 If I speak here, you can hear me? We're about to stop. So if you're closer to the mic, you'd better putt it. If it's for Hal, we'll be able to get it closer to the mic. Can you hear it? Yes. Hi, everyone. We want to start. And I don't have high quality sound. No, you're perfect. That's much better. I would like to sing the blues now. Please do it. No, no, no, no, no. Good afternoon and welcome. I'm going to read my notes because my brain doesn't work anymore, so I have to read my notes. I want to say happy convening, everyone. It's out there last year. It's really great to see all of you in the same room. Yes. Yeah. These gatherings and these conversations are invaluable, and I hope that you appreciate them as much as I do. I want to begin by acknowledging that we are standing on the ancestral land of the Oloni Ramay Tush people. May their spirit guide us through our work this weekend and propel us towards collaboration and deeper understanding of our own shared humanity. A lot of time and effort goes into putting something like this together. Let me thank everyone who has and is making this gathering possible. Who, Golden Thread staff are in the room. Stand up for the Hewlett Foundation, who is the only foundation that supported this convening financially. I'm grateful to them. Our fabulous interns this weekend happen. Just say it that these sessions, the public sessions are being live streamed on HowlRound. If you don't want to be live streamed, just sit behind the camera. Also, I don't know if we are getting comments on Twitter and Facebook. All right. All right. Well, Julius is managing that, and if something exciting comes in, please share with us. We should have said this earlier, but I'll say it now. If you have turned off your cell phones in case of an emergency, there's a door here and there's a door there. And already today, we've had two sessions, a fabulous conversation early in the day about how to get more of our plays on U.S. stages and a really productive conversation just now about mentorship and intergenerational support in our community. I'm hoping that these conversations will generate actionable strategies that we can then as a steering committee or as representatives of our community implement. In a few minutes, I'm going to invite members of the steering committee to the stage to provide some context and background information to how we got to where we are because as you can imagine, years and years of work and community organizing has gotten us to the point that we are here. Where am I? On my page, I don't know. Including what I wanted to say, including the MENA survey, which Kate will talk about in our work with TCG Theater Communications Group, which Andrea will talk about. As I was thinking about gathering this weekend, I was reminded of a turning point of my own thinking about Golden Thread and Golden Thread's role, which is actually surprising, so I thought I might share it with you. A few years ago, we were doing a strategic planning process for Golden Thread and we were at a staff and board retreat. We were having conversations about what distinguishes Golden Thread's work from other theater companies, and we were imagining a world where Middle Eastern plays are being produced by many, many theaters across the U.S. In that environment, would Golden Thread still be relevant or not? As we were digging deep into that conversation, we have always acknowledged that we kind of came up with the term Middle Eastern American theater. We made peace with the term Middle East, despite its colonialist baggage, just because of practicality and the fact that it's recognizable, but always being aware of, super aware of the connotation. So we've always thought about the term Middle East a lot, but not the American part. So it was interesting at this retreat, the conversation was about, but we're not a Middle Eastern theater company. We're an American theater company, and you may be surprised to hear this, but that came as news to me, right? That took me, like, I was taken aback by that statement. And then I started thinking about, well, what does that mean? What does it mean to be producing this work in the U.S., in this environment? And this retreat was in 2013. It wasn't like during the 2000s while Iraq was being invaded and destroyed. We survived through making theater. We survived those years through making theater. So we've always been very aware of our relationship to the Middle East and what's happening there. But maybe I think that turning point was when I actually began thinking about our community here and our existence as a growing immigrant community in the U.S. and what that means for us making theater in San Francisco and in other cities. I think that discovery, you know, then we called ourselves the first American theater company devoted to plays from or about the Middle East. That's where that sort of statement came from. Before that we were a theater company exploring Middle Eastern cultures and identities. So it's a subtle difference, but it's also a profound difference and it's a way of, I think, looking at your work differently. So it made, I think that discovery, that statement made me take greater ownership of Golden Thread's role in the U.S. as an organizing force in the country. Before that I've always had a great relationship with Jamil Hury at Silk Road Rising and we had, with the LARC, we had launched a play commissioning program Middle East America, which Jamil called it Middle East America, and it was an ongoing program. So we had kind of a national network or partnership, but I contacted Jamil after this retreat and talked to him about what I thought was the need to actually gather our community. Because I don't know, I thought if I hadn't realized that I'm a Middle Eastern American or that this company is an American company, then there must be so many others that are in that same situation, right? And I don't know how it is for you trying to tell these stories in your community, but it can be a lonely experience, right? You feel like you're banging your head against the wall, you feel like nobody understands what you're talking about, you feel like you have odd political beliefs. And so Jamil and I began talking about how do we gather our community. The LARC had been a partner to us. Catherine Coray at that point was becoming more involved with the Middle East America Initiative, but also reaching out to artists in the Middle East. And so we began talking about hosting a convening and Catherine was able to host a convening at the LARC in 2016. Jamil was able to organize what TCG calls affinity group meetings during the national conference at TCG. And we began kind of meeting our community, right? Like the artists that self-identify as Middle Eastern American theater artists. And we learned a lot in that process. I think one of my specialties is sort of to sense what's missing and then try to, I don't know, try to address it if I can. So at the affinity sessions, we began sensing the absence of leadership and representation in our community. And I don't have to tell you that representation matters, right? Being able to tell our stories in our own words matters. And I'll just say this and if you want to, you know, question me about it later, do that. But the reason why the wars in the Middle East are happening, one reason is because it is justified in the popular media, in the popular imagination of Americans, right? And that's what we're fighting. That's what we're trying to counter. That's not an easy thing. So that requires leadership. That requires national collaboration and partnership among all of us. So the affinity group meetings and the convening at the LARC generated some momentum. A lot of positive things came out of that gathering at the LARC in 2016. Mona Mansour, fabulous playwright, started a Middle Eastern American playwright group at the LARC, which just recently had an evening of readings, very successful. The Maya directors actually, that idea came from that gathering at the LARC. And now there are four directors. I don't know if everyone's in the room, but, you know. And then the idea of us needing a bill of rights came from that gathering. Because the trajectory of the growth of our community, like we had gone from questioning our right to tell the stories of people in the Middle East or our right to even tell our family stories to claiming and demanding space for our stories, right? So when you make that jump, then you need an awareness of what your role is when you're in the room what is appropriate for them to ask you and what it isn't. So the Bill of Rights came out of that need and what I heard a lot of people say about constantly being put in the position of being the cultural consultant without getting paid for it or someone in the room sort of taking the role of being the cultural authority or the political authority on the situation. And so we developed the Bill of Rights. We sort of tested it out at affinity group gatherings at TCG, got some feedback. And then the big tonal shift happened which we made two documents. One was the Bill of Rights for Middle Eastern theater artists and then one was an open letter to producers in U.S. theaters. So both of those kind of addressed the same issues, but from different perspectives and the tone is different. So slowly over the years, a lot of people have already put in a lot of sweat equity into this movement. People have been working for more than 20 years to get us to this point and we're slowly moving from individual ideas to collective action. And collective action requires generosity, respect, openness to people's individual experiences and a space where we can have conversation and this gathering is about making that space. Conversations this weekend. I want to invite you to visualize yourself as a theater maker. Visualize yourself in 10 years. What kind of theater maker are you? What kind of environment do you want to be making theater in? Who are you collaborating with? Who else is in the room? Who is running that theater company? What other kind of theater are they putting on their stages? Who is on their board? What about in 20 years? What about in 50 years? I want you to visualize that. And then let's think about what can we do today? What kind of ideas and recommendations can we come up with today to bring about that vision? Our work today is about Middle Eastern American or Middle East North African community of theater artists. But I also want to offer that as we define the future of Middle Eastern American theater, we are in fact redefining American theater. Visualize that. Let's talk about that future. Yeah? Thank you. And now I want to invite Kate and Andrea to come on stage and Kate's going to talk about our community survey and some of our findings. And then Andrea is going to talk about our work with TCG. Can you all hear me? Yeah. Okay, hi. I'm Kate Morhini. I'm the artistic producer at North Theater in New York City. Oh, sorry. You want me to lower this? That's great. Thank you. Yes, so I work with North Theater in New York City. We support, develop and produce the work of artists of Middle Eastern descent. And as part of, so continuing the work that was just discussed, we were asked to be part of a group of theaters of color at the latest TCG theater communications group conference. And as we began to sort of prepare for this, and Andrea will talk a lot more about our time there. But as we began to prepare and think about sort of how we can best serve the community, we thought, well, we need to first get a sense of who is this community. We have a sense sort of of who, these are some artists working in New York, these are some artists working in California, Chicago, across the country, but who are we as a group and how can we best represent this group and come together as a coalition? So we've created this MENA Theater Community Survey. And we thought that as the community grows in the U.S., this would be a way to build a national network to advocate for our community as a whole. And we hope to use this survey to better understand our needs and help advance our cause and best represent the concerns of the community as a whole. As was mentioned in one of the earlier sessions today, I just want to say it again, we decided to define Middle East and Middle Eastern very broadly using a definition developed by Golden Thread and Silk Road Rising. The definition is that we embrace the multiplicity of ethnic and religious identities that span Southwest Asia, North Africa, Central Asia, the Caucasus, parts of Mediterranean Europe, and our diaspora communities. We understand that our respective backgrounds in terms of rich pluralism and interconnectedness. So I just want to say that that was really important in coming up with this, that it felt like an inclusive document. So in the initial survey, it's still a live, active document. So if there's anyone here who hasn't filled it out, we can maybe post the link. The goal is to get as many folks as possible to fill it out. We have 100, as of June, we had 191 participants from both the U.S. and across the world. There were 16 theatrical disciplines represented. And this is my favorite. Collectively, we had in this group 2,492 years of experience in the U.S. The most important takeaway, there was some demographic information that we collected. We found that the top five theatrical disciplines represented were performers, playwrights, directors, producers, and administrators. But there were, of course, folks in many other fields as well. Those were just the top five. We found that of the regions in the U.S. that were represented, 8.7% were from New York, 23.6% were from Chicago, 11% were from the San Francisco Bay Area, and 8.9% were from LA. Again, this was just our initial survey of the folks who we were able to reach out to. We also had 18.8 folks from other regions, including a number of folks from outside the U.S. We measured age range, whether or not folks recognize a person of color. We found that 27% of the people we surveyed identified as a member of the LGBTQIA plus community. So we just wanted to see who exists in our community. We found that a number of folks were members of professional theater unions or organizations. 66% were a member of actors' equity. 5.7% were a member of stage directors We found that 14.4% were members of theater communications group. So this data is helpful and it'll help us to sort of chart the growth of our community over time. The biggest takeaway, though, from the survey was we wanted to know what were the top most important issues facing our community. What did people think were the things we should most focus on as a network? The first was more of our plays produced at major theaters. So that makes sense that that was the top thing that people thought we should focus on. The second was greater national visibility followed by more seats at the table or greater voice and impact followed by access to funding followed by creating a MENA community network which is some of the work that we've been doing. So with that overview of the survey I also have, we have hard copies of it if anyone wants to take a look later on. I'll hand it over to Andrea to talk more about our work at TCG in the theater communications group conference. Hey y'all. How you doing? What a beautiful room. I'm so excited now really. What a beautiful room. I'm so excited to be here. And so this is quite off the top and I will do my best to appropriately represent. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Andrea Asaf. I'm the artistic director of Art to Action, Inc. which is based in Tampa, Florida. And I'm Lebanese-American and a third generation. And we all come to this. I feel like this is a moment I feel like we're in a delta right now. This is a moment of many streams, many rivers conjoining and converging, convening. Yes, thank you. And so I'm going to talk about a little bit of some of those other streams. Perhaps the main one the largest body of water leading us here is what Terange began with. But also so TCG Theatre Communications Group has had over the last several years an initiative under the framing of EDI or equity, diversity and inclusion. And I want to give props to TCG for really listening to artists of color in the field many years ago that had a lot of feedback about how we were feeling served or not served well enough and the leaders the leadership in TCG that really took on this initiative to make substantive change in the organization in a way that would impact our experience going. So if you haven't been to a TCG conference or you haven't been in many years go back or try it out because it feels quite different now and that's partly due to this cohort work that TCG has been doing led primarily by Emilia Ketchapiro and Elena Chang. And so what's unique this year is that they're in the fourth cohort and they decided to make the fourth cohort focus specifically on theaters of color and particularly networks of color within the theater community because some feedback that was received earlier on was that from artists of color who were participating was that this feels like white America is still the center of the conversation. And how do we talk about equity diversity and inclusion and even go further and talk about justice in a way that doesn't center the historical center that is truly as complex as we all are and as our field is today, right? So they made this commitment to bring together theaters of color and networks of color that serve theater artists. Also, multiple streams leading to a Delta, I guess, also I want to lift up the work of Leslie Ishii and East-West players and the consortium of Asian-American theaters and artists that also was convening networks of color in 2016 and doing that work prior. To start to talk about how could the Latinx theater commons and the multiple black theater networks that are in the field and the consortium of Asian-American theaters and artists which is relatively new and trying to understand how to be inclusive of and deal with calling the Middle East. Understanding that a large part of it is Southwestern Asia and also North Africa and all of our complexities, right? So Leslie Ishii was leading organizing that work under the auspices of Akata convening in 2016. TCG was working on co-port four and developing that and we're working on figuring out how to convene us together. And these multiple streams have led us to this moment and I also want to make sure that we acknowledge and lift up other organizations that aren't necessarily theater organizations but that have had a big impact in our ability to come together and so I want to name Mizna and Raui, the Writers Network and the Arab American National Museum and their convening currently called MOVE and make sure that we recognize that all these things bubbling in all these places in the 21st century are leading us to having greater collective voice and power and input and vision yes? And that we cannot do that in isolation. We are in a historical moment in which we must I feel and like Taranj said, talk to me later if you don't agree but I feel we must embrace our status as a community of color in the United States. Now I know that's complex for us in the way that it's complex for the Latinx community, right? Because many of us pass as white, many of us live our daily lives as white, many of us can't pass and can't live that way, right? And yet we're all trying to have we're all trying to share our cultural and artistic experiences within this highly racialized society that we live in called the United States of America which is itself a problematic term of representation. So, if we are trying to build voice and representation and collective power around cultural representation and around, you know the direction that this country is going in and who we are and what we do in the world that we're all a part of if we live here like it or not, we're all part of what the United States is doing in the world, yeah? That's a lot to reconcile for a lot of us, right? But we can't do it alone. As complex as our communities are and hard as it is for us to get on the same page and to get together about who we are and what the Middle East is and where we fit in it and what it means to be that in this country in this context, we are doing that alongside communities of color that have been in this conversation and leading this conversation and doing this work and fighting this fight for a very, very long time and we don't have to reinvent the wheel, right? We can learn from each other. We can learn from the Latinx Theater Commons. We can learn from the Black Theater Networks. We can learn from the struggles for civil rights in the south. I was born in Virginia. I live currently in Florida. I've lived throughout my life south of the Mason-Dixon line at different times and it is different. It is a thing and it is extremely underrepresented. The U.S. and artists in the south continue to be extremely underrepresented which led to the creation of an organization called Alternate Roots, which I'm a part of. Which is a tremendous resource for us about how to organize how to collaborate with organizers about how to have these difficult conversations about race and equality and justice as we're trying to do our artistic and cultural work. It's a lot. All of that is a lot. But that's our charge. And so I want to give thanks to and lift up all the other folks who've been out there in the field doing this work and painting the way and creating models, which we're going to talk more about tomorrow. And I also want to acknowledge that we're not the only ones trying to figure out how to do this now. That Native American theater artists, first nations, first peoples artists and indigenous artists in this country are in a similar place as Middle Eastern communities in terms of there is no infrastructure there is no national network for contemporary artists in theater for them. And so they're also in this kind of early stage how do we get together all of our nations that haven't always been friends let's be honest all of our communities that don't always get along all of our histories that have such complex and different relationships to the United States national government and how do we build solidarity without erasing any of that but really creating a vision for the future as Terrence was saying. So I wanted to plant those seeds and offer some of those questions and offer to you that we'll continue to explore them and unpack them and talk more about coalition building tomorrow. And it is a tremendous really tremendous honor for me personally to be here with all of you as colleagues and I'm so excited for what it is that we're going to create together. Thank you. Alright, so I want to thank you Andrea thank you Kate. I want to invite the rest of the Mina Steering Committee to please join us on stage. Do we need more chairs? There are a lot of us. I'm assuming we're going to do this right? That's Jamil's chair. There you go. And if you're watching we love you. You you to get to know who we are we are self-selected group of people volunteers who basically decided to call ourselves Steering Committee of the Mina community because we have nothing else to do now. You can add that's the one that came to me. And I thought that maybe some of us you've met already some of who introduced ourselves and just say something about I'm actually personally curious to hear everyone's reasoning for wanting to be a part of the Steering Committee given how busy everybody is. Is that interesting? Would you like to know that? No. Basically I wanted to be Who are you? Yousfell Gindy Leroy I just we've been talking about coming together and trying to create a presence everything Andrea was talking about and it's been a long time coming. It's been a long slog and a long struggle and trying to create a presence of the thethedocene here and I just wanted to have my two cents and you know your question and I'll pass it along in two seconds you shouldn't have given me the microphone because I'm going to this can become a therapy session and really unload the anguish and struggle of trying to just say you know we're here we have a voice and your question where might we be 20 years from now, 50 years from now I keep trying to stress that we're not a conduit for the Middle East we are yes and no this is part of our identity but we're also part of the diaspora we're also immigrants and we have this we have a voice that partly emanates from the Middle East but also emanates from our experience here and I sort of want to keep emphasizing that we are you know at least Americans and that has value and that's a voice worth hearing from and if tomorrow all the wars and all the conflicts stopped and ceased and there was a wonderful resolution and we all walked away happy we still have something to we still have something to talk about we're still relevant in that we are a community we have particular experiences and I don't think we should be shy or tentative about expressing that identity on the American stage Thanks, I'm Toranji Ghizaryan, artistic director of Golden Thread I wanted to become a part of the steering committee because I always think about what do I wish existed that I could benefit from and so if it doesn't exist then who can I get together with and make it happen so I think the steering committee was that I was excited to know that other people were interested and were willing to put in the work because the idea has been there but I think the individuals who are willing to do the work has not necessarily always been there so this moment felt rich and rich with possibilities and great potential Hello, I'm Denmo Eberheem I'm an actor and a writer My inspiration to join the steering committee I came from a place as an artist feeling that the discomfort of the stories I want to tell they don't always have a place from an interior perspective and I think the steering committee and the presence of this gathering started to pose these larger questions where I think really for the first time I sort of felt like these are producers and directors these are we're coming at this from a larger perspective and I think I've personally had this question of like how what are the resources we need to be able to tell the stories we want to tell all the way from the production but also the process of wanting to be a part of that conversation very much so with nothing else then to make sure that those questions have a place and a space to be heard and that together we can find ways through I'm Tracy Francis I'm a director and producer and I've been involved with the Middle Eastern a theater community for a long time and like trying to these ideas have been coming up again and again and nothing's ever really happened with them I feel like the conversations have kept going and for me I'm just really interested in actually doing something finally I think this kind of the kind of have coalesced in the last couple of years we're ready to take some kind of action and just to find a way to bring community together and how we support each other as a community how do we make sure we're better represented in the national theater scene and how do we advocate for ourselves so you're online Hello I'm Debora Eliezer she occurs I I'm a theater maker in the model of ensemble theater so I'm very interested in how a thing gets done as much as what it is that gets done the product that is made so for me being in the process of community asking very difficult questions or passionate questions and being part of dialogue with the objective of creating change and uplifting the complexity of the identity of this community and the identity that I feel both from a diasporic position of always feeling othered in some way and also this idea of belonging and where do I belong and asking those questions kind of all comes home here and I love that we're talking about this being American theater because it is no accident that we are in northern California having this conversation as a native San Francisco like that makes perfect sense to me that this is where the delta meets here and I guess that cannot be de-emphasized is how we have that agency to have these conversations and what we can do with that agency it's very exciting to me I want to be on the forefront of that and that's why I'm here Hi, I'm Everon Luchkin he and his I'm a theater director, producer translator and writer now that's new I keep forgetting I guess for me this idea of giving back is a big part of steering committee involvement I think because the reason why I have a career is because of the Middle Eastern community every opportunity really that has catapulted me in any way forward has come from folks here in some way so it felt really important that as this moment started happening that I raise my hand step forward in whatever way I can and just help out and the other thing that was important to me is I started this journey Tarnash doesn't remember this he always gets annoyed with me when I tell it but I'm going to tell the story anyway and I avoided Golden Thread for four years because I didn't want to be boxed in by my immigrant Middle Eastern identity and finally she like forced me to have coffee with her she's like everybody keeps telling me there's a Turkish director who are you and why aren't you talking to me and I said as young men, artists, strong-headed tend to I was like well I don't care about Middle Eastern theater I only care about good theater and she said good we care about we agree on one thing and then welcomed me to the space anyway and then 15 years later I'm up here and I'm a Muslim Middle Eastern theater maker like I own this thing so if I could have that journey because there was a space and I got lucky that that space was in San Francisco when I arrived to give me space to figure that out and to give me resources so that I could make my mistakes and move forward in the way that I needed to I'm hoping that and I've seen so many artists not have that in other cities because Golden Thread doesn't exist there so I hope is that hopefully I can help make a national thing so that no Middle Eastern emerging artists fresh out of school or in school feels like there isn't someone like them or an organization for them so that just feels really important to me Hi I'm Pia Haddad I'm an independent creative director I guess my reason is I'm Lebanese but I'm identity confused like a lot of people maybe I was born here I grew up in Europe and then in Lebanon anyway but so when I started producing I'm interested in intersectional work because that's when I I believe I thrive and have different voices but then I realize in order for work to be really intersectional that needs to be everyone has to have the same same seat at the table or same opportunities to have seats at the table and the fact that the Middle Eastern community doesn't have a coalition and also the first play I produced was Middle Eastern and seeing all those challenges and opportunities that came up while doing that so wanting to be part of the conversation and owning my roots in a way also well since you kind of already heard from me I'll give a really personal answer which is I grew up in places in the United States where there was no Middle Eastern community around I didn't grow up in community right I grew up totally with that identity confusion and I could just kind of be that exotic racial enigma that kind of like passes a lot of things and I didn't always have to talk about it until 9-11 when I lived in New York and the public perception of my identity changed overnight really overnight like shockingly so and that was also when I was really coming into my own as a creator of original work and as an adult artist and so really since then my adult life artistic journey has been about understanding what this is to be Arab American to be Middle Eastern American and in the meantime I've done a whole bunch of organizing and convenings and network building with a whole bunch of other people and not my own community then I am still finding and discovering right and making making up and creating by virtue of being here and coming together and so it's really personal work for me and I'm really glad to be in it we've already heard from you as well Kate Morchini from North Theater in New York also a freelance director and I joined Mr. and can be really for two reasons one is that similar to whatever it said I was really lucky to find an artistic and artistic home at North really early on after moving to New York and feel like the Middle Eastern theater scene in New York feels really vibrant and an exciting beautiful community and I wanted to be part of creating a larger a larger community across the country but I feel like I hadn't met a lot of the folks making work in different parts of the country until joining this group and so for me it's about wanting to create a larger coalition across the country so that we can all be engaging and all be part of a larger vibrant community an exchange of ideas and art so that was the one of the reasons and then I think the other is just a desire to as other folks have said a desire for our work to become part of the American canon but it needs to feel like it's an integral part of the tapestry of the American theater not one thing in the season but an integral part of it but it feels like it's at the forefront of the American conversation so those are the two reasons so I thought that this could be an opportunity for you all to ask us questions specifically as your steering committee but I want to open that up by so first of all let me ask are there questions in the house okay where are you right now yeah I'm right this is right now thank you I'm curious since you're from all over the country how do you make this happen and what is your collaborative process like Kate makes it happen we should pass the mic to Kate to talk about Zoom and scheduling but one of I don't think we should underestimate the value of an organized person who is on top of technology notes, reminders all of that please speak to that I don't know how on top of technology I feel like in fact well that's another thing but I do feel like the biggest thing in terms of just logistics and planning has been figuring out how to get us all in the same room digitally it's hard for us to all need a person I think this is maybe the first time that this amount of us have been together in person but you know face to face communication I think has been key I'll be interested to hear what other folks think but the time that we've been able to have Zoom calls to discuss ideas and then decide on an action plan and then move forward with that I think has seemed household I would add that it helped that we had very concrete agendas the TCG National Conference was happening and the question was how do we prepare for that because we were Kate, Andrea and I are representatives of our community in cohort 4 TCG's EDI cohort 4 so we needed to prepare for the first cohort meeting that was going to be last June that was last June where was that? Miami so we had to prepare for that and then we had to prepare for this convening so we had very sort of concrete agendas other people want to speak to us? I just also want to add probably jumping to the end here that this is the first steering committee it's going to all change and that other people will become the next steering committee and when we determine what the next phase is what our next goals are there will be a new steering committee and hopefully as many of you who want to join join and so we can take it to the next level this is just the first iteration we have committed to serving two years on the steering committee we did I think the thing to say because I was on staff I read from the time the first convening for the Middle East America commissioning project happened at the LAR and we've had gatherings like this around the Ori and here I feel incredibly lucky and privileged that I've been at a lot of these and it was really interesting experience and maybe it's a part of my understanding of myself in the space as well the conversations started from questioning the space what does this even mean we are here you have to listen to us we actually have to compromise to there's been a real evolution of the conversation and our relationship to each other and it was frustrating at times because it constantly felt like two steps forward one step back and I must say there was a moment and it really the seed was planted I think 2016 with the CATA and the TCG and the convening there was like a year of convenings for us where all of a sudden it went from so what are we doing and it feels like we're here finally a bunch of people raised their hands and now we're doing something and that has been really interesting in the sense that there's quite a bit of trust at least to each other and that because of life I wasn't at the last call but I knew it was fine there was this sort of because it's national because it's so ambitious that you have to put in the work when you say you're going to put in the work and then you assume that the other people are going to take care of other things and we've had leaders and I'm looking at Andrea and Kate and Taraji and Jamil in absentia and we've also sort of been really beautifully setting course forward and vision of what the conversation might be like how the conversation might be structured so it feels like I just want to say that this feels like a major step forward for me as someone who's been in some of the like a lot of these conversations along the way and it made it so much easier to step forward and say yeah, I'll do that because it was so much clearer now and I think we should that's not a, you know, that's 13 I went in 2008, so it's, you know, 11 years it took 10 years to get clarity enough for a bunch of people who will probably disagree about a lot of things to get in the space to disagree I think that's pretty awesome Tracy, you were going to make a comment and then we have a question on that side I just wanted to kind of frame some stuff so tomorrow we're going to do some sessions about really getting nitty gritty of organizational structure and names and all of that but I also wanted just to kind of pose to you all what you guys feel a national coalition like why that might be important to you or not and what it could do because we've all been talking about it but I think part of this convening is to hear the rest of the community of what this organization could look like and what it could do and so I'm interested in your thoughts Thank you all I think it's partly answered my question but I would like to know I can see that you all have put a lot of time and work into making this happen and you've offered something so I want to know like really what do you hope to take away from this convening what do you need from us what are your expectations and what are you hoping to get from it looks like it's a great turnout so I wanted them um so um like on Sunday, tomorrow the end of the day it is so we'll be doing some more working type sessions and then we will have kind of a smaller kind of working session at the end of the day and we hope to come away with actually a plan moving forward of what we're going to call the organization what we're doing online about it what the organization structure might be this might be overly ambitious but that is some of our goals for the end of this weekend your guys input as that develops so we are making sure we're reflective about the community and I want to encourage us to come up with um not just like the first impulse is to think about what's lacking right so then the next step is what can be done about it right so I want us to come up with what can be done about it what can each of you do about it in your own sphere right um uh everyone mentioned the 2016 convening like the idea of creating a um a group for middle eastern American writers in New York like that came out of necessity and one playwrights willingness to organize it right and large Karim pardon me also Mona and Karim Mona and Karim and then the LARC gave them space right um or you guys like the Maya directors you started talking that year and then in a year or something you had like a partnership or an organization so it's it doesn't have to come from the steering committee it doesn't even have to be done by the steering committee each of you are fully empowered to lead your own little movement or your big movement right and we'll follow you so come up with um actionable what I guess on that really quick yes just to add on to that talking about you know solving a problem or what's lacking I'd also like to think about what we want to have not necessarily a problem we're trying to solve but like what are we dreaming about what are these bigger ideas and helps and things we have that are just awesome that we want to do I also just want to give a shout out to those who can't physically be here in the space with us this weekend if you're following on Hal round please like make comments if you know folks on the steering committee that you want to have longer conversations with or you know send a manifesto like whatever whatever way that we want this to be a truly national conversation and we don't want it to be limited to the people who have the time and resources to be in the room which is why so much of this is being live streamed so please make sure that you connected and find ways to be in the conversation and also I just want to acknowledge that you know nobody really elected us this is a volunteer effort you know in alternate routes we have a saying that is like it goes who comes is like if we show up to do the work then we're taking leadership then we are we are leaders right and so many of us and have the capacity to be in leadership and be in this process and be a part of it and so like a lot of times at alternate routes if somebody says well I think you should do this then the facilitator says that is a brilliant idea you should definitely do it how can we support you because this is all of us putting in our extra volunteer time to make this movement happen and it needs all of us so the door is open I was just going to say one of the biggest worries I had I feel like I'm channeling Leila now Leila Buck is the that we must represent everybody and everyone you know like the last thing I want is someone here or in the world to be like why wasn't I asked you know what I mean and I think when we're creating a national movement there's a certain jet like you know you weren't asked this time and now you know so next time as you said so I just want to say this is an organic movement that really came out of the gatherings and connections that these three or four organizations happen to have we are certainly more heavily representative in the Bay Area, New York, then Chicago, then other places just because those were the places that these companies were located so I just want to say that there is this stepping forward as you get inspired and as you want to is a big thing for me because again, we weren't elected it was a it happened and I think there can be great things that come from when things like that Thank you so much for doing this and my question is particularly about the two last comments which is like people who aren't able to make it here I'm curious even like with the survey how are you able to compile the people that you said that to and who is missing and how can we as a community somehow support this community to ensure that the work is out there and then that I guess my question is really around communication how can we ensure that all of these different initiatives like Gariman Bamba's writer's group and The Night at the Lark or whatever it is happening somehow is all confined in a place so that people know that it exists and it's sort of a big attack to that whether that means like a newsletter now we've set up you've compiled these five things that we want to work on how do we know if the next community is in three years what's really working, what's been improving in these three years do we have like a buy monthly buy monthly every couple of months type of newsletter where we learn what's going on etc how can we make communication really streamlined in the community so that we're all supporting each other and we're asking that that's such a good question to address the first part of the question about how did we compile the folks that we reached out to it was honestly a mailing list of the different theaters that we all work for and it was about trying to have as wide a reach as possible but knowing that there would be no way that we can reach everyone and so I'm so glad that you've asked this because we have everybody in this room and the goal I think is to compile as many people as possible and I think your idea of a newsletter is a beautiful one you know the idea that if everybody in this room takes all the contacts that they have in the community and we compile a massive list and we find a way to be in touch with as many people and it's an ever growing chain that you know that person says oh did you get that email you didn't oh let me add you to the list and I'm going thanks so I'd be excited to talk more and just forwarding the questionnaire you know this is one of the let's just do a survey I got the survey and I just forwarded as many people as possible do you all have a Facebook group? not yet well there is a yes there is a Middle East America Facebook group and there's in the same room Facebook group so those exist but we are not religious we'll invite them to take the survey too I just want to look up something that Tracy said which is part of our charge our time together here is to answer some of these questions it's not that we already have answers but that we're coming together to say what do we want this to be do we want it to be a coalition that has a kind of organizing model do we want it to be a service organization that we all become members of do we want it to be an organization at all as in a nonprofit or maybe not maybe some other kind of something like the Latinx theater commons model so I think that those are all living questions that we're hoping to get your voices out of the conversation so that we have more clarity by the end of the weekend about what's the group vibe what direction does this organically want to go in I want to answer the question as to why I'm here and first I want to start out by thanking all of you guys for all your amazing work can we just I feel it's it takes leadership like yours to get us all together I have been working in theater for 10 years but really my only connection to the Amina community has been to Ryan Everett and a couple of actors that I've worked with but I always felt outside or didn't make the effort so just being here with everyone and similar stories and hearing stories about actors being rubbed in to do free work it feels really good because we all have a lot of commonalities so that's why I'm here and I really want to thank you all for doing all this work there's a question here hi I was just going to ask a clarifying question because this is mentioned that you all had come up with these ideas during TCG conferences are we affiliated with any organization or would this convening be a TCG specific initiative I guess I'm asking about organizational affiliations that exist or would we be something independent we are certainly TCG adjacent I would say the TCG affinity space was one of the many places where conversations took place we really believe that a lot of the stuff that Alina and Emilia are doing at TCG Latinx Commons was part of HowlRound other places so we're sort of in that space I think some of the conversation will be about does this make sense for it to be launched as under an umbrella organization or do we feel like we're going to do it ourselves and set up a whole new model so I think some of the models that have happened with larger institutions like TCG and HowlRound those will be discussed tomorrow currently we're I feel like Kata has been we basically have used the resources of every organization that's already doing this that would help us and have us there and pay for things so that's we're crafty that's what we are so we've done that but in terms of where we take it from here I think that's going to be part of the conversation I had a question I'm not sure if it's going to where it lands but just thinking about your group as the larger as community members for forthcoming agendas and given that we've talked about identity in every single conversation so far is there any conversation or can there be any conversation about the census and how artists are highlighting them in a community so that we get the resources we need yes let's do it are you taking notes or recording right recording right recording right don't forget that idea I was just going to comment I think there is other theater community like Arab American discrimination but they have been lobbying for that for years to get Middle Eastern and African folks on the census so there is a lot of efforts around that there's a lot of efforts I think speaking to integrated community are you speaking in a mic no I just wanted to use your words lift the idea around it's going to take multiple community actions and if we as a community of artists are just coming around with the idea of our own identity and the stories we want to tell identifying the group giving a number to it a size to it so that you can talk about how to finance for it all of this is actually connected to census so you're going to bring board members based on who you serve and how you serve them it's a very large topic and I think as many folks who can be engaged in it that would be great I think that I want to take your question and put it under maybe even a slightly larger umbrella I keep doing the political thing which is nice, it's appropriate I guess but I think it's also as we talk about what this organization is activism art making I think I can say every single person on this panel here carries both of those titles in different ways and I think this specific organization where does activism both within the theater community which seems more obvious and then outside of the theater community in the way that it we interact with larger movements around equity, census Muslim ban, whatever it is you know how we engage with those issues is I think a conversation and it's really a conversation about where we want to focus and where the group feels like which one way is we can engage with everything and I think that's all within range of this conversation so I'm really glad you brought that up because I think that's a question that's going to continue to come up I mean Andrea you have brought up like is this an organization that makes statements about horrible political actions our government takes is that I think we want to do or is that we just only do that when a theater company does a horrible thing you know like where they're playing with us I think it's just a conversation but I really appreciate you lifting that very specific question because I think it the specificity of it is around the practicality of defining the population so that you can address that and I just want to say the artivism of it you know I have a thing about the census in my show just I put it in there so that just to remind people I have a show about Jewish Iraqi identity and it's like you know and about being American and sort of like myths about what it is the fact that you can't take the Middle Eastern box yeah so and I and I support what you're saying Sarah because it's really important that we keep identifying and defining who it is so that then we can have more agency as a group actually that's exactly what I was going to say so it's just we need to identify who's I mean for me what's happening now is huge the fact that we've all gathered together over this weekend we're creating visibility for ourselves we're hopefully empowering ourselves by coming together and by doing so we hopefully placing ourselves on the map so funders look at us and go oh look there they are and maybe we need to direct some of that money towards this group that's assembling identifying themselves and saying excuse me we need to have a voice fund our voice and fund our projects so yes it's just being a little more aggressive about saying we're here you know being visible about it and not hiding I think our past has been characterised by wanting to be kind of hiding the background and just what we're doing now the fact that we're stepping forward is huge so this is very encouraging for me yeah add on to what everyone was saying about more of the political work organising and again like these are conversations we can have if we want to take it in this direction but the idea of advocacy for our community and how do we organise that because I can remember certain instances where a theatre might do something that was not favourable to our community and there were frantic emails sent all over to people we thought about and were all signing petitions and it was you know there was action but it wasn't in the most organised effective way and so I'm interested in having a conversation about if there are more organised ways to advocate for our community or to have that kind of more unified voice when something comes up that we need to address I also want to say that I feel personally that it's important that we don't put the burden of representation on this in the sense of trying to force everyone to agree on everything because we know that's not going to happen what this can be though is a place where we come together we identify things that we are passionate about and other folks who are passionate about working on that too and then those folks have a platform and an infrastructure and a way to connect and move something forward together so that you know if there's an issue like the census that I really want to work on maybe not all of these folks want to work on it but maybe half of us do and we can and whatever this gathering place is can be a place that those initiatives launch from having to say we all have to agree on everything so I think that as we refine what is this structure and process look like we want to make it flexible enough that it can continue to be inclusive and push our own comfort zones and make things possible that just simply wouldn't be possible if we weren't organized other questions in the house comments other questions are we creating a wasn't there a website idea at some point yes there's going to be a website is there did I see a hand go up no okay I think that's a good place to end because after this so we're taking a break after this we have a session on representation or increasing representation of plays in academia yes so that's so you'll see we've talked about mentorship we're talking about I can't pronounce is it academy or academia or whatever and then tomorrow we're talking about coalition so those are like three aspects of the I guess outward aspects of our work and then the working sessions in the morning this morning and tomorrow morning are going to be sort of the inward elements of how we work together this morning we talked about our top priorities we're talking about them and tomorrow morning we're talking about what Andrea well first we're talking about naming defining and what we call ourselves and then moving into coalition building and structure and I have kind of a random question that I just want to throw at you show of hands is there anyone who is concerned about our national coalition political for those watching there are no hands going up I just want to ask that because I don't want to assume you know we I don't know what you think what would be concerned I have no idea to me does that mean we should be endorsing individual people races throughout the country in every community that we're in that might be too political but we're going to start saying hey here's the list of the council people and all the men we want to elect that might be too political maybe but that's why I don't understand I don't know what you're exactly asking we're talking about advocating for individual political races where you're saying this group can get super out there talking about advocacy well as an advocacy organization if we're advocating for ourselves there's a range of action that can be taken so I think one of the questions in my mind is what is that range of action for an advocacy organization and that's something that we can talk about more tomorrow because we are at time no mic for you something to think about and I want to invite you to come to the those of you who self-identify as Middle Eastern and North African theater artists to join us for the first session tomorrow where we talk about the nitty-gritty of naming our coalition and what kind of organization and decision-making structure we want to have and Andrea is going to be leading that with Tracy and Leila and Leila great thank you take a break for 30 minutes and we'll see you back here for 30 minutes thank you