's a system of white supremacy, this kind of urgency and deadlines and pressure. So the entire industry has been built around that. So it's not, it's going to be a big challenge to figure out how we make the actual day-to-day of it more sustainable for artists and on their families and on their livelihoods. But I'm really looking forward to continuing to ask for that and unpack it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I also know that you both felt strongly to make clear the payment for prelude, that it should not be hidden and yeah, I think something that I'm excited about and I can say a little bit more about the field at large, but I mean, we all, I think all of us on this call saw Soho rep come out and say, we're putting eight artists on the prelude or on payroll, I'm sorry. And giving them health insurance, we don't expect necessarily a production from them. But I mean, the difference between that and the current commissioning model for a lot of playwrights and the way compensations work is just, we could throw a party for Soho rep at prelude and I'd be totally fine with that. I mean, I think they're really leading the way. I think other institutions have done this, have made substantial commitments. They weren't quite as clear about it, I think as Soho rep. But that kind of transparency, I think people are really yearning for. And I think, listen, we at prelude are not claiming that we're committing to the level of support that Soho rep is, we're not. What we are trying to say or communicate is that our budget is aligned with the priorities with the way we hope the field thinks about what is important to it. And so it's important for us to say, this is the level of honoraria that we can offer artists. This is what we can do. And in relationship to the whole budget, it's very meaningful. So I'm proud of that and the kind of thoughtfulness and work that went through that. I think I'll just say quickly, something I would like to see that I think is becoming more and more popular is this idea of having artists on the payroll. I mean, Signature has had a residency program for writers that has been, I think, quite successful and meaningful, not only for just paying bills, but for the kind of the quality of work, the depth of engagement, the relationship between the artist's audience and institution. So I really hope people come back to this. I mean, there were rep companies, the residential, repertory theater, repertory or residential used to mean something that has faded because the amount of institutional support has attenuated since the moment these theaters emerged in the 60s and 70s. But I think having an artist in residence and having them on the payroll, that could really change things in a fantastic way. And people have been saying this for a long time, some of them at very large theaters, but it's the SOHO reps of the world that are really starting to put the money where their values are. So I think that's great. Yeah, I also just wanna add to that as well, as someone who was just afforded a resident artist's position at the Roundabout Theater Company. And I am on payroll and I do have health insurance. The importance of that also for artists that don't necessarily, I wanna make clear that, what's fantastic about my relationship with Roundabout is that there's also no expectation of output. It's not existing in this kind of generative, we pay you, this is what you give us. I think there needs to be more systems of support for artists that say this is what you need. Again, it goes back to quality of life. This is what you need to maintain a quality of life and then that will in turn be able to support you in whatever work you want to do. It actually is a self-fulfilling prophecy. In them not asking me or demanding anything of me and just saying, here's a salary and here's health insurance, I actually am in a better position to be able to turn inward and ask myself those questions. So I think that I want for more institutions to be able to, because that's radical. Roundabout has been supporting me. I've been on Roundabout payroll since 2017 and I afford a lot of the opportunity and a lot of the flexibility that I have to being on payroll. And it doesn't cost that much, but the impact of it on, not only especially for directors, especially for the directors, the impact that that has when that means that a director is in residence means that then, directors in a lot of ways are the folks who, yes, in addition to producers and playwrights, of course, folks who are catalyzing the worlds and building the worlds, but directors have a lot of opportunity to be able to bring in even more folks, especially because of the way that directors work in terms of designers and writers and actors. So I'm really, really looking forward to how the industry is also considering what does it mean to support playwrights in addition to directors and stage managers and producers and administrators. Because I want for the ecosystem to continue and to be sustainable. And what that means is theater companies committing to individuals and continuing that cycle and continuing to support them and thus supporting the larger ecosystem of mentorship and of the creation of work and relationships. Yeah, and I think if I can just build on that, I'm adding the role the director is critical. And we've seen since the late 2000s, let's say, when the Mellon Foundation came out with that report that David Dower did about the state of new play development, along with their commitments to residencies. I mean, the field has really supported writers, playwrights in a way that has not supported other artists working in different modes. And I think the success of the theater will hinge a little bit on how much we're able to support the long-term career development of directors and director-driven work. Not only because I think directors are endlessly inspiring and inventive and just exciting as artists, but also because to some extent the reality of it is that playwrights can a little bit more easily make a transition to adjacent media, notably television. Directors have a little harder time, I think, pivoting from one medium to the other. And directing also, in my own opinion, I'm happy to be disagreed with, is really a master craft. I mean, no one writes, no one directs their best show at 27 or 28. Maybe Orson Welles was the one person who peaked as a young director. It is a thing that's built over decades and decades and decades. And so I'm really enthusiastic about director-driven work. There's gonna be a lot of director-driven work in the festival and would like to see more theaters make commitments to directors, actors, designers, and particularly who do absolutely amazing work. So I think broadening that ecosystem of support, as Miranda said, will be really exciting. So these are quite some significant points. You talked about the audiences that normally, you know, are not thought of at audiences, the kind of de-skilling, as you said, the unlearning of what is to be expected. And then also, you know, the changes that of the financial system, you know, that like the film industry that is built on, you know, exploitation, you know, of the interns, you know, people for 10 years were interns and they are not paid. And something is deeply wrong. And I think a festival at least can say these are different models are possible, they exist. Even so, we are very, very, very, just for people to know it's a very, very small festival. It's a tiny one. There's a little budget. What you do with it is amazing. We also would like to thank the Lottell Foundation, the only one that has supported us over time. And for this, there's a special grant, so a Rudin Foundation and also the Marvin Carlson who helped it out. But it would be a tiny and be a small, but there are things, as you say, impossible. Do you want to mention some of the names of the artists or the list that we wait for an announcement for the participation of the scene, you know, what we can look forward to? I think folks should look forward to staying tuned for a release because, you know, what's exciting is that there's lots of artists working in new capacities and also artists collaborating with each other in ways that have not happened before. So we want folks, we're excited to release the names of not only the artists involved, but also the panelists and everyone involved in the festival, not like also our producers on our stage management team as well. And I think that what folks can look forward to is, you know, what we've been really focusing on and really aware of is the website will be so significant to audiences' experience. And we've been really focused on that, like I said, as a site of revolution as well and what that means. So for anyone that's listening, especially, you know, those who wouldn't normally have the opportunity to see Prelude Festival, because it does exist in New York City, we're really looking forward to being able to have the website be an active, dynamic, playful space that, yes, contains all the information as a schedule and, you know, artist bios and how to find the work and how to follow the work, but also a website that also feels activated as well. So I'm, and there'll be, you know, I don't want to spoil too much, but the website will include some Easter eggs as well and opportunities for discovery and for play and for flexibility. So as soon as we have that, obviously we'll let everyone know, but really look forward to the website and we look forward for folks to be able to interact with it, not just as a place to get the information and to see the work, but also the website as a place of inquiry as well. Great. It feels site-specific in that sense. That's been really important to us. Our own website is site-specific. Interesting. Yeah, like that. Yeah. And I think, go ahead, Frank. No, please go. I was going to say, I mean, I think there's also something, you know, we could, you know, I don't want to rattle off names part because I think Miranda and I have made a commitment to the entire vision of it. And really, as curators want to make an entrance to some extent, you know, not out of ego, but just so people can see the full throw of the ideas. Because I think that will really, as Miranda said, the website is a manifestation of that kind of coherence, but also that breath. So it'll be exciting to see the whole list. It, you know, it will be some familiar, some non-people working in different ways. There'll be, you know, artist critics, activists. So it'll be a great lineup, but it'll benefit from a little, you know, curtain down lights up. Right, yeah. That sound you want to go. www.nycprelude.org, I think, you know, that will be the number of not you go to the Seedle site or you Google it. And I think also it's always been the character that is kind of an organism. You looked at the festival in itself and every part connects to the others. Never been about singling out or these are the good things and they might go to Broadway or whatever. No, it was always composed. So often also artists are not participating in Sears because it doesn't completely fit this time with the themes, with the structure. So it really is, I think, a composition what you put together. And also it is still in progress the same way as you ask the artists, you know, to create something. This also is truly a work in progress. You're working it right now in the middle of it. Even we are so close. Normally festivals have half a year or a year before it's clear who comes or shows or the hotels are booked. And this is a very different animal, a different nature. And I think this really represents the spirit of this year. So I think it will be quite of interest, you know, when we are one of the very few festivals that actually did not close down. This was a long history and we couldn't, but of course there are others. And Marvin Carlson on the talk here pointed out in the history of theater, these things. This moment is unique. Even at the time of the plague of London and Shakespeare, there's companies who went outside the big cities they performed, but a shutdown, a complete shutdown of every performance. And even globally is unprecedented. It has never happened in that way in the history of mankind. So what artists in the town like New York City are producing what they are thinking about and they are doing by thinking and think something by doing it is of real interest and you're putting it together. You are creating a little puzzle, a rupee cube for all of us to look and have better questions. So I think it truly will be of real, real interest. We thank you also the artists for coming and donating their time in a way, but also get some compensation at least that that's what we can do. And we are at CUNY, it's a public university. We have very, very little resources that we tried the very best also be open and fair. And, but you guys do a truly significant job in collecting and combining and collaging that form of a collage. Perhaps it's one of the great art forms of the 20th century, the Rauschenberg idea. That's what you are doing. And it's still growing. It's not there yet. It's in development, that's in itself is exciting and great experiments. So really, thank you all for participating. Just maybe as a closing moment, who do you look up to when it comes to curation? What are people you are inspiring, that are inspiring for you? I want to quickly say before that, I just want to thank our staff. You know, we have an amazing producer team of Sammy Moriali, Sammy Pine and Lucy Powis. They're our partners in this as producers. And as people who care about the festival and the theater community in New York City and beyond our stage manager, Harry. You know, we have a, there are other people behind us who you don't see who are really making it happen. So I want to give them some thanks as well. Miranda, do you want to talk about inspirations? Yeah, who do you think that's something you know, that's of interest? I want to mention, I just want to uplift again, even though we can't bring it up enough. I think that's so Horep time and time again, does an incredible job at supporting a spectrum of artists from all different stages of their career and really being able to intervene in terms of not just saying, well, this artist has been operating in this sense, but how can we provide them the opportunity to continue to work in a new way and providing that platform? And I also want to shout out my dear friend, Jeremy O'Harris, also because I feel that if you haven't been watching his coronavirus mixtapes, he has been doing something of a curating as well, like a daily practice of curating news, culture, TikToks, his own travels. So yeah, I just want to shout out Jeremy because when I think about curating, I also think about what it means to also curate content as well and use your platform to provide that as inspiration and guidance as a daily ritual. And I think that's part of a curation as well. I've got a couple, I will keep this brief, I promise. One, I think, I think, Frank you were talking about earlier about unprecedented moments of shutdown. I do often think about Brecht and the fact that he left Germany in 1933. He did not return to the European continent until, I believe, 47 and then not until the divided Berlin until 48. Even though he was famous, he had these resources. I mean, he had friends die along the way. He caught the last boat out of the Philippines to sail across the Pacific. He didn't know Walter Benjamin had killed himself until a year or so later. You know, again, even though he had resources and fame and currency, he had children. I mean, it's unimaginable to me that that kind of odyssey. At the same time, you know, I'm endlessly inspired also and the poems are just fantastic, the hero during the period throughout his life is great, but the, you know, Andy Nakiborin and other works are just astonishing. You know, and at the other time, I think often I'm writing about the artist Im Le Mar who was in prelude last year and he has very deep connections in his work and just in his being to the Delta Blues artists who emerged in the early 20th century, late 19th century who performed at what were called juke joints. These were self-organized claims spaces that people working in black people working as sharecroppers and other really brutal forms of oppression just gathered together. They shared food. That's where the term gut bucket comes from. And I find that endlessly inspiring. No training, no professional circuit, you know, extremely dangerous to travel. And yet they created the basis of rock and roll, popular music. And I'd say, I mean, I couldn't live without the music. I just, it's beautiful. I can't, and it hurts every time I listen to it in just the most profound combination of those things. So I'll take a little bit more historical and then I'll just say briefly even though I've taken up too much time just seeing Gideon Lester was great. I met Gideon when I was 21 which was more than a decade ago. I was endlessly inspired as a young person at Boston College traveling to Cambridge outside of Boston to the ART that Robert Woodruff ran with Gideon and seeing Ambogar and Christian Lupa which was the third professional theater production I've ever seen in my life was a four hour, three sisters in Polish. I think I was hooked after that. The after daylight June Lune. I mean, so I find if Gideon's out there listening enjoying a Cortado, you know, I thank him as well. Yeah, great. And of course the list is much, much longer. But really thank you, thank you for sharing and for also in that sensible moment when you're in the middle of the game and putting things together, who comes what? And yes, I know that was a big ask but I think we get a little insight into the idea of the festival but also what do you think is a generation, a new generation that will implement change and change that already has happened and we really look forward to the festival. We'll be on HowlRound as we said and but also that website will be of significance and maybe again, New York can be a bit at the forefront of things with this offering that you guys are putting together at our Segal Center. Next week we continue our talks. We're gonna have Tom Walker from the Living Theater who was 50 years, 49, 50 years. So was there theater that really did political work, aesthetic work, changed the things, talked a lot about revolution, friendly revolution also and another one, an acoustic free fall, freedom they were looking for. We're gonna have Savianas Dinescu from Bucharest. She's working on a play and also the festival has this theme like that has a revolutionary side to it. You emailed and said, you know, this is some similarities of what she is thinking about and what she is doing as often and they are cross connections. And Savianas Lythkast from the National Black Theater will talk about her work, about running a company, what lies ahead for her and what changes they are looking for to implement. So I hope you all will have the time to come. Thanks to our listeners again, really, for taking the time to listen to you to these young curators. And I think this is significant work, what they are doing. And it's one part of their journey and I think what they said, we should listen very, very carefully. They're really close to the moment, perhaps also anticipating things that much more than we do and this is of significance, what they talked about. So thank you all for doing this. Thanks for Hal Rahn for hosting us again. You both have also been on it, David, Miranda, you wrote for them. It's an open platform. We are extremely thankful to be a part of Hal Rahn. So see you and me and everybody. Thank you so much. Have a good weekend. And I don't hope that we explore you guys too much. I know it's a lot of work to put this festival together. So, but I think it will really be worth it. I'm seeing a lot of people are looking forward to what you're cooking up. Bye-bye, thank you all and stay safe. Thanks, Rahnke. And thanks.